R3 goes gold! - Thursday, December 14th, 2006

The long awaited Beta version of Free Allegiance goes gold today. Dogbones has lead the Dev team to a final product. R3 is being uploaded and will autoupdate on your Login. Please be patient as they update the servers, TAG, etc. Rankings will be updated shortly.

Pages moving to individual directory - Wednesday, November 29th, 2006

In a move to better organize the site, individual directories are being made for each class of pages. Prior to this, all the pages were in one directory making it difficult to work with the site. If you have a bookmarked a link, you may find it broken. Pages have been renamed to drop the old ordering system, now that name is a directory. Example; "capitalships-carrier.shtml" is now found at /capitalships/carrier.shtml

HTML, CSS and content - Tuesday, November 14th, 2006

The switch to a new CSS style sheet is almost completed. The old sheet was pulled today. Just a few more tables and pages to be rewritten. New hyperlink colors are being reviewed. Proofreading, editing and updated content continue to be provided by Freebeer and ClayPigeon.

If you experience any page issues, broken links or what seems to be poor formatting, please report it to BV at allegacademy.org

Kudos to Badger@ACE for the patience and guidance to teach me advanced CSS and XHTML!

Plans have been made to incorporate the entire original MS storyline into the site. Along with an updated general history of FAO

Watch for the release of FAZ Beta R3 soon. TE is working on a major update for the KB (Knowledge Base) on the FAO forums. Watch for an announcement soon!

The Academy moves one more time. - Tuesday, October 16th, 2006

The Academy moves once again. Due to long term potential stability issues with Noir's servers, a new domain name and host has been obtained. In case you made it here by a redirect, the new site name is the same as before, but without the "-" in the name. The correct address is now: www.allegacademy.org Please note the site is undergoing some code changes. You will occasionally get an error on a page as it is being updated. We are switching to master css sheets for formatting throughout the site.

FAZ Dplay 8 Alpha released - Tuesday September 12th, 2006

The Dev team has released an alpha release for D8. The FAZ team has prepared a version of Allegiance with the underlying network code updated to hopefully work across NAT boundaries. This is a very experimental version of Allegiance and may or may not even work. As usual, help us test at your own risk. Go to the FAZ development forum for download information. This is the long awaited version to allow play behind College networks! Help the FAZ Dev team test this software every Wednesday night.

Site content and upkeep turned over - August 11th, 2006

Jell has worked long and hard on this website. The Allegiance Community owes him a huge debt of gratitude. Unfortunately his RL has prohibited him from devoting the large amount of time required to keep it up to date. I had offered to take it over for him and Jell agreed.

NO major changes are planned. Simply an update to the content to reflect changes within the game. I will be updating a lot of the out of date lists, etc.

As our game has changed we now focus more on the DN core as the choice of the majority of play. The updates will now reflect more of the DN core vs A+ core. Though that core and the GoD core are in new hands and we might see a return of play to those cores.

My background: Currently the administrator of the Free Allegiance Cadet Program, Assistant Squad Leader of the WildCards (@ACE), Head of the @Alleg staff and one of the BETA testers years ago. I ran a "Newbie" website during the open BETA years ago. Jell just did it better and I dropped mine.

Jell and I both agree the purpose of this website was to give new players a starting point. This game has the hardest learning curve of any online game. This is where you start. The Cadet Program takes it a step further with an indepth 8 week course. The Cadet program will show you how to use what you have learned here. I look forward to bringing the two programs closer together and keeping this site up to speed.

^BlackViper@ACE

Free Allegiance Zone goes gold - Wednesday, March 1st, 2006

The community's developer team, led by Tigereye, has finally come around to completing the FAZ. The beta lasted a few months, with an increased amount of testers and a few large games to find bugs. The FAZ, built on DX9, goes gold with the improved sound, sharper graphics, and faster loading times. A fix for college players stuck behind routers will be the next step into increasing Allegiance's ever-growing popularity, followed by a long series of improvements, as the community now fully controls its own game.

-Allegiance Wars IV begins, FAZ nearing public beta - Saturday, October 8th, 2005

Organized by TMC, AWIV has been scheduled to begin. Team commanders have already submitted the first 3 moves (those where a conflict is not possible) and are getting ready to fight as last minute details are being taken care of. Allegiance Wars is a turn based strategy game where factions control space in which they lay structures and fleets and from which they gain resources to develop their fleets and produce constructors, eventually dominating the entire area. Fleets meeting result in a fight, a regular Allegiance game. Visit the AWIV website. Late joiners are accepted.

Since the release of the Allegiance source code on February 5th, 2004, hopes have been around about modifying the game to our desire. Most importantly, restoring the Allegiance Zone, the stat-tracking pay-to-play part of Allegiance where the wildest battles took place in the past, is now more possible than ever under its new shape: Free Allegiance Zone (FAZ). A group of individuals, the FAZ Dev Team, have been working on creating a new Allegiance based on its original source code. With many miscellaneous improvements, the FAZ will also include all the features the AZ had and many more, and will also lead the way for continued and unparalleled development of Allegiance. Pook is also closely following the development, preparing ASGS releases that will be more and more functional with the FAZ until, ultimately, ASGS will be integrated into the FAZ.

Memorial game has been announced by Agricola.

-Allegiance Academy moves again, Stats have arrived, TEK replacing CoreTool,AW4 announced, Titty_Baby memorial- Monday, May 16th, 2005

The Allegiance Academy has been generously hosted by Grimmwolf since October 2003. As you can read in the About section, previous hosts consisted of haphazard free hosts delivering their load of publicity and spyware to Academy readers. Grimmwolf saved the Academy from such a mess by providing not only a free host, but also great amounts of space that allowed you, the reader, to take advantage of ensured links to important files as well as a greater amount of media files. I am, and you should all be too, grateful for having Grimmwolf host the Academy for all this time. He has provided a stable host for a year and a half, with the Academy receiving up to roughly 1400 visits a month.
Seeing the importance of the Allegiance Academy, Noir has generously offered to host the Academy with a greater amount of space. At about the same time, Grimmwolf was announcing that he was also getting extra space. I have made the choice to change hosts and move to Noir in order to give Grimmwolf a break and to take advantage of the domain name generously provided by Noir.

Has it been two weeks already? Your_Persona has released a stats racking tool to server hosts that tracks down statistics for players. The project had begun years ago and was never finished, YP announcing that it was only two weeks from completion, hence the expression. Having returned for a few months, YP decided to rewrite the tool.These stats are only recorded through a software reading the Event Log of the server. Real stats as only the AZ produced them are still two weeks away.

Tigereye is continuously improving his CoreTool.

Now renamed "Tigereye's Kneeboard" (TEK), the tool has an improved interface and allows for more precise calculations.

Cerberal,tmc and InsanityBoy have taken it upon themselves to produce the next incarnation of Allegiance Wars 4. They are currently recruiting much needed help considering only tmc has played AW3, and none have played any other War, Cerberal and InsanityBoy being graduates of the last cadet class. Considering the rise in community numbers, this could be the biggest war with the least experienced players.

Titty_Baby, one of the many great players to play Allegiance on June 16th, 2004 of a heart attack. A memorial game was held in his honor and memory. The game was preceded by a minute of silence and a formation flying. Marking the first anniversary, a memorial game has been announced by Agricola.

-New faction released, CoreTool released, DN @ War Tournament, Community update, Allegiance 5 year anniversary. Tuesday, April 5th, 2005

Noir has released his first faction, which has been under development for about a year now, on this core Dark nebulae. The Phoenix, a group of Earth survivors from Area 51, managed to use the alien technology they possessed to first improve shielding and then form a viable faction. Their ships are particularly slim and resemble Earth fighter jets both in design and in flight (the Y axis turns faster, just like Rix' X turning). Their shields are exceptional, but the ships are incompatible with the EW Nanite Repair System. They have many exceptional properties which you can learn on their faction page.

Tigereye has released his CoreTool, a tool similar to Fox' SneakyFox program released a while ago and used to calculate detection ranges. The new CoreTool is an extremely complete core exploring tool that calculates values directly from the core and returns numbers that are directly applicable to gameplay, making it a lot more user-friendly than the IGC Core Explorer. The CoreTool uses a simple interface that first has you select the game's settings, then select the factions and what they have purchased (equivalent of F5 menu), and finally you create objects (ships, stations, probes) which you can learn about and also compare different values (time to kill, detection range, etc.) while modifying values such as your kill bonus, your accuracy %, and so on.

Noir has improved his DN @ War concept. The original idea involved squads battling in a tournament quite similar to Allegiance Wars, and failed because squads were less active then and didn't participate much. This new tournament, called Yellow vs Blue, uses the ASGS system to have pilots sign up to each event and be randomly assigned to a team: Yellow (Y) or Blue (B). The random teams are what allows the real tournament: a commander tournament, to take place. The event occurs every Sunday at 5 PM EST, right after squad games. Also visit the Gateway's home page for a more thorough description.

Squad play remains at an all time high with weekly squad games. The competition is creating a need for player recruiting, mostly with XT, SysX and RT being the three behemoth squads in numbers and requiring larger opponents to allow more players to play. This activity is exacerbated by the various events like the Yellow vs Blue series. The higher numbers can be seen every Sunday where it frequently reaches over 100 players. Large events such as the SysXT vs World and the 5 year Anniversary game are responsible for making this number grow. The @Cadet training program also plays an important role, feeding the community with players by taking clueless newbies and turning them into talented players in 2 months. The last class to graduate was the largest and produced the best players to date. Expect an update of the Academy's cadet section. As for Z, their return has been made difficult by Vegeta's return to "the cage". Key squad members are thus quitting the squad.

Allegiance was officially released in Spring of 2000. It was extreme fun for those who played (and still play), but was never an immense success for various reasons. Regardless, the game lives on today thanks to incredible efforts and displays of generosity. Most importantly, thanks to Allegiance's immense appeal as a game. As such, the Community will be celebrating the 5 year anniversary game on Sunday, April 17th at 3 PM EST. Solap, the game's producer who's comments can be read in the thread to which I linked in this paragraph, should be present.

-Changes in System ¤, KFH disbanding and Z reforming. Large Sys¤T game a moderate success. - Monday, March 7th, 2005

After being reformed, The System ¤ merged with the squad LWMS in order to get numbers high enough to be competitive. Everything went fine, leadership changes were smooth, and things went great for the squad, with only one loss against the squad XT. After Grey_Slayer's defection as squad leader, a tri-council was formed with Tom_Bombadil , Lakeland and Valor as SL, and Trystann as Senator. Because of certain incidents, certain players left, and the rest of the squad decided to vote on a new lead, which led to Tom_Bombadil's and Trystann's defections to the squad XT.

The squad Killer For Hire has also changed leadership, Phrase defecting to Z's second rebirth. As the squad's activity has never been shining, the leaders have opened a vote which clearly indicated that disbanding was the next step for KFH.

Vegeta once again returned. After a short stay with XT and remodeling many Dreghklar Empire ship models (still in need of much revamp), the Sayian Prince has taken upon himself to ensure the rebirth of Z for the second time along with the return of a few notable Z figures such as Shenron, Piccolo, Goten, etc.

Despite new rivalries between Sys¤ and XT because of the recent transfer of players, both squads joined hands in order to bash the world.

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-FAZ Development update, @Cadet program update, Squad and Wars update, Community update. - Saturday, November 20, 2004

Withthe source code release back in February, everyone went a little crazy on the possibilities while others ensured the community organized its efforts instead of flying erratically in every direction. This led to today's FAZ Dev Team, a team led by resident hacker KGJV who's time is unfortunately very limited, leading to the common usage of the "two weeks™" expression. Despite time constraints, the team was able to make some releases, enhancing the functionality of Allegiance on the server side. Custom maps have been added into the default map selection menu (so you don't have to restart your server to change between custom maps selected through KGJV's old AGM), the team randomization feature has been changed to a team emptying feature, leaving commanders to pick their teams. The Dev team is now concentrating its efforts at making Allegiance more flexible in terms of connectivity and setup, so that less and less players have to become network experts in order to play a game they've never heard about.

In other good news, the @Cadet program has been training more and more members, gaining respect from all squads and recognition from newbies who often don't know where to go for help. The Academy has also been cooperating with the program by providing links to all @Cadet councilors in the Community section. Simply click on their name to send them a PM regarding your entry into the program, which is free (may require making sammiches). A similar section for the @Alleg team will soon be available.

Squad play is still a little slow, but has taken up a bit more than it has been in the past two years. Squads got together often to play matches week after week, the highlight being the XT vs Sys¤ game ending in Sys¤'s victory using an interceptor rush that quickly took over XT's more original strategy of using Bios on a small map in a squad game, who were hoping to defend themselves until they were able to upgrade and obliterate Sys¤'s IC. Sys¤ was able to destroy their economy very early with a usual interceptor-miner rush that got XT to resign. This was a relief for Sys¤ who had recently lost their all-star commander and whore Grey_Slayer who's living it up, and subsequently lost to BS in 9 minutes after an outpost rush in their home (Grey made a guest appearance in the XT vs Sys¤ game, but only as pilot). This, along with the DN wars and the Allegiance Veterans League, should make competitive play the rule again for Allegiance veterans who have been complaining with more and more voice that game quality is dropping again as new players are in greater numbers, and are generally unreliable for difficult tasks. This feeling has led to the birth of the Allegiance Veterans League, an invite-only group of players who can play games together as if they were squad matches, with ensured quality, sportsmanship, and absence of newbies without ruining the fun for the others by isolating the newbies and dividing the community.

In reaction to a few players' initiative to point out Slipshod Research & Mining (SRM)'s refusal to use the ASGS squad tag system and instead stick with the old _SRM_ tag by naming themselves with the _SRM_ tag, the Senate has passed a resolution to make it mandatory for squad members to wear the @SRM squad tag for SRM to be recognized during squad play. SRM_Petit_Mort, after explaining that the _SRM_ tag is much more than a tag, but represents an ensemble of values and identity, kindly indicated that this will hardly affect his players as they must only wear the new tag during squad play.

-The Academy gets yet another revamp. - Friday, July 23rd, 2004

The project started a few months ago after VikingThunder's generous offer to help in redesigning at least in part the Academy to give it a more professional look. The project was completed a while ago, but only lately did I have time to transfer the Academy's contents within this new format.
This was the perfect occasion to also perform countless grammatical or other corrections throughout many subsections, but much more time will be required to spot them all. New subsections, like the @Cadet section or those describing core differences, should also be particularly helpful to newbies. Finally, the launch of the long-awaited Community subsections pertaining to the individuals, the organizations, and the squads that made and still make Allegiance today will be completed in a short while...

The Shifters squad refounded - FAZ Beta started! - Thursday, April 29th, 2004

The Shifters squad, originally named Jihaad, but later renamed due to obvious political problems, has been refounded by Geminii and other pilots who were original members.
The Free Allegiance Zone, the new incarnation the long-gone Allegiance Zone, has been put into function again thanks to the source code, and is now being tested.

German Borg and System X encounter- Sunday, March 7th, 2004

Another squad game, today opposing the German Borg and System X. Grey_Slayer's SystemX came out victorious of the match between Rixians. An impressive show of up to 17 players per team allowed for an intense encounter.

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Microsoft releases the Allegiance Source Code - Thursday, February 5th, 2004

Many had attempted, with nice letters, large financial offers, and convincing arguments. Nothing would do it, and Microsoft had no intention of releasing the source. However, one evening, when no one expected it, it fell on the little Community like Jesus' Good News; it was now Solap's Good News. They read, paused, waited a few heartbeats. It was true.

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Games have been intensifying - Saturday, January 17th, 2004

Fifty players taking it to large maps with multiple teams coordinated over TeamSpeak, leading massive, coordinated assaults, as the commander promptly comments on his troops' last mistake. That's what Allegiance is about, and that's what's been happening lately, despite the main lobby being down at certain times.

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-F5 menu to change - Sunday, January 4th, 2004

TheRealZenin, in a recent post on AHQ, has expressed a need to change the F5 menu altogether. The new layout, rather than being organized by technological path, would be organized by section for spacecraft, GAs, etc. As the community, up to now, seems favorable, there already are talks about the deeper consequences of such a change.

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Super Squad match - Saturday, December 13th, 2003

Organized by Phrase, leader of TCX19, the Super Squad Match took place on one of Aarmstrong's special servers, able to accommodate up to 200 players. The match opposed two teams. Team 1 was comprised of TXC19, PK and System ¤ while Team 2 was comprised of BS, GB and XT. Although there was a lot of anticipation, the match may not have gone as well as hoped.

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Black Shadow vs System ¤, Rematch - Sunday, December 7th, 2003

This time, Grey_Slayer's System ¤ was able to win over Lee_Mazilli's Black Shadow. Using the Iron Coalition's deadly Tacspansion strategy on HiHigher, the Dreghklar Empire's SupSpansion combination was led to defeat despite great bombing on BS' side. A great game enjoyed by all.

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Black Shadow vs System ¤ - Saturday, November 15th, 2003

Souvlaki and the Black Shadows were able to defeat Grey_Slayer and the System¤. The Bios came back from a strong rush by the Belters, and used their strong technology to take down the System ¤. Those who believed the System ¤ to be too strong have been proven wrong, and System ¤ may have to work on its overconfidence problems.

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New Academy Host - Thursday, October 9th, 2003

Grimmwolf_GB generously proposed to host the Allegiance Academy on his own webspace in Germany. The servers have much faster upload speed, and should make browsing easier. Pook has also provided a redirect to make the URL much easier to remember. This website is now entirely free of publicity and much faster than ever before.

System ¤ vs World - Sunday, September 21st, 2003

Recently merged with the Luxury Whore Mongering Sluts (LWMS), the System ¤ was testing its hand today as it played another one of the [squad] vs World games. In an outstandingly imbalance 8 vs 24 game, which rose slightly in numbers on both sides but keeping proportions, the World was able to take this one in just under 2 hours.

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