Free Allegiance Zone

Free Allegiance code suppliers Last updated: Aug 2010  · Update

aarmstrong AEM Andon Avalanche bahdohday Cortex Dogbones doofus Factoid FullMark Imago Jonan KGJV mdvalley Pook Radar Rock Sgt Baker Stain_Rat Terralthra Thalgor TheBored Tigereye Tkela Your_Persona Zapper

Allegiance was released in early 2000 and Microsoft supported it until mid 2001. From that point onwards no improvements, no new features, no bug fixes were made until Solap persuaded Microsoft to release the code under a shared-source license in 2004.

The surviving Allegiance players quickly organised a volunteer development team to begin work and named themselves the Free Allegiance Zone - an amalagation of two terms originally used to segregate the community (the restricted-features Free Zone and the pay-per-month Allegiance Zone)). FAZ is used to describe the new version of Allegiance which strives to incorporate all the features that AZ had while still remaining completely free.

FAZ history

The code which the FAZ team had their hands on in 2004 was written using a 1999 compiler and was almost completely incompatible with modern development environments - in other words, nearly useless for what they wanted to do. The first step was therefore to change Microsoft's sourcecode to compile with modern compilers used in today's development environments.

The FAZ team completed that in 2006, producing their own stable build of Allegiance. They were finally at "Square One" and from there have been able to march proudly forwards, slowly but surely adding features that have been requested since Allegiance was first released and correcting bugs/errors.

For a full synopsis of the improvements that have been made browse the releases section below.

Development team

Lead by Dogbones, the Development Zone Leader, these guys have made tremendous strides in our code. They have rewritten the underlying code to work with the latest software and hardware. Not enough can be said about their work and efforts. If you would like to help develop the code then PM Dogbones.

Current development

The fifth release, FAZ R5, is in open beta. Most of the development team's goals have been to do with upgrading the graphics, but there will be numerous other features added too. See the R5 changelog for further details.

Last updated: 19 Feb, 2009

Suggesting new features

If you have an idea for a new feature then please make a new thread in the Code bugs & Suggestions forum. Note that many suggestions have been made in the past and that yours may not get first priority - especially if it is difficult to implement!

Beta testing

Beta testing is an important part of releasing new builds. Towards the end of each development cycle public beta games are held weekly on a Wednesday evening (EST) to stress test the new releases and find the final bugs.

When the Beta build is ready for public testing the Development Zone Leader will make an announcement on the FAO's homepage and/or broadcast a message to people logging in using ASGS.

Participating in beta tests

When the public testing starts it is important that you participate because it affects you in a few ways:

1. It is used to check that the new release is compatible with your computer. If there is an undetected bug that doesn't get caught, you might be locked out of Allegiance!
2. You will find that on testing nights there will be no one to play with on the main server, as most players will be on seperate beta server.
3. If you log on to the beta server not only will you be helping the development team stress test the engine, you'll get to play with all the new features months in advance.

To join you must ensure you have the latest Beta client from the Beta Development forum and then log in to ASGS after toggling the 'Beta' option under the 'Allegiance' options. Consult the dev forum if you have problems - often there will be a pinned topic with explicit instructions.

---

The following instruction are not valid if you use the FAZ beta installation, always use the installer if its avalible

System setup

In order to be able to to handle two allegiance.exe application(the retail and the beta) the folder tree must comply with the registry setup used for beta!

In the main "Microsoft games" folder there should be one retail folder and one for the beta, lets name that "beta" for easy name sake.

Beside the normal application folders we also need a extra folder to contain the beta artwork, this folder reside in the retail artwork folder. The folder contain the artwork files used by the beta application, by normal standard the Dev team release a compressed file containing these files, the compressed file shale be unzipped into this particular folder in order for the beta application use them.

The folder have a mandatory name "dev" the folder path shale be like this:

Harddrive:\Microsoft games\Allegiance\artwork\dev

This is how its suppose to look like if you have a correct setup which will comply with the registry

Harddrive:\Microsoft games

Harddrive:\Microsoft games\Allegiance( this folder contain the retail allegiance.exe)

Harddrive:\Microsoft games\beta(this folder contain the beta allegiance.exe)

Registry setup for beta

In order for the system and ASGS to handle a execution for the beta application there must be a separate registry setup, this is called "1.1" and is located as a subtree to allegiance on the same level as the retail "1.0" allegiance registry.

The general autonomy of the allegiance installation with a beta installation: File:Example.jpg

The autonomy of the 1.1 registry:

The registry contain variable which points towards the system which is used when the beta application is executed.

"ArtPath"

The path which contain the artwork for the retail allegiance application, both the beta and retail use the same artwork folder.

In this case we use Harddrive:\Microsoft games\Allegiance\artwork

"Exe Path"

The path which contain the beta application in this case we use Harddrive:\Microsoft games\beta

"CfgFile"

The registry shale point towards "http://fazdev.alleg.net/FAZ/FAZR4.cfg"

How else you can help

Since the Allegiance development is community based, it's up to all of us to make it better. The philosophy is simple: If you don't build it, it won't be used.

You can help by:

• Helping new players learn how to play the game
• Writing Documentation
  • Add or edit articles on the wiki. If you need edit privileges here, PM TheBored.
  • Create new documentation that hasn't already been written and post it on the forums. If it fits, it will be added.
• Reporting bugs
  • Any time you encounter something that doesn't work right, mention it in the Code Bugs forum.
  • The developers use AllegZilla to keep track of bugs that still need to be fixed.
• Fixing bugs
  • If you see a bug in AllegZilla that you can fix, do it! Check out the page on downloading and building Allegiance's source.
• Improving the game
  • Designing models.
    • There are many ships and bases in existing factions that are repeats of other faction bases.
  • Design some new high res models.
  • Check out this information about modeling for Allegiance.
• Playing the game!

FAZ Development	About Free Allegiance Zone Releases: R1 · R2 · R3 · R4 · R5 · R6  · (current)R7 Allegiance R8: What's new? · Build it! Testing Beta: Overview · Testing procedure