It's been years!

hybridremix · Post by **hybridremix** » Thu Jun 21, 2012 2:40 am

Hey all,

It's been a real long time since I even looked at Allegiance.

Back around '99/2000 I came across Allegiance in a gaming magazine and thought the concept sounded positively fantastic. I'd played a ton of the original Age of Empires on the old Gaming Zone [oh ya!] during high school and was just starting to find the original Counter-Strike interesting, so a blending of the two genres was highly appealing to me. In fact, the entire reason I later beta-tested Savage was because Allegiance was dead at the time and I wanted the same gameplay!

My brother and I adored Allegiance mostly because of the immersion. The gameplay was nearly perfect, simply because it was so easy to understand yet clearly would take time to master. You could just get sucked in for hours and totally forget you were playing a game because it got so intense the there was always something to do. Neither of us ever got particularly good or well-known =P

What got us really into it was all the auditory feedback and the way the sound effects really brought you into the fight. The sounds of bullets and fighters Dopplering overhead, all the hyperactive voice chats, and every single ambient noise just made the game feel so much better than all the games of the time. We loved the game before it died.

Several years later while going to school for game development, I heard through a classmate that the Allegiance source code was being released, and it got me talking about the game like crazy to my friends at the time. I don't remember how long after that I heard about FreeAllegiance, but I was stoked you all took the game into your own hands so it didn't have to remain dead.

Anyway!

I've been thinking rather heavily about playing it some -- very casually -- because I've gotten a little nostalgic recently. My biggest concern is the controls! How do you guys play the game now? Have you made changes so a mouse and keyboard now work well? Back in the day that seemed like a horrible way to play when we tried it, so we bought a SideWinder Force Feedback Pro. Man, that thing really brought the game even more to life!

So does everyone just use the mouse and keyboard now, or do people prefer joysticks, or what?

notjarvis · Post by **notjarvis** » Thu Jun 21, 2012 7:46 am

Welcome back t Alleg!

People use both mouse and joystick

I use joystick, personally, though plenty use mouse.

Whatever you choose to use - here's some suggested keymaps...

FIZ · Post by **FIZ** » Thu Jun 21, 2012 8:38 pm

Welcome back.

If you are hoping to get into a big game once you re-familiarize the controls (2-button mouse and keyboard will work fine), your best bet for finding a good sized game is going to be on Sunday around 1800 GMT. Squad games are semi-down due to the Euro 2012, but quite a few people will have their priorities straight around that time

Enjoy!

fwiffo · Post by **fwiffo** » Thu Jun 21, 2012 8:45 pm

use this as a guide on when to log in, note that the hours are in UTC

http://spathiwa.com/cgi-bin/pp.pl

hybridremix · Post by **hybridremix** » Fri Jun 22, 2012 11:37 am

Thanks, guys. I appreciate all the info. My next question was going to be when the most people were actually active, so you beat me to it! What are the game sizes normally like? I remember games back in the day with 128 people in them, but I'm sure that doesn't happen anymore. They sure were hectic!

MonAG · Post by **MonAG** » Fri Jun 22, 2012 4:41 pm

voxRagnarok wrote:QUOTE (voxRagnarok @ Jun 22 2012, 08:37 AM) I remember games back in the day with 128 people in them, but I'm sure that doesn't happen anymore.

Archangelus · Post by **Archangelus** » Fri Jun 22, 2012 5:01 pm

Usually 20 or so, if you get lucky.

Sundays are a different case.

fwiffo · Post by **fwiffo** » Sat Jun 23, 2012 9:35 am

i have made improvements on my graphs... here's the monthly view. the hours are still in UTC.

http://spathiwa.com/cgi-bin/mpp.pl

Malicious Wraith · Post by **Malicious Wraith** » Sat Jun 23, 2012 2:18 pm

Can some numbers go on the Y axis?

fwiffo · Post by **fwiffo** » Mon Jun 25, 2012 9:05 pm

these were removed on purpose based on consensus. you could still determine the Y values by revealing the points on the graph upon mouseover

oh yea theres a new version out... this time it adjusts the Hours based on YOUR timezone...

http://spathiwa.com/cgi-bin/tz_mpp.pl