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Allegiance is a space simulation, much like Privateer, the X Series, or Freelancer...in that order. Unlike those games, this one has a strategy component. There is an economy, and a commander that organizes everything from the infrastructure (bases) to the execution of grand strategy. The maps are gigantic - each sector is big and each map has between 5-15 sectors. It is unknown to me if these maps are randomly generated, but they appear to be so at first glance. Most of all, there are up to 200 players in each match. When a battlefront forms, this means Battlestar Galactica style battles - where you are a bee in the swarm and you are surrounded in a chaotic dance of death. It's great, and inertia is properly modeled which makes it that much more cinematic when you flip around and fire behind you while flying backwards.
The learning curve is quite large, but by no means impossible to get by - learning to play the game is pretty easy, especially if you own a joystick. Learning to keep up with the strategy is the intimidating part. Yesterday I participated in a battle in which we were waiting outside a warp node between systems, when we recieved botched intelligence that there was a bomber waiting on the other side undefended. We all rushed through and cringed as a pretty good sized squad uncloaked around the bomber. Needless to say the ride home in the escape pod was quite scenic.
Most of all - Allegiance is free now. The source code was made available to the community and it was improved, the server infrastructure, the gameplay, and the graphics have all been worked on considerably and the game itself is now free to own and free to play. Frankly I believe despite its age that this game holds up to and surpasses many modern retail games currently available. Anybody who has played Dwarf Fortress understands that sometimes a free game you find on the internet can be better than any Unreal 3 Powered EA Garbage. So yeah you guys should check out Free Allegiance. Here's the information you'll need to get playing, but only experience can help you play.
http://www.freeallegiance.org/ - To play you will need to download the 70MB Client and create an account. Your name will be branded with a fresh (0) signifying to all that you are a proud newbie.
http://www.allegacademy.org/lessons/crashcourse.shtml - More importantly, to know how to play, this crash course will help. It covers the basics. Down the left hand side you can see more advanced topics.
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People play it because it has gameplay that modern games can't match because the graphics get in the way. For instance - Elite had the ability to land on planets. The graphics sucked, but you could land on planets in a space simulation game. Now we can't do that - why? Because then they'd have to make entities for every planet in their solar system, and make them unique...since the player will expect more detailed environments since space looks so great. The current solution is simply to omit that. Graphics are an obstacle some times...and passing up games based simply on that alone will restrict your experience quite a bit. While I know Unreal Tournament 3 will look great, will it play better than Medievia - a text based MUD that I played for well over 400 hours? I doubt it.
In short, throughout my gaming career I've realized one thing, for myself atleast: Gameplay > Graphics.
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