Allegiance is an MMOG providing a mix of real-time strategy and player piloted space combat. Initially developed by Microsoft Research, the game was later released under a shared source license and is now maintained/developed by volunteers. Gameplay relies heavily on good teamwork and forward thinking. Players can fly a variety of craft, striving to destroy enemy team installations and protecting their own. Resource collection figures significantly in the game, since new technology can be expensive and money is usually scarce.
It was developed as an experiment by a team of programmers who had never worked in game design before. Allegiance was released in March of 2000 , after an extended beta test period. Allegiance is based on Alto Trek (1972), which was also written by Rick Rashid.
Despite its exhilarating fast-paced teamwork-oriented gameplay and sharp 3D graphics, the game never achieved commercial success (perhaps partly due to its reliance on Microsoft's less-than-reliable Microsoft Zone, the lack of advertising or both). It did manage to build a dedicated following, who have stayed with the game and continued its development despite multiple setbacks (Microsoft pulling support, player cheating, etc)
Due to the lack of commercial success, the official servers closed in 2002 . As a consequence of this, the original retail version of the game is largely unfunctional. However, the Allegiance community has been tireless and largely successful in its attempts to make the game free for all to play. The updated version of the game client is downloadable for free from the FreeAllegiance.org web site and many servers are currently hosted by members of the community.
In February, 2004, Allegiance's original development team released the source code for Allegiance, signaling yet another chapter in Allegiance's unique history. Developers have since released two minor updates to the game engine, with the first major one coming in a few weeks, while enthusists develop/refine new mods for gameplay.