Anyone knows the Allegiance game?

[doubleclick]

I was reading the thread "What's your favourite game ever?" and I thought about this cool online-only space combat simulator called Allegiance which MS Research developed about 2 years ago. I was a completely addicted Beta-tester for about 4 months, and then they introduced a monthly fee to keep playing, so i stopped playing :p
I checked the MS Game Zone to see if it was still active. And yes, it is, but very few people know about it or is playing it. MS even removed the monthly fee, so now you only have to pay for the game once.
Anyway, how come that such a cool game has remained completely unknown??? I loved it!!

Some of you know it/played it?

Take a look at http://www.planetallegiance.com/ to know more...

[MiKe85]

Haven't heard of it..

[gibsinep]

me neither

[Ammok]

Hmmm, no.... I havn't heard of it either. MS software does my tree in anyway.I think I have a growing hated of all things gatesy.
Imagine selling a app or game that doesn't work and then getting charged for a new version that dosen't work....Grrrrrrr.

[El_Brio]

That was (is) the worst **** game ever. I too was part of the open beta and It was without a doubt the worst couple of hours of my life. The reason no one plays is because the game stinks. Very simple actually....

[doubleclick]

OK, I absolutely agree with Ammok, but I don't agree at all with El_Brio!
MS stinks, that's a solid fact. But all of us usually stigmatize any product coming from MS, which is the dark side of the coin. When I was "beta-playing" Allegiance the game worked really fine (I remember 3 crashes at the most in 3 months, which is quite OK for a Beta version. And I played a lot...).
El_Brio doesn't like it... Hmm. OK. I think it's (it was) f***ng cool!!
Updates were automatic and really improved the game, the support crew was always available, it had a challenging ranking list, clan games, constant server availability (and if they were down, they let you know in time), up to 40 or more simultaneous players distributed in 2 to 4 teams (don't remember the exact number), 4 different factions, and so on.
About a week ago I discovered Freespace Descent. Well, THERE you have the big weak point of Allegiance: Allegiance is an improved version of that game. So originality drops to zero. (Even though in Freespace you can never be a commander of the whole team, or a space craft squad leader, or the one who controls resources, engineering and development of new technologies (don't remember it's name either)...)
Anyway, I know for sure that in the open Beta there was quite a big addicted community playing this game day after day. Everybody has its preferences, El_Brio, but this game simply DIDN'T suck! :p