One of the nice things that the Alien Arena Development Team has is the power of SVN, so that anybody can test out new features and/or report bugs.

     In this guide I'm going to tell you step by step what you need to do in order to download Alien Arena through SVN on Windows, and how to update as development continues, instead of waiting for full releases.  This is a very handy thing that we have, and when used properly, is very helpful to a game's development.  After the SVN tutorial I will also tell you how you can get the Accessory Pack, which is loaded with maps, models, skins, and much more to expand your Alien Arena experience even further.  But before we can do that, we need to get the game running.

[color=Orange]QUICK NOTE[/color]  You may want to bookmark this page in your web browser, for easy access


[b]STEP 1[/b]

    First thing that you will need to do is, if Alien Arena is currently installed, to delete it, as we are going to be getting the game completely from SVN.  Yes, we will be starting from scratch.  If you have custom config files made, make sure to back those up.

[b]STEP 2[/b]   

     Now that you don't have Alien Arena on your computer, you can go to download the SVN program that we will be using, which is Tortoise SVN.  The website you want to visit is shown below.

[url]http://tortoisesvn.net/downloads[/url]

     Click on the download for the MSI installer appropriate for your computer.  You have a choice between 32 bit and 64 bit.  If in doubt as to whether you have 32 bit or 64 bit, get 32 bit.  If you need a different language than English, you also want to get a language pack.

[b]STEP 3[/b]   

     After the program has been downloaded, run the installer.  The process is pretty self explanatory, so you can just follow the windows.  Eventually, you will have to restart your computer, so make sure you can find this guide again.

[b]STEP 4[/b]   

     Now we need to make a folder in your C:\ directory, so open up My Computer and double click on your C:\ Drive.  This can probably be found as Local Disk.

[b]STEP 5[/b]   

     Right click in the open space (aka space that isn't where an icon is), go to the New tab, and click on Folder.  Name that folder AlienArena2007.  Now double click on the folder so you are viewing its contents (which should be nothing).

[b]STEP 6[/b]

     Once you have navigated inside the AlienArena2007 folder, Right click and choose SVN Checkout. You will now be looking at a window that asks you questions about the SVN repository.  Where it says URL Repository put in:
[code]svn://svn.icculus.org/alienarena/trunk[/code]
Now, hit OK.

Now, the Tortoise SVN program will download Alien Arena in it's entirety from SVN.  You will be getting the latest version of the game as of the moment you start checking out, so you will have all kinds of new features that weren't in the last release.

[b]STEP 7[/b]

     Now that you've completed downloading the game, click on Galaxy in the AlienArena2007 folder that you created.  You will need to go to Main > Configure to set it up properly.  If it's not already there, your game directory should be C:\AlienArena2007\.  You can also change your name and IRC server here (which one you pick doesn't matter).  Now, hit OK

You have now gotten the very latest version of Alien Arena.  But how do you update?


[color=LimeGreen][b]TO UPDATE[/b][/color]

Simply right click your AlienArena2007 folder that you created and choose SVN Update

     Now, I'm sure you want some custom content, such as levels and character models.  These things can be found at the following link (direct download link)

[url]http://www.forsakenweb.com/alienarena/files/AA_accessory_pack.zip[/url]

Just download this hefty zip file, and unzip it into your main Alien Arena directory (C:\AlienArena2007).  How to do this?  Well, once it's downloaded, open the file, and extract it to this directory.  There are various ways to do this, none of which are too hard to figure out after a little bit of looking around.

Enjoy the game!