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Quake Live Public Beta Launches To High Demand
x1n933k writes "For anybody who was sitting on top of Quake Live's website today, clicking refresh and waiting for it to open, you can now browse over and join the fun. Unfortunately you'll have to hold in a queue: 'Here we are all dressed up and nowhere to go. Don't worry, to make sure everyone can enjoy the game we have activated our super secret Queue system, which keeps the server from being overloaded and affecting the website.' I've been waiting 40 minutes and now up to 591, after starting from 9982 but have been playing Quake 3 to kill time."
The queue bounced up over 15,000, and as of this posting, is down to about 7,000. It moves pretty quickly, and there's an explanatory tour to watch while you wait. Reader Rogerpq3 contributes an interview with id's John Carmack and Marty Stratton, in which they discuss the game's technology and server infrastructure, as well as their thoughts on mod support.
I just waited in queue for 5 minutes or so, only to be taken to a 'download plugin' page, which probably isn't compatible with my browser Opera.
I don't get it, this game requires a plugin to play? If you require players to download and run client side non-sandboxed code, why not just have a standalone client rather than playing through your web browser?
It's a .msi installer too, so probably requires admin access. So what's the point of this?
I.O.U One Sig.
There are ranked games and that appeals to me. I like to know how good I am in relation to the general populace. In the old quake, you could be top dog on a server, but still not know how good you are in relation to the world. I waited 3 hours through bugs, crashes and the queue to get it to work. It didn't work on IE6 or Firefox because the mouse wouldn't move, but I did get it to work on IE7. I played the training missions, but I was not able to play live because I was looking through the options to see how I can set weapon priorities. I always find it annoying when I am wielding a rocket launcher for me to switch to a shot gun just because I walk over it. While I was looking through my options and browsing the QuakeLive forums for help, I timed out. I'll wait until tomorrow if someone has an answer how I can set weapon priorities on the forums. It may just be another FPS, but it is a classy enough one that it is worth playing if for no other reason than to enhance your FPS skill.
God spoke to me.
XP or Vista only.
It's funny, I was getting up there, into 900 and then my queue position started rising not lowering. I gave up when it hit a few thousand. I'll wait until the fresh popularity wanes and give it a shot again.
Not to mention from what I can see, its pretty much a repackaged free version of Quake III with new maps. But the lack of Mac support just kills it for me, Im not running emulation just to play a FPS when there are plenty of free and maintained FPS out there of the Quake and UT variety. Interesting concept but crappy execution.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
Be aware that the installer leavs a punkbuster (anti-cheat) service running, even while not playing, at least the earlier betas did.
Here are some quick marketing-style bullet points about the latest version of Flash Player (including the 3D API): http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashplayer10/ I wasn't able to find any details on the implementation of Quake Live, but I wouldn't be totally shocked if the Flash Cross-Compiler (compiles C/C++ into Flash) is involved. I'm expecting someone to blow my mind with that somehow.
I miss CLOSED beta already. At least then I could get in.
Truth, Just Us, And Hatred For All Mankind!
Mac and Linux support are promised for final release. And yes, it is Q3. It is Q3 for free and in a browser with leaderboards and such.
Truth, Just Us, And Hatred For All Mankind!
Free and ubiquitous
Good-bye
I wandered onto the site just as it launched, lucky me. I got 2 matches under my belt. The tutorial is really handy for new players. The game servers seemed stable, everything looked pretty good and polished, even though it looks like a 10 year old game.
I was surprised at how nice the social networking stuff was implemented, it seems really easy to see which friends are online and join their games, and see people you recently played with.
I signed up to get altered by Id when the beta opened up, but have yet to hear anything. Why bother collecting emails of people if you aren't going to bother contacting them about what they signed up for?
To distribute a 3d plugin widely and show that heavy 3d can work well in a browser environment.
I can see some interesting things coming out of it. Decent chance it will just fade away, though.
They pull a ninja _replacing_ Adobe Shockwave as de facto standard stunt.
Well apparently its Windows only, would have assumed the website would not keep you waiting for 35 minutes only to have you download a "Windows Only" plugin, would think a simple OS check would return that your platform was not supported and save you the time. Kind of eliminates the benefit of a browser plugin, if that plugin only supports 1 platform.
hit Ctrl + Alt + ~ !! then type com_allowconsole 1 and it should be accessible again by just hitting ~ For those who might be wondering. I was annoyed at first because I thought there was no console, but I found out that I can use my old config file too :)
I see it says that the queue bounced over 15000, which is true. I was 11141 the first time I tried and it froze on me. I was 35000+ in the queue after the restart, but I did get in.
I'm assuming you're running window... would you consider using more than one browser just for the beta?
I'm on Linux. I've just finished downloading firefox for windows, and I'm just waiting in the queue now so I can try it in wine. I don't even consider this a big deal.
What's the value of information that you don't know?
Sure, Wolfenstein 3D and Doom brought nothing new to the world at all. ;) I could agree with you that lately they haven't impressed me that much, but to say that the software company that more or less created the FPS genre has created only crap seems weird to me...
:) )
(And by the way, it says clearly what is supported if you login in to the site as I have stated elsewhere. Perhaps you have modified your browser to report being something else?
Connection closed by foreign host.
The queue seems to be modeled after a civic licensing bureau... After waiting in a queue of 20k to get the plug-in, I get to line up again in a queue of 30k to login.
Want to play Quake now? From the browser?
No matter what Operating System?
Take a look at Jake2.
http://bytonic.de/html/jake2.html
So where exactly is the innovation here?
I actually signed up right before the rush so I didn't have to wait for the plug-in.
I experienced absolutely no problems with the game, unlike a majority of the people who tried it.