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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.
The game is a plugin. The point is that matchmaking and all non-gameplay related stuff is handled through the browser, which reduces the code and the amount of time between thinking "I'd like to play a game" and being in a server.
If I could rearrange the keyboard, I'd put U and I together.
When you log in to the web site with an unsupported browser (like Chrome) you get to know that:
We're sorry, but your web browser or operating system is not compatible with QUAKE LIVE. You must be using a combination of the following:
Windows XP Windows Vista
Firefox 2.0 / 3.0 Internet Explorer 7 / 8
Support for Mac & Linux, along with alternative browsers is under development.
Seems fair to me.
Connection closed by foreign host.