ioquake3 1.36 Goes Gold

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Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday April 29, 2009 @08:05PM from the can't-we-all-just-get-along dept.

Time Doctor writes "The de-facto standard in Quake 3 engine technology, ioquake3, has hit version 1.36 recently. It includes a garbage bag full of improvements: in-game VOIP; optional external Mumble (voip); OpenAL; IPV6; anaglyph stereo rendering; Full x86-64 architecture support; Rewritten PowerPC JIT compiler, with ppc64 support; new SPARC JIT compiler, with support for both sparc32 and sparc64; improved console command auto-completion; persistent console command history; improved QVM (Quake Virtual Machine) tools; colored terminal output on POSIX operating systems; multiuser support on Windows systems (user-specific game data is stored in their respective Application Data folders); PNG format support for textures. Of course, there are even more fixes for security holes and other bugs in there. So, if you don't like ads and queues in your Quake 3 experience, get a copy of Quake 3 off Steam and copy your data files and key into your ioquake3 directory."

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Steam? by Anonymous Coward · 2009-04-29 20:17 · Score: 1, Insightful

Why Steam? To me this just looks like an ad for Steam. What's wrong with using the files from our existing Quake 3 install? I'm sure we all have one from long before Steam came along.
1. Re:Steam? by Time+Doctor · 2009-04-29 20:39 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  The point is that it is the only place I could find to legitimately buy quake 3. Quite a few people I know have lost their Quake 3 disc or key.
  
  --
  Check out ioquake3.org for a great, free, First-Person Shooter engine!
2. Re:Steam? by Anonymous Coward · 2009-04-29 20:52 · Score: 0
  
  Isn't Quake3 open source anyway?
3. Re:Steam? by Anonymous Coward · 2009-04-29 20:53 · Score: 0
  
  And that is actually the great part about steam. No more CD keys to dig around for.
4. Re:Steam? by Tony+Hoyle · 2009-04-29 20:54 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  What's wrong with ID software's site? Or for that matter, Amazon, or your local shops (all of which are cheaper than Steam.. Amazon is 1/5th of the price).
5. Re:Steam? by 4D6963 · 2009-04-29 21:02 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Not the content, only what ioquake3 replaces. The data files for such games as Doom or Quake are still commercial.
  
  --
  You just got troll'd!
6. Re:Steam? by Anonymous Coward · 2009-04-29 21:04 · Score: 0
  
  my mistake
7. Re:Steam? by MoogMan · 2009-04-29 21:22 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  You could always play a derivative game such as the (free) Open Arena or Tremulous
8. Re:Steam? by Jurily · 2009-04-29 21:53 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Not the content, only what ioquake3 replaces. The data files for such games as Doom or Quake are still commercial.
  Thus demonstrating the distance between Open Source and Free Software in a way RMS never could.
  Is there a Free set of data files available somewhere?
9. Re:Steam? by Narishma · 2009-04-29 22:03 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Yes, it's called Open Arena.
  
  --
  Mada mada dane.
10. Re:Steam? by 4D6963 · 2009-04-29 22:15 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Thus demonstrating the distance between Open Source and Free Software in a way RMS never could.
  Very true, that's actually a very viable way to marry commercial games and open source.
  
  --
  You just got troll'd!
11. Re:Steam? by gbarules2999 · 2009-04-30 00:50 · Score: 1
  
  id's copy is, what, $30, and Amazon is only used (which publishers don't like, apparently).
12. Re:Steam? by Kamokazi · 2009-04-30 01:36 · Score: 1
  
  My biggest question is, what's the big deal with Quake 3? It's quite old and was never anything special...heck, I had it running my Dell Axim PDA nearly four years ago (shortly after the source was released).
  
  Is it just because it's one of the most recent game engines where the source is availible? Or is there some other attribute that people like?
  
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  As our way of thanking you for your positive contributions to Slashdot, you are eligible to disable Slashdot 2.0.
13. Re:Steam? by MikeBabcock · 2009-04-30 02:02 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Yes there are quite a few full mods based on Q3 that come with their own content. For example, you could go get Urban Terror, a very well-made full mod on the Q3 engine.
  And yes, the Q3 engine is very much open source and free software at this point. Artwork and level design that came with the original game is not even vaguely related to source code and shouldn't fall into some source licensing debate.
  If you want free content, talk to the artists (or their owners), but you can do anything you like with the software of Quake 3.
  
  --
  - Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
14. Re:Steam? by tixxit · 2009-04-30 02:40 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  It is a simple, fun game. I don't have much time, and while I still like to play games, I really only play for about 20 minutes on average. I like Quake 3 because I can click on the Quake 3 icon, start playing almost immediately, have fun for 20 minutes, then shut it down. It also has a Linux client.
15. Re:Steam? by Anpheus · 2009-04-30 04:15 · Score: 1
  
  I bought this off Steam when it was on sale for $50 or $45 or whatever:
  Buy id Super Pack
  Includes: Quake III Arena, Wolfenstein 3D, Ultimate DOOM, Final DOOM, DOOM II, QUAKE, QUAKE II, QUAKE II Mission Pack: The Reckoning, QUAKE II Mission Pack: Ground Zero, QUAKE III: Team Arena, HeXen, HeXen: Deathkings of the Dark Citadel, Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders, Spear of Destiny, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, QUAKE Mission Pack 2: Dissolution of Eternity, QUAKE Mission Pack 1: Scourge of Armagon, DOOM 3, HeXen II, DOOM 3 Resurrection of Evil, Master Levels for Doom II, Commander Keen
16. Re:Steam? by WWWWolf · 2009-04-30 04:37 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Thus demonstrating the distance between Open Source and Free Software in a way RMS never could.
  Actually, speaks much more about the distance between software and art.
  As every open source fan knows, there's no point in buying a software product in itself. There is a point in paying for art and high-quality entertainment, however. I buy games because they're the form of entertainment I enjoy the most.
  I don't pay for tools to do my work -it's pointless, because the tools to do the work are already out there, free-as-in-beer-and-speech. I am willing to pay for experiences, though.
  There's absolutely no reason why game companies couldn't do what id Software is doing: The (retail sales) profit comes from the data and the game experience, not the software. Gamers don't generally care about engines, they care about the game experience. There's already so many great open-source components that you could build awesome games around them and not spend a bloody penny on the technology licensing. Maybe the open source engines don't yet employ the latest and greatest technological tricks, but you sure can build solid games around them.
  I believe that in our global culture we have place for both art and entertainment that is "traditionally" copyrighted and "closed", and "free" art (like awesome GPLed games). But the game industry uses a lot of open source now, and I'm hoping one day game makers realise that there's no point in keeping engines closed - any more than, say, it makes sense to pay for a text editor, when there's bazillion open source ones out there for all conceivable uses.
17. Re:Steam? by bonch · 2009-04-30 04:43 · Score: 1
  
  It was just a quick link to a place to quickly purchase and download Quake 3 for its data files so that you can try out ioquake3. If you already have Quake 3, guess what? You don't have to purchase it again! Congratulations!
18. Re:Steam? by Anonymous Coward · 2009-05-04 08:10 · Score: 0
  
  Epic makes a lot of money charging for the use of their engine technology. id only releases source code years after their current tech was released. Maybe game companies could free the technology that runs their games after a definite period of time.
What, no torrentz? by Anenome · 2009-04-29 20:22 · Score: 2, Funny

I requested a built-in torrent app as part of that 'garbage bag' BUT NO, THANKS A LOT.
Well, at least it's got 3D support natively. About damn time.

--
"I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist"
1. Re:What, no torrentz? by Anonymous Coward · 2009-04-29 20:32 · Score: 0
  
  Still can't send email though.
2. Re:What, no torrentz? by Sir_Lewk · 2009-04-29 20:38 · Score: 1
  
  Why the hell should a torrent client be part of a game engine?
  
  --
  "linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
3. Re:What, no torrentz? by Anenome · 2009-04-29 20:43 · Score: 1
  
  'Cause.
  
  --
  "I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist"
4. Re:What, no torrentz? by Techman83 · 2009-04-29 20:50 · Score: 1
  
  Why the hell not! :)
  
  --
  # cat /dev/mem | strings | grep -i cat
  Damn, my RAM is full of cats. MEOW!!
5. Re:What, no torrentz? by sapphire+wyvern · 2009-04-29 20:50 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  I'm pretty sure he's joking... but that said, it would be good for sharing custom maps & game assets between multiple players on a server, without hammering the server's bandwidth too much. If it were implemented in an appropriately hands-off, transparent fashion, anyway.
6. Re:What, no torrentz? by Tom · 2009-04-29 20:57 · Score: 1
  
  to distribute maps and other assets, which in a download-from-server approach use up precious bandwidth of the server. You know, the machine that you want to have maximum throughput and minimum latency to at that precise moment in time.
  
  --
  Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
7. Re:What, no torrentz? by Tei · 2009-04-29 21:19 · Score: 1
  
  There are other quake* engines that include a builtin HTTP server.
  Anyway I suppose you can include your .torrent files inside your .pk3 files, and let the server distribute these .pk3 files. so as soon your connect to a server that .pk3 file will download (if you don't have it), and you will be able to get your precious .torrent files from inside the .pk3 file.
  Oppps... you commented that as a joke... sorry.
  
  --
  -Woof woof woof!
8. Re:What, no torrentz? by Anonymous Coward · 2009-04-29 21:54 · Score: 0
  
  RE sig:
  nice fiction.... i'll have to start following it :)
  What do you think of:
  http://os.livejournal.com/361386.html (yep, there _are_ three typos that i've never fixed! how'd you guess? *g*)
9. Re:What, no torrentz? by trum4n · 2009-04-29 22:12 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  This isn't emacs, gentlemen.
10. Re:What, no torrentz? by sopssa · 2009-04-29 22:35 · Score: 1
  
  This however would be easy to circumvent by having dedicated download server isolated from the actual game server. I dont think using players limited upload does really good for their pings either.
11. Re:What, no torrentz? by alexandre_ganso · 2009-04-29 23:18 · Score: 1
  
  nor can you use a railgun on emacs.
12. Re:What, no torrentz? by Antique+Geekmeister · 2009-04-29 23:51 · Score: 1
  
  To share the open source maps. Steam and userbuilt games like Sven Coop are burdened by lengthy load times for new maps. And game downloads for purchased games like Darwinia or Half-Life 2 are pretty painful at times.
13. Re:What, no torrentz? by doti · 2009-04-30 00:00 · Score: 1
  
  Spring (springlobby, really) does this.
  
  --
  factor 966971: 966971
14. Re:What, no torrentz? by bFusion · 2009-04-30 00:47 · Score: 1
  
  The higher your K:D ratio, the higher your D:U ratio.
  Genius!
15. Re:What, no torrentz? by drinkypoo · 2009-04-30 01:38 · Score: 1
  
  If you hacked the games to download assets via http, then you could probably just use apt-get :)
  
  --
  "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
16. Re:What, no torrentz? by s4nt · 2009-04-30 05:44 · Score: 1
  
  not yet!
17. Re:What, no torrentz? by 0p7imu5_P2im3 · 2009-04-30 07:47 · Score: 1
  
  Allow me to introduce you to World of Warcraft... You may have heard of it... It includes a BitTorrent client for updates.
  Oh...
  I neglected the obligatory "Duh!"
  
  --
  Resistance is futile. Your technological distinctiveness will be added to our own. You will become one with the morgue
18. Re:What, no torrentz? by Anenome · 2009-04-30 16:59 · Score: 1
  
  Hahaha, I liked it XD
  I'll give you a review:
  Summary: This is a stream-of-consciousness piece about a wannabe astronaut in isolation training, who begins to go mad and ends up removing his own eyeballs.
  Comments: This is an ambitious premise, a pregnant premise. It is nicely written and the grammar is not a weakness. One line that really jumped out at me, "he felt textures with such detail that he was trying to devise a new vocabulary to describe everything."
  However, I think you can explore and expand the idea massively. This needs to be longer to have justice done to the idea (same with my Samsara story :P). You have him going mad after only two or three weeks?
  I like that he's hungry for sensation and that leads to him messing with the eyes, but that can be expanded too. I'd have him playing with body parts >_> so to speak, and thinking about them in a similar style before making it to the eyeballs. One cool thing about the eyes is that if you press on them they generate a light signature. Try it, close your eyes, press on the corner nearest your nose, and you'll see some light, looks like you can see your fingerprint as you press but on the far side of your eye, it's weird. I'd have him start by doing that. He could begin doing this so much that it leads to him damaging the eyes. Maybe he accidentally pops his eyeballs through too much pressure.
  Another facet of sensory isolation like this is that the image generation part of your brain, the part that is responsibly for making those dreams 'so lifelike' can leak into conscious life and begin generating images. I'd have his growing desperation for the training to be over manifest by having him hallucinate that it is over then be devastated when he finds it's fake, or something.
  So, the transition from sane to madness, expand that.
  Once he's actually got the eyeballs in his hand, I had the thought that what prevents most people from doing this is that is would be incredibly, incredibly painful >_> Snapping apart your own optic nerve, that's harsh.
  What's great about your story is that it's part of a growing thought that the human body (and mind) just wasn't made for interstellar travel. 2001 had a similar theme, and ended with the solution: "The Star Child"
  The Star Child is the next and final phase of human evolution when we become, or merge with our technology, see "Ghost in the Shell" or anything by Ray Kurzweil.
  I'm currently writing a novel series with many of these themes and they are on the border of my mind :)
  
  --
  "I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist"
19. Re:What, no torrentz? by Anenome · 2009-04-30 17:02 · Score: 1
  
  One final note: I'm not quite sure, but this could be even more awesome written in 1st person rather than 3rd...
  And thanks for checkin' out my fiction :)
  
  --
  "I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist"
20. Re:What, no torrentz? by Tom · 2009-05-04 01:08 · Score: 1
  
  Correct, a dedicated download server would also do. If you're a non-commercial game, however, I figure you don't have the bandwidth and your users can contribute in exchange for the free game.
  
  --
  Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
OpenArena by Anonymous Coward · 2009-04-29 20:27 · Score: -1, Flamebait

Or you could just download OpenArena, so you don't have to give your money to evil cash eating monsters like Valve.
1. Re:OpenArena by fractoid · 2009-04-29 20:58 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  But they're evil cash eating monsters who make cool games like Left 4 Dead. I gave them some money just so they could eat it and make more games, because, you know, I like games. :)
  
  --
  Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
2. Re:OpenArena by PeterBrett · 2009-04-29 21:12 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Much as I dislike DRM, I support Valve and Steam. Unlike some companies that use DRM as an excuse for delivering inferior service/products, Valve provides a fast, convenient service, at a reasonable price, and produces highly-polished games which have massive replay value -- and they keep producing free-to-download expansion content for literally years after release.
  I have no problem with giving them my money so that they can afford to keep releasing excellent games. Because like the parent I also like games.
  
  --
  Pirate Party UK
3. Re:OpenArena by Rik+Sweeney · 2009-04-29 22:46 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Or you could just download OpenArena
  If id hadn't released the sources to Quake 3 you wouldn't have a free game to download
  
  --
  Summation 2
4. Re:OpenArena by Anonymous Coward · 2009-04-29 22:50 · Score: 0
  
  I don't understand why eating cash, in a figurative or literal sense, makes them monsters. They have done you a service - what makes you think you shouldn't have to pay for it?
  Just because some other group of idiots created something for free and gave it away, doesn't mean everyone else should.
5. Re:OpenArena by Fred_A · 2009-04-30 01:41 · Score: 1
  
  I don't understand why eating cash, in a figurative or literal sense, makes them monsters. They have done you a service - what makes you think you shouldn't have to pay for it?
  Presumably because since it's information it should be free. At least that's what I read on the Intarwebs so it has to be true.
  
  --
  
  May contain traces of nut.
  Made from the freshest electrons.
6. Re:OpenArena by Anonymous Coward · 2009-04-30 04:20 · Score: 0
  
  Reasonable price? Are you joking? Steam is a gigantic ripoff. 50+ dollars for a bunch of locked down DRM infested bytes without any physical copy? No fucking thank you.
7. Re:OpenArena by fractoid · 2009-04-30 04:29 · Score: 1
  
  Try living in Australia. $50 USD for a game without having to fuck around with finding the right CD to insert before you can play? Yes please. I voted with my money, I bet plenty of Aussies did.
  (Like with that stupid fucking "you wouldn't steal a car" anti-piracy video that's at the start of EVERY. FUCKING. DVD. That is what motivates me to download movies, is so I can just watch. the. fucking. movie without waiting for half a minute for an annoying fucking propaganda vid to finish. Sorry but my wife has made me watch a bunch of legit DVDs recently and it's REALLY been annoying me.)
  
  (Note, as you may gather from my comments earlier about Steam, that I not only don't mind compensating artists for their work, but that I really would rather do so. But stupid middle men who want to charge me double and then steal my time for their adverts, just for tolerating the prophylactic of the information age, really get my goat. And a Dragon's goat is not to be got.)
  
  --
  Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
8. Re:OpenArena by brkello · 2009-04-30 06:14 · Score: 1
  
  When did making a profit equate with evil? It isn't like they are selling games to people and the repossessing their house. I think you should work for free since you have this attitude.
  
  --
  Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
What, No OSX Support by Anonymous Coward · 2009-04-29 20:33 · Score: 0

You have to be kidding, PPC64 support and nothing for OSX PPC. This has to be a joke, bad one.
1. Re:What, No OSX Support by Hal_Porter · 2009-04-29 20:59 · Score: 1, Insightful
  
  I destroyed my PowerPC Mac with a hammer as soon as Steve Jobs, our Leader, declared them to be obsolete and went out and bought a much faster Intel Mac.
  Besides x86 chips have always been faster than PPC ones. Except before the Leader announced the change. Then of course they had always been slower. This may seem a bit contradictory to you, but that's because you don't understand the Reality Distortion principle.
  
  --
  echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
2. Re:What, No OSX Support by Time+Doctor · 2009-04-29 21:13 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  the OS X dmg is a universal binary.
  
  --
  Check out ioquake3.org for a great, free, First-Person Shooter engine!
3. Re:What, No OSX Support by _|()|\| · 2009-04-30 02:48 · Score: 1
  
  I thought that ioquake3 was GPL. Anyone know why the .dmg displays Id's old EULA?
4. Re:What, No OSX Support by maztuhblastah · 2009-04-30 04:18 · Score: 1
  
  This may seem a bit contradictory to you, but that's because you don't understand the Reality Distortion principle.
  No, that's because you don't understand history.
  For quite some time (well through the NetBurst years), POWER had the upper hand. It had more registers, better memory bandwidth, and an instruction pipeline that wasn't absurdly deep. In addition, the POWER chips (and their derivatives, such as the G3 and G4) ran cooler than Intel's offerings, making them a much better choice for the sort of space-constrained designs that Apple favored.
  But times change. IBM wasn't too interested in developing small runs of custom chips just for Apple, and as Intel started to ready the Core line (abandoning NetBurst in the process) the PowerPC advantage disappeared.
  At one point PowerPC was better. When that was no longer the case, Apple switched. It's as simple as that.
  
  --
  The real litigious bastards...
5. Re:What, No OSX Support by Drinking+Bleach · 2009-05-01 23:59 · Score: 1
  
  It displays it because of the updated *.pk3 files necessary to play the game with this engine (the pak0.pk3 cannot be used alone, by even the last id Software revisions of the engine). These files are not free software, and the old EULA still applies to them.
10 years old now... by anss123 · 2009-04-29 20:49 · Score: 1

and it still looking good. I own the game but I never got into it as UT99 was just so much more fun for casual gamers like me. Perfect game balance and tight levels don't make up for an everlasting brown deathmatch :-)
1. Re:10 years old now... by TheTurtlesMoves · 2009-04-29 21:06 · Score: 1
  
  I was the other way around. I just couldn't quite get into the UT's the same as Q3. My friends still play a lot of UT, but we do have the odd Q3 game. But my wife and I like Q3 best.
  
  --
  The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!
2. Re:10 years old now... by sahonen · 2009-04-29 21:21 · Score: 1
  
  At LAN parties we play UT because the skill ceiling is lower so the less skilled among us don't get owned so bad... When I'm playing for my own enjoyment it's Q3 all the way. It just *feels* better to me, the movement, the weapon mechanics and balance, etc.
  
  --
  Make me a friend and I'll mod you up
3. Re:10 years old now... by RogueyWon · 2009-04-29 21:52 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  The irony, of course, is that in the wider battle for the online gaming marketspace, both Q3 and UT lost out very badly indeed to a free mod for an aging game based on a hacked around version of the original Quake's engine (ie. Counter-Strike).
  I think looking back, Quake 3 was the point at which id went from being the undisputed industry leaders in the fps genre to "one among many". With the original Quake and Quake 2, if you played fpses online, you basically played one of those games, or one of their mods. There were a few other minor niche games, but none of them really had much of a wider community. Counter-Strike was the last game to really unite a majority of the online fps scene under a single banner and, as it starts to fade away, there doesn't seem to be any single successor (on the PC at least), but rather a broader fragmentation.
  I wonder if the same will happen in the MMO market once WoW jumps the shark? If, rather than having one all-consuming leviathan in the market and a few minnows trying to snap up a few hundred thousand users around the edges, we'll end up with a situation with multiple MMOs well up in the millions, but no clear pack leader?
4. Re:10 years old now... by Have+Brain+Will+Rent · 2009-04-29 22:07 · Score: 1
  
  With all this positive commentary maybe I'll upgrade from QuakeII! Nahhhhhhh, doesn't get any better than Q2 WoD.
  
  --
  The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny - Aesop
5. Re:10 years old now... by delt0r · 2009-04-29 23:14 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  I hated Counter Strike. It was just too slow. Different strokes for different folks. I think theres plenty of room for more than a few "ordinary" FPS.
  
  --
  If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
6. Re:10 years old now... by entrex · 2009-04-29 23:42 · Score: 0
  
  Quake 2 was easily the best FPS ever released. Several amazing mods like Action & WF gave me hours and hours of fun. I'd kill to be able to find a full Q2A or WF server now..
  
  --
  To a nail, every person with a hammer looks like a problem.
7. Re:10 years old now... by Anonymous Coward · 2009-04-29 23:55 · Score: 1, Insightful
  
  I think looking back, Quake 3 was the point at which id went from being the undisputed industry leaders in the fps genre to "one among many".
  This was also the point that id games seriously started to drop off the single player experience in favour of pushing the multiplayer experience at launch. I'd argue, as a single player fan, that this hurt them at retail, because I'm sure a lot of people discovered the delights of multiplayer gaming after finishing the single player game and were probably put off by the "thin" single player game.
  But I suspect the real reason has something to do with the fact that back in the day if you wanted a 3d engine you coded it, and there are very few Carmacks in the world. By Q3 there was a whole middleware industry in selling 3d engines to third party developers, lowering the bar to competitors; id were doing it too, so even some of their direct competitors were actually using their tech.
8. Re:10 years old now... by soupforare · 2009-04-29 23:56 · Score: 1
  
  ...once WoW jumps the shark?
  WoW launched riding a jetski over a tank of sharks with lasers on their heads
  
  --
  --- Do you believe in the day?
9. Re:10 years old now... by ScotlynHatt · 2009-04-30 00:55 · Score: 1
  
  For the last few years the Battlefield crowd has been pretty solid, BF2 in particular. There are still plenty of populated servers and clans running around, not to mention many high-quality mods in the community. As far as relevancy goes, Battlefield still has a dedicated tab on IGN's FilePlanet which is reserved for the most active communities. But alas, EA has decided to pursue the console market and turn BF into an arcade style game stripped of any RPG elements it had going for it.
10. Re:10 years old now... by jackbird · 2009-04-30 01:43 · Score: 1
  
  The entire Quake series was a tech demo for selling engine licenses. Revolutionizing PC gaming was a happy accident of the first Quake. Thereafter they steadily lost marketshare as computers/3D cards got more powerful and competitors multiplied.
11. Re:10 years old now... by Vu1turEMaN · 2009-04-30 02:19 · Score: 1
  
  And that's why GunGame Deathmatch was invented for CS.
12. Re:10 years old now... by pak9rabid · 2009-04-30 03:08 · Score: 1
  
  The irony, of course, is that in the wider battle for the online gaming marketspace, both Q3 and UT lost out very badly indeed to a free mod for an aging game based on a hacked around version of the original Quake's engine (ie. Counter-Strike).
  Counter-Strike was a Half-Life mod. It had nothing to do with Quake, other than being in the same game genre.
13. Re:10 years old now... by irix · 2009-04-30 03:12 · Score: 1
  
  I still play BF2 a couple of times a week and enjoy it, but the number of players is still way down from a couple of years ago. At some point EA will pull the plug on the servers, which will be a shame. I still miss Desert Combat :(
  
  --
  
  Do you even know anything about perl? -- AC Replying to Tom Christiansen post.
14. Re:10 years old now... by hitmark · 2009-04-30 03:18 · Score: 1
  
  my issue with UT was a very local one, that people continually only wanted to play on the "low gravity" maps.
  that, and Q3 being mostly 1vs1 duels, and the only team game people wanted to play was CS, made me give up on FPS games fully...
  
  --
  comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
15. Re:10 years old now... by hjrnunes · 2009-04-30 03:18 · Score: 1
  
  bah... it's an aberration for CS addicts that can't play nothing else... If it has no rockets then it's not a proper deathmatch.
  CS killed the deathmatch star!
  Now it's too slow, boring, and full of kids with high-tech mice yelling at the microphone calling cheater to each other... Back in the day of the glorious deathmatch, the warrior had to be lightning fast, accurate and mart enough to change it's path so to avoid a - or 3 in UT - carefully placed rocket in an interception course with himself... Aaah, the Rocket Arena... *sigh*
16. Re:10 years old now... by hitmark · 2009-04-30 03:20 · Score: 1
  
  slow? every time i played it, people was just about run and gun, no plans, no tactics, just "GO GO GO" and shoot from the hip while rounding the corner in a jump...
  
  --
  comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
17. Re:10 years old now... by hitmark · 2009-04-30 03:24 · Score: 1
  
  valve started developing half-life using the quake1 engine, gradually porting in code from the quake2 engine, and writing some of their own.
  
  --
  comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
18. Re:10 years old now... by hitmark · 2009-04-30 03:26 · Score: 1
  
  and their insistence on using opengl may have allowed platform flexibility, but at the same time the engine that really took of was as much a direct3d tech demo, namely the unreal engine.
  
  --
  comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
19. Re:10 years old now... by Vu1turEMaN · 2009-04-30 04:11 · Score: 1
  
  That's why I started out in TFC, skipped CS, and moved straight to CZ....I loved rockets too :)
  Honestly, what attracts me the most to CZ GunGame is that skill with every gun is required and you can still enjoy small maps with alot of people (its harder to do that with rockets).
  More importantly the damage feels more realistic. A grenade actually has a 5 foot kill range (in 1.6 a grenade could blow up in someone's face and do 70 dmg), pistol headshots almost always kill the person, the m249 can mow people down and is almost as accurate as a rifle (which it is irl), and loads of other added gameplay attributes.
  I also played UT2004 for a long while, and I understand what you're saying. But I feel that smaller player models with small maps and multi-level maps with little 'shrubbery' makes up the true FPS game mechanics. When I tried playing UT recently, it felt alot like I was always so far away, shooting at someone at some ape-like proportioned man, and if you do get close enough for close range combat its alot of spray and pray from 99% of players.
  CZ + RH Live's CZ Gungame + CSDM with random spawns + a default map = a type of gameplay that I hadn't loved since Goldeneye was out. And if you have 32 people going? It's epic. Check out the [.icC.] or ZZ servers sometime if you have CZ (its 5$ anyways).
20. Re:10 years old now... by bonch · 2009-04-30 04:51 · Score: 1
  
  WoW already jumped the shark; people still play it because it's the MySpace of MMOs. Everyone else is playing it.
  As for Quake 3, it's probably one of the most solid deathmatch experiences still available. It plays tightly and just feels good to control. I'm not really sure why Counter-Strike took off like it did. I remember trying it and thinking it was fun but not so amazing to generate the following that it did.
  The Quake 3 engine, however, was very successful and ended up in several cool games. I would have cited Doom 3 as the point where id became one among many, and I stopped viewing them as the king of first-person shooters.
21. Re:10 years old now... by bonch · 2009-04-30 04:57 · Score: 1
  
  I found Quake kind of weird. I thought the sounds and graphics were inferior to Doom's. Quake has the wimpiest shotgun of any FPS I've played, and most of the levels were dull brown and green.
  I still remember the PC Gamer preview showing screenshots of a flying dragon and describing the graphics as being like Myst in real-time. There was supposed to be a physics system that bounced you off the wall when you jumped against it. Even then, gaming journalism was hype-filled crap.
22. Re:10 years old now... by Anonymous Coward · 2009-04-30 05:02 · Score: 0
  
  The only code from Quake 2 was the net code. Everything else was written by Valve.
23. Re:10 years old now... by sahonen · 2009-04-30 05:38 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah, I dislike Q3 duels for various reason I won't get into... And Counter-Strike is a joke with skill being mostly determined by who can outsmart the random number generator better. But if you like Quake and team games, you should try out the team-based modes in Quake Live, especially Clan Arena (my favorite). Another great team based game I've been playing for a long time is Dystopia, a mod for the Source Engine.
  
  --
  Make me a friend and I'll mod you up
24. Re:10 years old now... by brkello · 2009-04-30 06:26 · Score: 1
  
  No, it hasn't. If it jumped the shark people would be leaving in droves to one of the other options out there. It is just a better game. If it only mattered what other people played, everyone would still be playing EQ and WoW would have never been able to get off the ground.
  
  --
  Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
25. Re:10 years old now... by Anonymous Coward · 2009-04-30 06:49 · Score: 0
  
  Posted anonymously because this is getting way off-topic, but...
  The thing I've noticed about WoW (and my fiancee, who plays it way more than I do, concurs) is that Blizzard seems intent upon nerfing the various character classes and much of the in-game content in order to cater to "casual" gamers. Many class-specific quests to obtain special abilities or progress character development have been removed. (For example, the druid quest to obtain the aquatic form. I went through that quest and felt that I'd accomplished something when I finished it. Now people just pay a trainer for that form.) Some abilities are now available at a much lower level. (Another druid example: moonkin form)
  It used to be that you could play different specs for certain character classes and still be able to raid or dungeon crawl effectively, but my fiancee now bitterly complains that certain raid instances require a very specific spec for a given class, and thus specific styles of play are emphasized. That's taken a lot of fun out of the game. It was already bad enough when the kids were playing online and were unwilling to negotiate styles of play for a particular dungeon, but you could always wait until late enough at night when the kids were no longer online.
26. Re:10 years old now... by pak9rabid · 2009-04-30 06:52 · Score: 1
  
  Whoops, my mistake. Wikipedia totally comfirms that as well.
27. Re:10 years old now... by bonch · 2009-04-30 07:51 · Score: 1
  
  Yes, it jumped the shark. WotLK has been a disappointment in PvE content and a complete failure in the PvP department. Patch quality has also gone down in the last few years, and I'm getting really tired of my pet getting stuck when running across uneven geometry (goddamn wooden beams) .
  EQ was a bad example for you to use because people still play EQ. WoW gained its large subscription numbers because it's a braindead easy version of EQ, and that attracted a lot of people who never played MMOs before. Now that they and their friends have high level characters they invested a lot of time in, they closed-mindedly ignore better games because all they know is WoW.
  Five battlegrounds after five years. Sigh.
28. Re:10 years old now... by Reapy · 2009-04-30 08:09 · Score: 1
  
  You guys seem bitter. (2 replies here)
  What bliz is doing in wotlk continues a trend of what they've done with the game since it's birth, ironing out the MMO formula and making it accessible to a larger number of people.
  They really just passed over the playstyle of the game so its not too much work to play. They do keep making the game more and more accessible to people, and I don't know why people think it is a bad thing.
  What is funny is that those games that have super tough end came content (tough in the sense of finding 25+ capable players to be the same place at the same time) are games that I quit when I hit the end game. In wow, I can get in and see the big bad guy at the end and be reasonably challenged.
  Why is this a bad thing. People are mad they are able to clear nax? DAMNIT I SAW KEL AND DOWNED HIM!! THIS GAME IS STUPID?
  Really? You really preferred having an instance or zone looming over your head you would never see?
  I mean, wow right now is perfect for an mmo. Forget this causal hardcore bs. Firstly, 4 tanking classes that can tank all encounters. Great design, now i can play with my tank friend. ALL dps classes are doing comparable dps at the same gear level. All healers can handle most encounters. This means I get to play with my friends. Why do you not want to play with your friends?
  I can go to all intances and down it. Yes, nax was hard, we had to learn it and it took a 2 weeks before my guild could clear it.
  Ulduar is hard. It demands the entire raid understanding what is going on in the fight and avoiding mechanics as the healing and dps requirements are really tight. The tanks have lots of interesting things to do (esp OT's) that are key to the fight. They have eased up on it this week, but it is still a challenging instance with great pacing.
  If you want something you'll ever see, they have hard modes. Great! Seriously this game keeps evolving into something I can play casually and really grow and see all the new content without it taking over my life.
  Take all that away, you still have amazing artwork coupled with fun skills and abilities in classes that all play much differently from one another, and it is just a pleasure to be in the game world.
  I have yet to see an MMO come out that offers anything slightly unique to the standard tank, dps, healer triangle all mmo's have. If they are all the same gameplay, why would you not take the most polished one?
29. Re:10 years old now... by brkello · 2009-05-01 12:14 · Score: 1
  
  How does people still playing EQ counter my point? The numbers are insignificant and WoW has blown them away and kept people playing despite LotR, Conan, Warhammer, EQ2, etc etc.
  
  The PvE quest content getting to 80 was the best that Blizzard has put out to date. The raiding was weak, but Ulduar has helped that.
  
  I agree that WoW has been weak on PvP...they tried to do something about that with WG...but that is mainly a lag fest. But WoW was never really designed around PvP and I really don't care since any MMORPG sucks with PvP. Rather play CS or TF2.
  
  --
  Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
30. Re:10 years old now... by Anonymous Coward · 2009-05-04 08:01 · Score: 0
  
  Well, quake2 did have to compete with the original Unreal, albeit it was a mostly a single player game (unreal classic that is). And counterstrike itself was actually based on another free mod for q2, called actionq2. I would say the successor to counterstrike is the battlefield games. Both 1942 and bf2 have a strong dedicated playerbase.
A garbagebag full? by clickclickdrone · 2009-04-29 20:49 · Score: 1

Don't you mean a grab bag?

--
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
1. Re:A garbagebag full? by supernova_hq · 2009-04-29 21:41 · Score: 1
  
  Garbage bags are bigger. Although the way I play quake3, it should be a body bag!!
2. Re:A garbagebag full? by Ant+P. · 2009-04-29 23:53 · Score: 1
  
  It could be much worse. At least they managed to spell "garbage" correctly.
ql by Anonymous Coward · 2009-04-29 21:05 · Score: 0

theres no more queues in quake live.
ads are absolutly zero problem as well.
the only problem is the heavy cheating.
otherwise i salute the ioquake3 effort
1. Re:ql by Time+Doctor · 2009-04-29 21:10 · Score: 1
  
  yeah I was kidding about the ads and queue, but I don't think I should have made that joke in the first place. heh.
  
  --
  Check out ioquake3.org for a great, free, First-Person Shooter engine!
2. Re:ql by Anonymous Coward · 2009-04-30 02:49 · Score: 0
  
  What cheating?
  I see people bleating on the quakelive forums about aimbots and HAX all the time. 99.9% of the time it's just a bunch of random noobs who refuse to learn how to play and cry "HAX" when they encounter a player who outclasses them. I've yet to see one single demo of any player cheating in QL. Yes, you can search youtube for quakelive cheats and find some videos, but to say that quakelive is infested with heavy cheaters only makes you look like a complete noob. Seriously, learn to fucking play and quit calling "HAX" on players better than you, or GTFO.
  Even if someone was aimbotting, a good player will still win through proper map control, item timing, and choosing when to engage the opponent.
Go STEAM yourself ... by orangeguru · 2009-04-29 21:08 · Score: 2, Interesting

Steam is terrible and you can't sell your old games bought via that dreadful system.
And I still have my old QuakeIII CD ... somewhere ...
1. Re:Go STEAM yourself ... by Sockatume · 2009-04-29 21:36 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Maybe you sold it.
  
  --
  No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
2. Re:Go STEAM yourself ... by moon3 · 2009-04-29 22:56 · Score: 1
  
  Sorry mate, but Steam works, at least for me. I lost my CD also, now I can download purchased games again and again to any PC where I install Steam.. this is the future, forget CD/DVDs, really.
3. Re:Go STEAM yourself ... by Aladrin · 2009-04-29 22:57 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  This got modded 'funny', but I think 'insightful' would have been a lot better mod.
  Seriously, the 'you can't sell the game' argument falls apart for so many reasons.
  1) If it's a good game, you aren't going to sell it anyhow. At that point, Steam's easy and free replacement policy (just redownload it!) is much better than a physical CD.
  2) Even if you -can- resell it, you won't get the original price. You'll be lucky to get 1/4 of the price simply because you took the game out of the store.
  3) How many people have sold a used PC game lately? No stores will buy them back to resell because it doesn't work for PC gamers like it does for console gamers. That leaves other gamers via EBay or Craigslist. Personally, that's such a bloody hassle that I'd rather just lose the 1/4 of the cost I might get back from it.
  
  --
  "If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
4. Re:Go STEAM yourself ... by GrumblyStuff · 2009-04-29 23:20 · Score: 1
  
  No stores will buy them back to resell because it doesn't work for PC gamers like it does for console gamers.
  Stores take back console games? Opened ones?
  Nah, seems like anything remotely disc shaped and flat is sold "as is" with no ifs, ands, or buts about it.
  Ever try returning pancakes? Same deal.
5. Re:Go STEAM yourself ... by delt0r · 2009-04-29 23:22 · Score: 1
  
  This is not really true. In my experience there is a large sub-community that buys a game one weekend then sells or trades it in a few weeks/months later. They don't keep the game on the hard drive, they just are not interested in a game they have "finished". The boxes they return are mint and they usually get 50% or more the *current* retail price. The CD keys work fine (if its through a shop it has to be).
  
  I have got quite a few second hand games off these kinds of people and have never been disappointed. To them games are disposable items that you get rid of when finished. I don't do that with games and still have my original Q3 CD and T-shirt. But we are not all the same.
  
  For some people the ability to sell a game when they are finished is important.
  
  --
  If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
6. Re:Go STEAM yourself ... by delt0r · 2009-04-29 23:23 · Score: 1
  
  And when it doesn't? Then what?
  
  --
  If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
7. Re:Go STEAM yourself ... by quantumplacet · 2009-04-29 23:30 · Score: 1
  
  He said buy back, not return. Walk in to blockbuster/gamestop/[insert your local used game store here] with a bunch of console games and you'll walk out with cash (albeit not nearly what you paid originally). Walk in with a bunch of PC games and you'll walk out with... a bunch of PC games.
8. Re:Go STEAM yourself ... by Lisp+Craft · 2009-04-30 00:39 · Score: 1
  
  I bought Half-Life back in Russia, never got time to try it though. Then I moved to UK, and got a minute and thought - heck, this is part of culture now, I need to try it! So I opened the box, installed Steam, cause it's a requirement. And then Steam told me that I can't use this game I bought because I bought it in Russia and now I am in UK!
  So, I hate DRM, and believe I have the right to hate it. Because I actually lost money due to those ridiculous policies.
9. Re:Go STEAM yourself ... by Antique+Geekmeister · 2009-04-30 00:45 · Score: 1
  
  I sell some of mine back, to a local used game store, just to free up some space and let kids who are short on spare cash play old games. It also lets me play some slightly old games I didn't bother to buy new.
10. Re:Go STEAM yourself ... by bFusion · 2009-04-30 00:58 · Score: 1
  
  That's not entirely Steam's fault though, that's all government's crazy regulations :)
11. Re:Go STEAM yourself ... by bFusion · 2009-04-30 01:00 · Score: 1
  
  When what doesn't? Can you give me a date when Steam implodes and goes out of business? This seems to be the main anti-Steam selling point. Under this theory, you also shouldn't buy a car (or anything, for that matter) because eventually it will break.
12. Re:Go STEAM yourself ... by relguj9 · 2009-04-30 01:17 · Score: 1
  
  When what doesn't? Can you give me a date when Steam implodes and goes out of business? This seems to be the main anti-Steam selling point. Under this theory, you also shouldn't buy a car (or anything, for that matter) because eventually it will break.
  I tend to agree, I'll probably have lost the CD long before steam goes out of business.
  
  That or the game would be so old that I wouldn't want to play it anymore anyways (ie. Quake 3).
13. Re:Go STEAM yourself ... by bFusion · 2009-04-30 01:21 · Score: 1
  
  That or the game would be so old that I wouldn't want to play it anymore anyways (ie. Quake 3).
  Or will be essentially free anyway.
14. Re:Go STEAM yourself ... by delt0r · 2009-04-30 01:23 · Score: 1
  
  But I can get car fixed without a "genuine" dealer. And a car doesn't check with the manufacture for "authorization" before starting.
  
  For this car analogy to work, your BMW or Ford or whatever would need to disable itself the day BMW/Ford when out of business. You would not be able to drive to garage to get "fixed" and you wouldn't be able to buy any parts for it --ever. Furthermore working out a way to get it to work again, without requiring the built in authorization, would be a crime (a la DMCA).
  
  --
  If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
15. Re:Go STEAM yourself ... by bFusion · 2009-04-30 01:27 · Score: 1
  
  If BMW/Ford did go out of business, you would have a limited time to get parts because manufacturers would start phasing out those products.
  I agree that the car analogy wasn't the best, but the point I was trying to make remains the same.
16. Re:Go STEAM yourself ... by delt0r · 2009-04-30 01:33 · Score: 1
  
  Lots of folk make parts for cars. You don't need BMW or Ford to be around to keep their cars going. Just like I don't need id to support Quake 3 to keep playing it.
  
  Your faith in steam--a DRM server-- is far greater that I would give a company that just needs to turn a profit. Sooner or later some games will get phased out or they will go under or their server will not be upgraded enough etc etc. Its happened before, it will happen again.
  
  --
  If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
17. Re:Go STEAM yourself ... by bFusion · 2009-04-30 01:40 · Score: 1
  
  Just like the selling and hardware for floppy disks. I still bought them way back when because amazing games were contained within.
  Also, if Steam doesn't "unlock" their games if/when they go out of business, there are already methods available to emancipate those games from the Steam system. I'm not terribly worried.
  Anyway, this argument happens every damn time on Slashdot when Steam is mentioned. It goes nowhere. You may have the last word if you deem in necessary, good day :)
18. Re:Go STEAM yourself ... by Spokehedz · 2009-04-30 01:40 · Score: 1
  
  Steam isn't that bad, as it keeps all my games in one place forever and I never have to worry about finding the disks later when I want to play for 15mins and then get over the nostalgia I was feeling before.
  If Steam goes down and away forever? Then oh noes I have to search for 30 seconds to get the game I bought and paid for on Newsgroups.
  What is bad about Steam is that there is no built-in torrent support to make the damn games download faster. That should be a GD requirement for any of these online-based apps where 2-4gb of data has to be downloaded before I can play. If you check the servers for my Key, then what does it matter if I download it from somewhere else?
  Hell, even APT-P2P showed that was possible.
19. Re:Go STEAM yourself ... by MikeBabcock · 2009-04-30 02:05 · Score: 1
  
  Local stores here take back console games, for exchange only.
  Of course, you can trade in your old console games for cash at many stores, and doing so with PC games is nearly impossible.
  Personally, its not worth it and I just keep my games usually but my wife recently sold off $100 worth of my old PS2 games I don't play anymore.
  
  --
  - Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
20. Re:Go STEAM yourself ... by MikeBabcock · 2009-04-30 02:06 · Score: 1
  
  Those people are why renting is so popular for console gaming. I'd love to see a version of Steam that offered renting tbh.
  Oh well.
  
  --
  - Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
21. Re:Go STEAM yourself ... by MikeBabcock · 2009-04-30 02:08 · Score: 1
  
  Time for some of us geeks to make some good inter-country VPNs for these authentication sites that verify your IP address.
  A Squid-like proxy network that allows you to identify yourself as any participating country.
  Sigh.
  
  --
  - Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
22. Re:Go STEAM yourself ... by Spatial · 2009-04-30 02:13 · Score: 1
  
  There are no laws preventing you from playing a game you bought in a different country. It's purely Valve's doing. I remember when they invalidated a bunch of Orange Box purchases because they were bought cheap in China or something; they were legitimate, but it would threaten Valve's profits. So they removed them from the accounts just like that.
  
  Steam is a good service most of the time. But there are severe shortcomings even if they don't rear their heads often. Know what you're getting into.
23. Re:Go STEAM yourself ... by Hurricane78 · 2009-04-30 02:15 · Score: 1, Flamebait
  
  1) As soon as the Steam servers go down, this argument goes down with it. ^^
  By the way: I can not remember having a Steam login, and I bet it does not exist anymore. But I have HL2 as a Steam game, which came with my old graphics card. So how exactly do I download this again?? (Hint: I can't!)
  2) Even if yo don't get the original price, you get some money, and the *other* person can own and play it too!
  3) That argument is irrelevant, because it's not about the money. It's about being able to actually *own* a game. You know. To do with it what you please. Not to have an encrypted file on your system that you can only reinstall, when you got a Steam client and a Steam server available. And that still can corrupt.
  
  --
  Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
24. Re:Go STEAM yourself ... by delt0r · 2009-04-30 02:21 · Score: 1
  
  Well some of these guys (my brother for example) just does not rent them. He likes to have them for 2-3 weeks and says buying then selling is cheaper.
  
  But then again he keeps buying a xbox then selling to get a ps3 and trading that in for a wii which he then sells on ebay.... Perhaps he is not the best example to use.
  
  --
  If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
25. Re:Go STEAM yourself ... by bFusion · 2009-04-30 02:21 · Score: 1
  
  I wasn't aware of that. I guess the country-specific stuff was just the censoring. I know the German Team Fortress 2 game censored out some of the violence and stuff.
  Sorry for the confusion.
26. Re:Go STEAM yourself ... by i.r.id10t · 2009-04-30 02:32 · Score: 1
  
  I still have an unopened l33t tin edition for Linux. CD was shipped separately so it would arrive before christmas, so I never needed to open the tin.
  
  --
  Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
27. Re:Go STEAM yourself ... by The+Warlock · 2009-04-30 02:40 · Score: 1
  
  Your Steam login still exists, they don't delete accounts with paid games for inactivity (that would be retarded). You forgot it (hint: what e-mail address were you using at the time, you can recover your password that way), but GP poster forgot where he put his Q3A disc, so whatever.
  And I have a feeling that your game discs will decay before Steam's servers go down.
  
  --
  I've upped my standards, so up yours.
28. Re:Go STEAM yourself ... by ragefan · 2009-04-30 02:48 · Score: 1
  
  This got modded 'funny', but I think 'insightful' would have been a lot better mod.
  Seriously, the 'you can't sell the game' argument falls apart for so many reasons.
  1) If it's a good game, you aren't going to sell it anyhow. At that point, Steam's easy and free replacement policy (just redownload it!) is much better than a physical CD.
  And when Steam goes out of business, you have nothing at all to show for any of the games you have purchased.
  At least with the physical media, what happens to id does not affect the physical media.
29. Re:Go STEAM yourself ... by pwfffff · 2009-04-30 03:41 · Score: 1, Troll
  
  1) As soon as the Steam servers go down, they release a tool that unlocks all the files and removes the DRM. No, they're not bound by contract to do this, but they HAVE publicly announced it would happen and I still have this thing called 'trust'. You might wanna try it sometime, lest you go full blown paranoid schizophrenic. Also, how the hell did Steam force you to be a moron and forget your login information? Did you know that if you forget the password to a computer you're locked out of all that data FOREVER OMG!?! Better stop using computers at all.
  2) This is nice and all, but hardly necessary. Plus there's always the option of selling your Steam account and starting a new one for every game if you REALLY need that $3 or whatever.
  3) If you actually think you 'own' any of the software you buy you must have been in a coma for the past 20 years. You don't even 'own' consoles or their games; see the whole illegal modchip thing.
30. Re:Go STEAM yourself ... by Aladrin · 2009-04-30 04:33 · Score: 1
  
  You didn't buy the game through Steam. You bought the physical CD, then it installs Steam.
  Buying a CD of a Steam game does indeed hurt the buyer, since it's the worst of both worlds.
  
  --
  "If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
31. Re:Go STEAM yourself ... by s73v3r · 2009-04-30 04:52 · Score: 1
  
  Valve won't be going out of business until long after my wife makes me give up video games.
32. Re:Go STEAM yourself ... by bluesatin · 2009-04-30 04:54 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  I think it's more to do with pricing games differently in different markets.
  There was a huge issue with people buying games from Russia (or getting someone else to and then give them the cd-key) and then registering them on Steam.
  Prices may be like 50% cheaper in Russia I don't know, but Steam decided to crack down on it to allow them to continue selling games to growing markets at a prices the market can afford.
33. Re:Go STEAM yourself ... by bonch · 2009-04-30 05:04 · Score: 1
  
  Who buys used PC games anymore? I don't want somebody else's scratched and smudged up disc.
34. Re:Go STEAM yourself ... by PitaBred · 2009-04-30 05:24 · Score: 1
  
  And those problems keep me from buying more PC games. I mean, if I can't get rid of it if it sucks balls, why would I take a chance on it? I'd rather spend $60 on something else. Hell, that'd at least double many people's RAM.
  
  --
  My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
35. Re:Go STEAM yourself ... by ion.simon.c · 2009-04-30 19:02 · Score: 1
  
  It's about being able to actually *own* a game. You know. To do with it what you please.
  You haven't looked at any EULAs in the past ten to fifteen years, have you?
36. Re:Go STEAM yourself ... by ion.simon.c · 2009-04-30 19:04 · Score: 1
  
  Why not do what many folks do:
  Download the ISO from the Web.
  If you like the game, go and buy a legit copy.
  If you don't like the game, uninstall it and delete the ISO.
  PS: If your only argument against the practice is something along the lines of "I might get a virus/hacked!" don't bother replying. :)
37. Re:Go STEAM yourself ... by MikeBabcock · 2009-05-03 12:20 · Score: 1
  
  I rent games from a local shop that offers 3 night rentals for $5. I play them for a weekend and find that 90% of the time I've beaten the game in one weekend.
  The few games I haven't beaten in a weekend and wanted to play more, I've picked up used (from your brother perhaps) or after they're discounted.
  
  --
  - Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
Why the shot at Quake Live? by sahonen · 2009-04-29 21:16 · Score: 4, Informative

First off, QuakeLive hasn't had queues in MONTHS. It also has many more players and skill matching to keep games competitive. Seriously, why the shot?

--
Make me a friend and I'll mod you up
1. Re:Why the shot at Quake Live? by stas2k · 2009-04-29 23:07 · Score: 1
  
  Sadly, Quake Live has no Linux support.
2. Re:Why the shot at Quake Live? by Sir_Lewk · 2009-04-30 05:17 · Score: 1
  
  Compounding that sad fact is Quake Live seems to preform much worse than the original. Sure it still works fine on newer machines but just try playing it on that 2000-era PC that you used to use for Quake 3 back in the day. When I play I try to keep my fps locked down at 125 but that can actually be non-trivial with Quake Live.
  
  --
  "linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
3. Re:Why the shot at Quake Live? by sahonen · 2009-04-30 05:41 · Score: 1
  
  Linux and Mac are on their way, probably once they get out of beta.
  
  --
  Make me a friend and I'll mod you up
4. Re:Why the shot at Quake Live? by Time+Doctor · 2009-04-30 07:54 · Score: 1
  
  It was a dumb /joke/. Cry me a river.
  
  --
  Check out ioquake3.org for a great, free, First-Person Shooter engine!
5. Re:Why the shot at Quake Live? by sahonen · 2009-04-30 09:59 · Score: 1
  
  Welcome to the internet, where there's a lot less context to tell a joke from a serious comment. ;)
  
  --
  Make me a friend and I'll mod you up
6. Re:Why the shot at Quake Live? by dimovich · 2009-04-30 20:30 · Score: 1
  
  Well, I'm playing on a 2000-era computer, and it runs smoothly...
Make something original contest... by anomnomnomymous · 2009-04-29 21:26 · Score: 1

I hope that some team will finally create something more original than a remake of Quake 3.
Whereas I truely admire the effort that those teams put in, I think it's a shame that, few exceptions withholding, almost none of the games made with this source is truely original.
Most of the times it's just games that have all the assets replaced, maybe a few weapons added here and there, but always exactly the same gametypes (or small variations) from what we've seen in Quake 3.

When is some team going to stand up to give us a truely original game; The indie community has shown that it's able to provide us with great new gameplay-concepts; Why not use this great engine in that effort?

--
When you shoot a mime, do you use a silencer?
1. Re:Make something original contest... by sahonen · 2009-04-29 21:38 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  The reason is that Quake's gameplay has become a de-facto standard of sorts for competitive gaming. Most real-life competitive sports that people play regularly have been around a hundred years or more, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that computer gaming has standardized on older games as well. Quake isn't alone, we also have Starcraft in the RTS world, Counter-Strike in the team-based tactical FPS genre and probably a few others. For games as entertainment, yes we do want original ideas. For games as competition, we want stable platforms that players can rely on to stick around for a while to make the investment in developing skills in those games worthwhile.
  
  --
  Make me a friend and I'll mod you up
2. Re:Make something original contest... by supernova_hq · 2009-04-29 21:43 · Score: 1
  
  Have you ever played UrbanTerror? It has edge-climbing, wall-jumping, weapon-recoil, the works. The only thing CS has over UrbanTerror at this point (other than player base...) is flashbangs and ragdoll effects, but ragdoll is not really important to gameplay.
3. Re:Make something original contest... by KDR_11k · 2009-04-29 22:39 · Score: 1
  
  He asked for original efforts, not clones of non-Q3 games.
  
  --
  Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
4. Re:Make something original contest... by alexandre_ganso · 2009-04-29 23:30 · Score: 1
  
  Let's not forget ELITE. Spore's space level is just a remake of a 30-year old 32k game.
5. Re:Make something original contest... by Nocturnal+Deviant · 2009-04-29 23:52 · Score: 1
  
  im sorry but i have played counter strike for around 7 years i guess(no idea) ive been a top player as well....tactical????????
  if you consider screaming at each other on headsets GO B tactical then thats news to me...
  CS is quake without the insane speed(the whole fun of quake the acrobatics and simple fun of it), if you want tactical, play the rainbow six series. Counter strike, has more or less become a breeding ground for annoying morons in the past couple years, being that almost every good player never plays outside of private passworded servers, and the game lost all its fun value being that any good player who still cares about the game, but got past playing it seriously that plays on public servers is stuck listening to screaming kids.
  
  --
  -Noc
6. Re:Make something original contest... by bcmm · 2009-04-29 23:58 · Score: 1
  
  UrT isn't really comparable with CS. Also, IIRC UrT used to have flashbangs, before they were replaced with smoke.
  
  --
  # cat /dev/mem | strings | grep -i llama
  Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
7. Re:Make something original contest... by MikeBabcock · 2009-04-30 02:10 · Score: 1
  
  You're reminding me of all the reviewers who complained about how 'sluggish' Killzone 2 feels.
  Its not supposed to be Quake, you're not supposed to be able to run 40 miles an hour with a full kit on, and turning around while carrying a rocket launcher isn't as easy as you think it is :-)
  Personally, I enjoy having to think before just running into a room firing blindly.
  
  --
  - Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
8. Re:Make something original contest... by Sir_Lewk · 2009-04-30 05:29 · Score: 1
  
  Urban Terror isn't a clone of CS, it's origins are the Quake 2 mod "Action Quake 2" from 1998. The first beta release of CS was in 1999. Furthermore they feature entirely different styles of gameplay, their only real simularity is they both feature realistic weapon models.
  
  --
  "linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
9. Re:Make something original contest... by sahonen · 2009-04-30 05:45 · Score: 1
  
  I wasn't talking about "good" or "fun" games, I was talking about games that, for better or for worse, became the de-facto standards for high-level competitive play in tournaments by virtue of being the first of their kind. Believe me, I'll be the first to say that CS is a terrible game with its random-number-generator weapons and a money system that punishes the losing team by making it extremely difficult to turn around a losing streak. Not to mention the absurdity of sending an elite counter-terrorist unit into a situation armed only with pistols. All these things don't make it any less mind-numbingly popular, however. C'est la vie.
  
  --
  Make me a friend and I'll mod you up
10. Re:Make something original contest... by supernova_hq · 2009-05-01 06:12 · Score: 1
  
  UrT isn't really comparable with CS.
  That is entirely up to personal opinion. Most UrT players much prefer it to CS (even those who placed CS for years). We actually had a big in-game chat about the physics, gameplay, etc with a few new guys and a bunch of old CS players
11. Re:Make something original contest... by bcmm · 2009-05-06 01:08 · Score: 1
  
  I prefer UrT. I just meant that they aren't really the same genre.
  
  --
  # cat /dev/mem | strings | grep -i llama
  Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
NOT slashdotted?!? by supernova_hq · 2009-04-29 21:48 · Score: 0, Offtopic

Wow, ioquake3's website STILL hasn't been slashdotted.

GET YOUR DOWNLOADS BEFORE THEY DIE!
1. Re:NOT slashdotted?!? by Anonymous Coward · 2009-04-29 23:05 · Score: 0
  
  Perhaps they were well prepared.
On to the next project by Anonymous Coward · 2009-04-29 22:27 · Score: 0

It's about time for Doom3 sources. It's been only like, 6 years already.
Maybe some of the good stuff can be ported over. Doom3 is written in C++ though, so I expect things to be a lil' bit different from previous iD engines.
Dear id Software, by nitroyogi · 2009-04-29 22:50 · Score: 5, Insightful

Please officially (re?)release hordes of Q3A CDs all across the globe. Its a fine game! Kids and grown ups alike all across the world would enjoy it. It can easily be the de-facto standard in entry level serious gaming.
You can cut down on support explicitly. Its OK. Quake community is very smart and big. It can easily support newcomers. But the legit media is something always desirable - it is convenient and trustworthy. But please sell it cheap. Around 4-5$. You will easily find lots of CD pressers and distributors to take away all the logistic pains from you.
And there would be assured buys of millions of legit cheap Q3A CDs by enthusiastic gamers worldwide. Its already a must-have game in your game collection anyways. Every body will be happy.
Maybe, its a business decision to stop issuing more Q3A CDs. So please make another one to start issuing it again. It won't make you losses. No way. And gamers would be happy.
The core game is awesome & kick-ass. 3rd party mods, addons, maps, etc make it ever so expandable. The community will always have some innovative way to modify it. Look at 'WoP'! Amazing!
In the end, I can only make a request. Please start selling Q3A: Gold Edition CDs again.
Over & out!
1. Re:Dear id Software, by kerp11 · 2009-04-29 23:48 · Score: 1
  
  they are doing just that: http://www.quakelive.com/ but without the need for the CD
2. Re:Dear id Software, by gbarules2999 · 2009-04-30 00:56 · Score: 0
  
  Some people don't like crappy ads, and some people want to play their game offline. Some people also run Linux. It's a good start, though, but it annoyed the crap out of me.
  
  If id were to put Q3 on gog.com for $6, I can't even imagine the money those two could garner.
3. Re:Dear id Software, by gosand · 2009-04-30 01:34 · Score: 1
  
  Please officially (re?)release hordes of Q3A CDs all across the globe. Its a fine game! Kids and grown ups alike all across the world would enjoy it. It can easily be the de-facto standard in entry level serious gaming.
  Damn, I'm old. I miss Quake MegaTF, which was the last time I seriously played online.
  
  --
  
  My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
4. Re:Dear id Software, by Hurricane78 · 2009-04-30 01:59 · Score: 1
  
  No. Quake live is a poor excuse for a joke. It can't hold a candle to CPMA.
  By the way: There is also High Quality Quake. With the Chili Quake 3 high-def graphics update, based on the EvolutionQ3 engine, with the impressive XreaL renderer, new high-res models and textures.
  
  --
  Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
5. Re:Dear id Software, by bonch · 2009-04-30 05:05 · Score: 1
  
  They're already releasing the game for free to play in a browser. What more do you want?
Ads and queues in your FREE GAME by trawg · 2009-04-29 23:44 · Score: 4, Insightful

That little sotto voce whine about the ads in Quake Live is really lame. It's a free game. Are you seriously so obsessed with hating ads you'll pass up the opportunity to get a free game (which, by all reports from amongst my Quake-fan friends, is excellent) and cop the occasional ad?
I'd rather not buy Quake 3 again (it's not just "getting a copy" of Steam, you have to buy it) and just enjoy Quake Live.
ioquake is a fucking awesome project, but seriously
1. Re:Ads and queues in your FREE GAME by Ant+P. · 2009-04-29 23:57 · Score: 1
  
  It's only fair that id Software should tell people how to block Slashdot's ads in retaliation.
  Fortunately, they don't stoop to Soulskill's level.
2. Re:Ads and queues in your FREE GAME by kentrel · 2009-04-30 00:57 · Score: 1
  
  He's wrong too. Sounds like he didn't play quake live, but just listened to some of the whingers from its first day. Quake Live doesn't even have queues any more. That was a temporary system they brought in when they went public to give them time to bring in more servers.
  The ads are usually nothing more than a billboard in the background that you barely even notice. It might as well be another wall texture for the amount of difference it makes to the gaming experience.
3. Re:Ads and queues in your FREE GAME by TJamieson · 2009-04-30 01:44 · Score: 1
  
  True, you do have to buy the copy via Steam, but they run so many sales -- when I picked up Q3, I got Q3 and TA for about $10(!). At this point, with source code freely available, I look at it as paying $10 for the data files, to do with as you wish. Pretty freakin' good deal, if you ask me.
  
  --
  For the last time, PIN Number and ATM Machine are redundancies!
4. Re:Ads and queues in your FREE GAME by DaleGlass · 2009-04-30 02:57 · Score: 1
  
  That little sotto voce whine about the ads in Quake Live is really lame. It's a free game. Are you seriously so obsessed with hating ads you'll pass up the opportunity to get a free game (which, by all reports from amongst my Quake-fan friends, is excellent) and cop the occasional ad?
  Yes.
  I play games to get away from the real world for a while. I already see ads on TV, walls, billboards, underground and my cellphone. That's more than enough, I don't want any more of them.
  I'm mostly free of them on the web, thanks to ad blocking and simply avoiding anything where one manages to get through.
  I can't wait to get rid of the rest of them, as soon as somebody invents image filtering glasses.
5. Re:Ads and queues in your FREE GAME by ShakaUVM · 2009-04-30 05:01 · Score: 1
  
  Quake1 is both free and more fun than Quake3. Graphics in engines like FTEQuake work with Quake1 through Quake3 maps, and have shaders, bloom, etc.
  Plus you can play CustomTF. =)
  http://quake.phoenixlabs.org/
Quake Live? by destroyer661 · 2009-04-29 23:47 · Score: 5, Insightful

Uh.. What's the point of buying Quake 3 anymore when Quake Live exists?

--
#define true false // Have fun debugging!
1. Re:Quake Live? by anjilslaire · 2009-04-30 02:15 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Uh.. What's the point of buying Quake 3 anymore when Quake Live exists?
  Uh, no Linux support yet?
  
  --
  Need more useless stuff to read on teh internetz?
2. Re:Quake Live? by bonch · 2009-04-30 05:07 · Score: 1
  
  Surprisingly, Quake Live doesn't support mods.
3. Re:Quake Live? by Anonymous Coward · 2009-04-30 05:55 · Score: 1, Informative
  
  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.
  This^
4. Re:Quake Live? by leathered · 2009-04-30 06:40 · Score: 1
  
  For me to finally uninstall Q3 would require Quake Live to give me (in no particular order) RA3, Threewave CTF, OSP, CPMA and Defrag. Then we'll talk.
  
  --
  For all intensive porpoises your a bunch of rediculous loosers
5. Re:Quake Live? by Eil · 2009-04-30 09:30 · Score: 1
  
  Because Quake Live only runs on Windows.
  (And actually, there are a lot of free FPS games that run on Linux which are arguably as good or better than Q3A anyway.)
Anonymous Coward by Anonymous Coward · 2009-04-30 00:58 · Score: 0

A day late and a honey baked ham short. What's next, Discs of Tron?
Re:What, No AmigaOS Support by mdwh2 · 2009-04-30 01:26 · Score: 1

You have to be kidding.
Fixed so much by default+luser · 2009-04-30 05:23 · Score: 1

But did they fix the exploit in Quake 3 where players with higher frame rates jumped longer? It's a known bug in the physics engine.

--
Man is the animal that laughs.
And occasionally whores for Karma.
So... it's an operating system? by hessian · 2009-04-30 05:44 · Score: 1

Full x86-64 architecture support; Rewritten PowerPC JIT compiler, with ppc64 support; new SPARC JIT compiler, with support for both sparc32 and sparc64; improved console command auto-completion; persistent console command history; improved QVM (Quake Virtual Machine) tools; colored terminal output on POSIX operating systems;
At this rate, we should just expand it to take over those trivial remaining functions entitled to the operating system, and give it to Apple.

--
Futurist Traditionalism
Building on a Mac... by azav · 2009-04-30 07:25 · Score: 1

If you can build this in a Mac, you're a better person than I.
FYI, the required make file (/make-macosx-ub.sh) is in the download but not in the SVN branch, so the instructions for building fail for the Mac.

--
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
A key is not legally necessary by 0p7imu5_P2im3 · 2009-04-30 07:41 · Score: 1

IIRC, if you purchased a license, the key is only proof of that license. Technically, if you lost (and did not sell) your key, you still own a license and can take whatever means necessary to use your license.

--
Resistance is futile. Your technological distinctiveness will be added to our own. You will become one with the morgue