Quake Live Dev Says Mac and Linux Are "Top Priority"

AlexMax2742 writes "id's Marty Stratton notes the following in his Quake Live developer blog on the subject of the Mac and Linux port of Quake Live: 'These have proved more difficult than expected, but we're getting close. We expect to also be testing Mac and Linux versions of Quake Live internally this month and then making those publicly available just as soon as we feel they are ready. This work is being done by a separate programmer in parallel with the other work that we're doing, and is his only priority — point being, that this is a top priority for us and not being delayed because of other work.' In my humble opinion, it's awesome to see that kind of (continued) dedication from a company." The post also indicates that progress is being made on the much-awaited private server functionality, and part two makes brief mention of match broadcasting and community-made maps.

Comments

Interesting spin

[smallfries]

So is only putting one programmer on the job a priority?

Re:Interesting spin

[Artraze]

If it was designed from the start to be cross-platform compatible (e.g. using OpenGL rather than DirectX), then yes, one programmer is more than enough. All the logic, scripting, and models will carry over no matter what, which really leaves debugging whatever minor environmental and graphical inconsistencies that arise.

Re:Interesting spin

[hubert.lepicki]

That was also my first thought. One programmer? Come on!

Anyone knows if Linux client will be free software, so I can built it fo x86_64 (assuming it'll not be available for x86_64 since beginning)?

PS: Just yesterday tried new ioquake3 with VOIP and it's just great, wondering if people will switch to Quake Live anyway...

Re:Interesting spin

[wolfie123]

Well, you could always put ten programmers on the job and see how they all help to deliver the baby in less than 9 mythical months...

Re:Interesting spin

[Paralizer]

id is small. They used to have a list of everyone who worked there on their site, but I can't find it anymore. It was no more than a two dozen people, most of which were artists.

Re:Interesting spin

[Anonymous Coward]

Given the size of the project, absolutely. AFAIK only 4 people are working on QuakeLive.

Re:Interesting spin

[thetoadwarrior]

As I recall the Quake live team is tiny anyway and between the existing QL code and Q3's original Linux source code they probably didn't think it would take that long to knock something out.

Re:Interesting spin

[Anonymous Coward]

[ ] Post Anonymously

hum.. someone forgot to check this..

Re:Interesting spin

[gardyloo]

one programmer is more than enough

So then zero is about right?

Re:Interesting spin

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think you understand exactly how large 1% is. That would mean exactly 1 out of every 100 users is a Linux user. If 90% of the US population uses a PC, and 1% use Linux, then that would mean a total of 2.7million Linux users in the US alone. Thats more than half the current install base of the PS3 in the US.

Re:Interesting spin

[Macrat]

If it was designed from the start to be cross-platform compatible

Funny, Windows programmers always say that. But before you can port their code you always have to rewrite all their crap Windows specific code.

Re:Interesting spin

[xyxvv]

yeah, but this is basically a tricked out Quake 3 Arena, a game that has had native Mac and Linux ports forever. What you also have to remember is that ID only has like what, 50 people total in the company, and most of those are devoted to making Doom 4, not to this grand little experiment of selling ads in souped up browser games. They've already stated that if it catches on they'll be doing Return To Castle Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory. What sucks is that this method gets too powerful it may be the only way to play any future releases online.

Re:Interesting spin

[Ximok]

It's one more programmer than most companies dedicate to the two operating systems. I think it's great that they are doing it, even if it isn't a whole team working on it.

Now if only we could get other game developers to do the same (Valve? Blizzard? etc etc etc) It'd be nice to see Tux and an Apple chilling out next to the Windows logo on these games. In theory, it should open up the game's market share. If nothing else, give them a better reputation amongst gamers.

Re:Interesting spin

[Xipher]

id Software has since exploded in size, and I think I heard they had about 40 people employed and 2 full teams going. As I under stand it currently there is a team working on Rage and another working on QuakeLive.

Re:Interesting spin

[WGFCrafty]

If you've ever been to Id's offices, you'd see that it is a tiny little place.

I worked in the same office building as id for about a year and finally went into their offices a couple of months ago. I saw no more than five our six people working at around noon. They get things done somehow though.

Re:Interesting spin

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the dev's mentioned in their IRC channel that they only had EIGHT developers on the entire QL project.

Re:Interesting spin

[WeblionX]

So is it Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory or Return to Castle Wolfenstein?

Re:Interesting spin

[Yvanhoe]

Should be. In an ideal world of really flawless corss-platform libs, the only thing to rewrite would be the makefiles...

Re:Interesting spin

[Anonymous Coward]

People buy a PS3 to play games (or to play blue ray). Nobody installs linux to play games. In fact, most linux users dual boot into windows or fire up WINE when they want to play games.

Re:Interesting spin

[Maexxus]

Well the Quake 3 engine is most definitely cross platform, and is being ported to many architectures (as seen by the ioquake3 posts here), but I think the real battle id is facing is not getting the engine itself running, but getting it to run inside the target web browsers. As far as I can tell each browser platform does this in a slightly different way, and I think there are already separate builds for IE and Firefox on Windows to accommodate this.

Re:Interesting spin

[smallfries]

Ahh so you went in off-peak. I wonder what it's like in there around midnight? Assuming they're like any other software house I'm guessing you saw their "nightshift"

Re:Interesting spin

[TheCycoONE]

Some people install linux who would still like to play games, WINE is a long way from a perfect solution, and rebooting is a hassle. Even though I have a dual boot system with XP, I love that I can play neverwinter nights natively in linux and play it more than my other games because of that.

Re:Interesting spin

[xyxvv]

Last I checked the whole thing. Wolfenstein 3d was the great grand pappy of all FPS games, they did a reimagining of the series with return to castle wolfenstein, to which enemy territory was to be an expansion. it didn't do as well as expected so the enemy territiry expansion was just released as freeware for online play only, no single player storyline mode. The original Castle Wolfenstein was a 2d game for the Apple IIe.

Re:Interesting spin

[AlexMax2742]

Considering the fact that the team size is around 10 or so at this point, and it is one programmer with no other responsibilities while the rest of the team multitasks, I say yes.

Re:Interesting spin

[Anonymous Coward]

...which has nothing to do with the refutation of the idea that 1% is "really really small".

Re:Interesting spin

[Narishma]

And another working on Doom 4. And the Quake Live team is the smallest of them.

Re:Interesting spin

[Anonymous Coward]

You forget the fact that Q3 used OSS, afaik.

Re:Interesting spin

[ToasterMonkey]

So is it Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory or Return to Castle Wolfenstein?

RtCW is the game ID developed.
ET is a online-only sequel to RtCW's online component, developed by Splash Damage. I'm not sure if they also worked on RtCW's original multiplayer mode or not.

Basically, RtCW is your typical ID fps, while its multiplayer mode was a wild, class based, multiple objective, online game. ET is an expansion of that part, but also a standalone game. Free too, also with Mac & Linux ports. Go check it out.

Re:Interesting spin

[WeblionX]

Yeah... I was responding to his random merger of two game titles.

Re:Interesting spin

[WeblionX]

W:ET was never actually an expansion to RTCW, it was a standalone game. However the single-player portion fell through and they wound up releasing the game as a free standalone game.

Re:Interesting spin

[Anonymous Coward]

Bzzzt, Wrong answer. Thanks for playing.

I in fact install Linux and play games on it. I refuse to use WINE to play games.

I do enjoy a fair number of FP games. Most of those being ID games or built on ID tech. I applaud ID for supporting Linux. As far as only one programmer being dedicated to it, The last time I visited them, ID's development platform was IRIX. (Yes that was quite sometime ago) I would bet they are using Solaris or AIX now. So porting over to Linux and MAC (BSD) could be done by a college freshman, in his sleep.

I honestly don't get it

[TheRaven64]

The point of browser-based games is that the end user doesn't need to install anything, but Quake Live is a browser plugin, so it's basically a complete, stand-alone game. Except that it is now dependent on browser plugin APIs for, apparently, no reason. Why is this better than a stand-alone online-only game? It seems to be 'browser' based only in as much as that the browser launches the game and the game runs in the browser's address space (and so can break it). If you want closer browser-game integration, a better approach seems to be to register a handler for a custom URL schema (e.g. quakelive://) so any links in the browser that start like that are handed off to your game.

Re:I honestly don't get it

[thetoadwarrior]

The point of browser-based games is that the end user doesn't need to install anything,

So where are these browser games that don't need anything to be installed?

All the browser basde games I've seen require either Java or Flash and work in the same fashion as Quake live.

Re:I honestly don't get it

[TheRaven64]

Games like Urban Dead are pure HTML, a few are JS/HTML/SVG/Canvas tag. Even for Flash and Java games, there is a big difference between using a general-purpose plugin that is used by a large number of sites, and requiring a dedicated one for just that site.

Re:I honestly don't get it

[Trepidity]

That's not really the same fashion. You install Flash once to play all Flash games on the internet; you don't have to install a new browser plugin for each specific game. The advantage to the end-user there is that they can click around the internet and play things without installing new plugins, once they've done it once.

Now if id was proposing a new general browser plugin that many games could use, that'd be similar. But it seems that this is a Quake-Live-specific plugin, so it really is sort of like downloading an .exe and running it, only it's in the browser for no apparent reason.

Re:I honestly don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the idea of putting it in a browser was to make it easier for people to play, for example there's no need to search for and download all sorts of maps and updates before you can play and no need to install a server browser like QTracker or join an irc channel to find people to play against.

That's the idea anway, even if it is completely stupid. id are about ten years too late in realising that features like match-making, auto-updates and a good server browser that lets people easily find an opponent are necessary parts of an online game. Upon finally having this revolation they've somehow come to the conclusion that the solution is to stick the game in a browser.

In my opinion there's no need for the browser and all they had to do was provide a decent auto-update mechanism for games so that mods and updates would be downloaded automatically. I honestly don't know where the browser nonsense comes into it since everything that's done in the broswer could have been done from the in game interface.

Their whole reasoning process is beyond me from putting the game in the broswer to choosing a ten year old game that has been played to death and expecting droves of people to play it. From what I've see the number of regular players is about equal to the size of the development team and the whole thing appears to be a total failure. Still, it's their time and money so they can do whatever the hell they want with it.

Re:I honestly don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't Urban Dead text-based? Show me the graphics, I'll show a plugin.

Re:I honestly don't get it

[Antique Geekmeister]

Kingdom of Loathing is pretty modest in requirements. It does use JavaScript.

It's also frankly much better than many high end, graphical games.

Re:I honestly don't get it

[Brian Gordon]

Flash and Java don't count because you already use and trust them. Web apps can take advantage of the already-installed plugins and run without executing untrusted code. But if you have to install a whole new plugin then you might as well just run Q3 standalone.

Re:I honestly don't get it

[Brian Gordon]

There is an "auto update" feature. You automatically download resources from the server when you don't have them locally.

Re:I honestly don't get it

[citizenr]

Exactly, they aim at cross platform but cant even deliver cross browser (doesnt work under Opera)

Re:I honestly don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

At what point did I say there wasn't an auto-update feature in Quakelive? What I said was that there's no reason for the game to be in a browser just to add auto-updates and it could have all been done from the ingame interface.

Re:I honestly don't get it

[SirSlud]

hrm? i can log in at 5am and play with 12 other people easy. i dont think user base is a problem.

and the browser integration is just fine .. i hate in-game server browers with a passion - the fact that quake-live's server browser is a million times better than the best other in game server browser speaks volumes about how good of an idea it was to host the server browsing in a web browser plugin. (Not that it was the first browser-plugin-based server browser, mind you.)

dunno why people have a problem with quake live - q3 is a bajallion years old, and im playing ql every goddamned night with 5 or so recent 360 games sitting idly on the shelf. the game is fps at its distilled, pure, best. whine when Call of Duty is available on Linux.

Re:I honestly don't get it

[son1dow]

Try registering, installing and playing it. It's build to be as simple as it can. That's why, I think, marketing it as a browser game is a great idea, as it just sounds like you can try it in a few minutes.

Re:I honestly don't get it

[Macrat]

That's not really the same fashion. You install Flash once to play all Flash games on the internet; you don't have to install a new browser plugin for each specific game.

Requires you install Flash 5

Requires you install Flash 6

Requires you install Flash 7

Requires you install Flash 8

Requires you install Flash 9

Requires you install Flash 10

Re:I honestly don't get it

[Hurricane78]

Hey, why not see it the other way: The Quake engine becoming a standard plugin that you can expect to be there.

Imagine it being totally integrated in the site. Allowing proper 3D, and then becoming a required plugin for Kongregate. That would be so cool.

The Quake engine has seen huge amounts of love over the decade that it's existing now. And I hope with things like XreaL and High Quality Quake, it will stay a bit longer.

Oh, and as long as there is no complete support for CPMA and Defrag, I'm not going to replace my installation with Quake live. :)

Re:I honestly don't get it

[thetoadwarrior]

Who is to say Quake Live won't become a general purpose gaming plugin. Just like mod could let you play more or less any game within Quake, Quake 2, etc. The same could potentially happen with Quake live.

As I recall this is more of an experiment for Id. If it takes off they may expand upon the plug-in to be much more. We'll have to see.

Also given Id's habit of eventually releasing their source code means the same may happen and someone could take it some where completely different and we should be grateful that there is one developer that has always looked after Linux users and favours open source.

If you don't care for Quake Live, that's fine, you can play something else or play normal Quake 3. Those of us that like what does and what it may lead to will continue to play it.

Re:I honestly don't get it

[StormReaver]

I think this is largely a test bed for software as a service.

Re:I honestly don't get it

[melikamp]

Second. QL is one smoooooth FPS.

-RobotJesus

Re:I honestly don't get it

[blahplusplus]

"The point of browser-based games is that the end user doesn't need to install anything,"

We could have said the same thing about Adobe Flash which is now ubiquitous on the web or active x plugins, or any number of web plugins.

I understand your point but really the issue is making the plugin installation easy and transparent. Ideally everything would be automated without user intervention but the political issues and general user and corporate, and malicious malware idiots of the world would find some way to fuck it up.

The web interface for Q3 is pretty good and it sure beats the pants off of old clunky server browsers like gamespy for the average person who doesn't know, nor want to know much about computers and just get into the game and play.

Re:I honestly don't get it

[byornski]

swing and a miss... the parent obviously meant with the real quake client

Re:I honestly don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

They use the browser the same way Valve uses the Steam app. It's a wrapper for finding servers to play on and communicating or finding other players, and keeping the game client up to date. It probably saves them a lot of development time to use the browser (which you can assume every user has) instead of developing and maintaining their own separate app (again, like Valve and Steam).

Especially since they're only supporting one product, unlike Steam.

Re:I honestly don't get it

[Patch86]

The difference there being that most people will have Java or Flash installed already, for the 100s of other sites that demand it. For most people, having Java and Flash installed is part of the basics of having a working computer.

I'm not sure if that's the same for the Quake plugin. Will anything other than id games be using it, or will it be a download just for playing this game? If it's the latter, they might as well have just stuck with the normal client software platform that multiplayer games have been using for decades.

Re:I honestly don't get it

[louks]

I believe id is using the web browser/plugin for a couple of reasons. First, they want to efficiently simplify the updating system. Once you login, it always checks and updates files in the plugin to make sure they're up to date. It will also update in-game ads use. Today, this is often done by yet another program to run in the background of your computer (jusched.exe comes to mind).

The second purpose is to unify the user experience. Since Quake Live is designed to be an on-line "community", they want the forums, chat boxes, user profiles/stats, and game searches to be in a single interface. Even if you play the game in full-screen, once your match is completed it takes you back to the "lobby" which is just a nice web page, complete with ads and instant updates.

It does seem silly on the face of it to think that the plugin is large enough to be a stand-alone download, but there are some legitimate business and technological reasons for making it the way they did.

Re:I honestly don't get it

[tedgyz]

Thank you, thank you, thank you! That game is a blast. It really points out how a fun game does not need state-of-the-art graphics. It reminds me of the days playing text based adventure games on PDP-11s, including the pre-Zork game DUNGEON.

Re:I honestly don't get it

[Antique Geekmeister]

> That's not really the same fashion. You install Flash once [a week] to play [the latest] Flash games on the internet;

I fixed that for you. The tendency of the flash games designers to insist on the latest version, for absolutely no performance reason, is burdensome to web clients.

Re:I honestly don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

The quake live browser plugin is basically an .exe, and it downloads 260mb of game data files, so it's basically a regular game, so why bundle it with a browser? Kinda defeats the point of a browser-based game. They couldve had a normal 260mb file download, which can update itself, and have a website where players have to register in order to login and play. Much better.

If there 'one person' is...

[Anonymous Coward]

Tim Willits I have complete faith, since he's come through on a linux port for every other id game he's worked on.

about time

[brenddie]

I was wondering why they went browser based if it was only going to run on windows. Lets just hope that linux/mac support remains a priority. I seen other "cross-platform" games were linux/mac support always lag behind windows support.

Re:about time

[Ascagnel]

They want it browser based so its stupid simple to set up and play. Think about a site like Kongregate or Newgrounds: the barrier to entry is minimal (just install the latest Flash plugin) and you can play all the games for free + ads. QuakeLive is an attempt to move that model to more "hardcore" games.

Just Great

[magsol]

Now that I'm almost completely addicted to the game, they finish up the Mac port so that I'll be able to play the game on my MacBook while I'm in lecture during the day. And as an added bonus, there will be private servers I can meet my friends on.

I am so going to fail out of school.

Re:Just Great

[JimXugle]

Nah... just as long as you don't pick up World of Warcraft, you should be fine.

Re:Just Great

[epsy]

You mean World of Quake Live ( http://cdn-web.quakelive.com/web75/css/valances/fool-2009/merged_v75.0.jpg )?

Re:Just Great

[Anonymous Coward]

i used to play counterstrike in class--try not to get frustrated and yell obscenities when you get killed. It's really embarrassing.

I love ID software

[bestadvocate]

They've made a lot of great games, and they open source there older platforms. What more can you ask from a software company?

On a side note Quake Live is fun

Re:I love ID software

[Anonymous Coward]

What more can you ask from a software company?

That they release their software multiplatform? That's what keeps me coming back to ID.

My top priority

[Anonymous Coward]

My top priority would be to remove the quad and the bfg from every map.
These two items make the game suck.

Re:My top priority

[Anonymous Coward]

You just don't appreciate the subtleties involved in using those items.

You probably enjoy a boring round of rail only action.

Re:My top priority

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh yeah, I love the subtlety of the quad in the morning.

Seriously, quad is way too powerfull in QL (x4 while it was x3 in Q3A), that added to a ridiculously low frag limit (30), just completely ruins FFA games. Anyone with a little skill who's 1st to get the quad is almost assured to win the game.
I didn't like the quad in Q3A, but I could live with it. In QL it's really worse, I now consider stop playing.

Re:My top priority

[xyxvv]

simple, gang up on the guy with the quad, so what it's ffa, I've killed the quad holder plenty of times.

Re:My top priority

[centuren]

simple, gang up on the guy with the quad, so what it's ffa, I've killed the quad holder plenty of times.

Or take advantage of that 3D sound card and your knowledge of the map's sounds, and stay out of the quad carrier's way. Hearing the quad timer count down it's end without the player having gotten any kills is one of life's small pleasures.

You can also try a timeless classic: wait until he pulls out the rocket launcher, then leap out at him suddenly with the super shotgun. After you've removed his advantage via a bloody explosion, the following race from spawn points to where the quad and weapons are sitting is added fun.

Good times!

Just Quake

[djauto23]

Quake as a browserplugin? What's the point? What makes it better to play in a browser? I fail to get the point, you'll have to download a binary in any case.

Re:Just Quake

[citizenr]

What makes it better to play in a browser?

play? nothing. But you get to have this rich beautifull interface with stats, profiles teams clans tags battles tournaments accesible from the web at no additional cost.

Re:Just Quake

[Midnight Thunder]

Quake as a browserplugin? What's the point? What makes it better to play in a browser? I fail to get the point, you'll have to download a binary in any case.

Like many things it is because they can. Id is about paving the way with new gaming technologies, which usually are built around gaming graphics engines. Chances are any work that Id does here they will be able to license to other companies.

Just one question: If they are planning on a cross-platform web based gaming solution, then I imagine C3DL is the way to go?

Re:Just Quake

[xyxvv]

the servers are all ranked, if you suck you can get in on games you actually stand a chance in. If you pwn you get games where you are actually going to be challenged in.

Re:Just Quake

[Maexxus]

Exactly, and this is breathing a lot of new life into the Quake community. I suspect many players will make their way to Vanilla Quake 3 and likely CPMA as well.

Re:Just Quake

[Walter Carver]

This interface could be performed inside the game too. A brower is a crude way to do it.

Re:Just Quake

[citizenr]

This interface could be performed inside the game too. A brower is a crude way to do it.

can you link to a game interface from email? or online forum post?

Re:Just Quake

[Walter Carver]

I don't think so, and I don't want to. But this facility can be implemented with a website that will simply show the current state of matches, not require for me to go through the web interface to play a match.

QuakeLive is in a web interface because of the hype around web apps.

priority?

[nomadic]

Why on earth would any sane company make a linux port a priority? I mean, don't get me wrong, I play linux ports (of good games, like UT), but I am under no illusion that the companies are focusing more than a tiny fraction of their efforts on making them. Makes no business sense whatsoever.

Re:priority?

[Brian Gordon]

Not when you've invested as much as id has in wooing our crowd with open sourcinq quake 3

Re:priority?

[Joe Jordan]

Sure it does. Catering to the Linux community creates good will. The geeks that use Linux often have influence over the technology selections of others and are more likely to recommend products from a company that, in their eyes, has done something good. Every business decision does not have to equal measurable profits. Some decisions may have no effect on the bottom line today, but by doing The Right Thing by some, will reap rewards in the future.

... Or maybe Carmack just wants to play a little FFA on his Linux box. :)

Re:priority?

[son1dow]

Because firstly, it's OpenGL. It's damn easy to port it to Linux. Second, it's not that type of a game that you're used to see. Their market is everybody that uses a browser, thus having it run on every computer is a lot more important. Not that I think they would port it to Linux if porting it to OS X wouldn't be half of the job ;)

Re:priority?

[drinkypoo]

Why on earth would any sane company make a linux port a priority?

"A" priority doesn't mean a thing. If it were the priority it would have come out at the same time as the Windows support (or before) but since it didn't it's obviously one of those "when we get around to it" type things. As well it should be — they have already reached the largest part of the market.

Re:priority?

[nomadic]

The geeks that use Linux often have influence over the technology selections of others and are more likely to recommend products from a company that, in their eyes, has done something good.

Uhhh....huh? A sysadmin is going to recommend to the CTO that the company migrate their database to Quake Wars?

Re:priority?

[uniquegeek]

A corollary to that third sentence is that the percentage of gamers or potential gamers is probably much higher among those who use or consider using Linux.

We need to keep in mind there's a big chunk of people who use Windows who tend not to be gamers. Your own parents, aunts and uncles, seniors, adults who just had a family. Never mind all the Windows users (Windows market share) in the workplace who aren't about to install games on those machines.

What, then, is the true percentage of the Windows gamer's market? It's actually not logical to claim that if Windows:Linux usage is 100:1, then the gaming market is also 100:1.

Re:priority?

[Spit]

I've bought every id game because they port to Linux. They've made a few bucks off me, times that by a few others and perhaps it's worthwhile.

Private Servers

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm really looking forward to the implementation of private servers. I know all that's holding a few of my friends back is the fact that they have to play with the unwashed masses. It'd be great if several of us could hop on for some games against opponents we know and can laugh with.

Re:Private Servers

[Ihmhi]

I'm really looking forward to the implementation of private servers. I know all that's holding a few of my friends back is the fact that they have to play with the unwashed masses

...and a monthly fee, of course.

What about private servers and starting my own games?

As most of you know, we currently host only public matches that all players can join. These matches are running on server boxes in various locations throughout the world that are completely controlled by us and our back-end system. There are many benefits to doing things this way - our servers run more efficiently (hosting more people per physical box), our servers are always up to date with the clients, and we can more monitor and prevent cheating, to name only a few. However, we understand that players want to be able to host private games/servers that are configured the way they choose and only accessible to their friends, clan, or others they choose. Our private game/private server integration will be the first major feature added to QUAKE LIVE in the upcoming months.

Traditionally, the process of letting players rent private servers is something that is handed off to various game server providers (GSPs). Each of these GSPs sets their own prices, which are typically anywhere from about $15-$30/month for 16 player slots in a single, fixed location. Each GSP also typically has it's own interface for managing that server that in no way is integrated with the game.

Our plan is to completely integrate the ability to start and manage private games directly through QUAKE LIVE, utilizing all of the friends, awareness and notification features we have available through the site. This ability will be the cornerstone of a QUAKE LIVE Premium Service that will be offered for a small monthly fee (likely less than $5 per month). So, for 1/3 to 1/6 the price that it normally costs to run a private match, we'll be offering players the ability to easily start a private match with these benefits:

--On demand - whenever you want to play privately, you simply set it up, play, and when you're done, those slots go back into our "public pool." This is how we can offer it for a substantially lower cost than is typical.

--Each match you set up can be in a different location. For example, if you're in NY and you want to play a friend in CA, chose a neutral location in Illinois or Texas. If the next time you play, you want to invite a friend also on the east coast, then run the match in Virginia.

--The interface is completely integrated into QUAKE LIVE and uses all of the back-end friends and friend awareness systems that we have at our disposal. So, when setting up a match, you'll be able to select the friends you want to invite and have a pop-up automatically alert them to your invitation - allowing them to join with one click.

--Private matches will also have access to more competitive game features that can not be practically used for public matches - like locked teams, timeouts, etc. (more on this below).

This is a very high-level summary, but we're excited about what we'll be able to offer players. When we get closer to rolling this out, we'll include more details on what additional features will be included in the private match system as well as additional benefits included with the Premium subscription. It is important to note in all of this, that we will not at all be charging for any content - this premium fee is basically for an extended service that includes private "space" on physical hardware.

The real news...

[son1dow]

Is that they'll be testing the versions soon. I don't get why the header is "Mac and Linux are "Top Priority", as they said it a month or so before.

A thought, although potentially off topic

[Herschel Cohen]

I wish I could get to see the numbers (or percentages) they (ID Software) estimate to be the potential size of Linux and Mac OS X users. I suspect, though I am biased, that their numbers would surpass in quality and quantity the recent estimate based on web site traffic that set Linux use at one percent. I suspect too those figures would be less prone to tweaking or to external third party pressures.

Re:A thought, although potentially off topic

[Anonymous Coward]

or MORE prone since PunkBuster could be defeated with an open source kernel module.

And the fact that PB doesn't run as root on Linux.

Re:A thought, although potentially off topic

[skiman1979]

I wish I could get to see the numbers (or percentages) they (ID Software) estimate to be the potential size of Linux and Mac OS X users.

How can software on a remote system at ID Software estimate the size of Linux and Mac users? :-P

the real question about the linux client...

[steak]

is not when will it be released but will it have a tux model available.

Re:the real question about the linux client...

[melikamp]

Mew. They could also make a tiger or panther for Mac. Not that I care, I'll use Tux.

Bah!!! *shakes cane* id an acronym? dream on!

[nawcom]

I've already gone through the posts and see people typing "ID" referring to the company as if they're initials or something. The damn word is id! And I'm sure you've been told that a million times, but your ignorant memory struggles to remember that! It's id - a word - not I.D.

What's the next one on the list to go over, how about the fact that Trolltech's (now Nokia's) toolkit is a word, not an acronym. Qt (pronounced cute) - not Q.T. grr. I could go on with you and your "unix daymon" retarded pronunciation habit as well, but my arm is getting tired of the cane shaking.

Re:Bah!!! *shakes cane* id an acronym? dream on!

[WaroDaBeast]

And how many people do you think have ever taken Latin classes? Most people I know don't care about linguistics. What about you?

Re:Bah!!! *shakes cane* id an acronym? dream on!

[blahplusplus]

"I've already gone through the posts and see people typing "ID" referring to the company as if they're initials or something. The damn word is id!"

id as in lid, yes I know. But for most people who played doom it was eye-dee, I mean you can't name your company something like id (as in lid) and then expect people to know the proper pronunciations.

More importantly eye-dee software sounds way better then "id" software. I've always referred to them as eye-dee and not 'id'.

Quite frankly it shouldn't matter since once something becomes culturally critical mass the most popular one becomes acceptable because it is now interchangable and that's how most people refer to the company.

Re:Bah!!! *shakes cane* id an acronym? dream on!

[skiman1979]

I could go on with you and your "unix daymon" retarded pronunciation habit as well, but my arm is getting tired of the cane shaking.

Honestly, I don't really know how daemon is supposed to be pronounced. I've always pronounced it daymon.

Works fine under Parallels

[Kent Brewster]

Quake Live works fine under Parallels; the only gotcha is you have to press fn-F3 to ready yourself.

Re:Works fine under Parallels

[epsy]

Ah ok I'll wait for Parallels on linux.

Re:Works fine under Parallels

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah ok I'll wait for Parallels on linux.

Or VMWare, dumbass.

Or Xen, or whatever the VM de jour is for Linux now.

Maps as GPL!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah thats great with the linux support! And hopefully this time i can finish the training session.. :D

However I would wish that the community maps where licensed under GPL, (I guess there is not issues if one where to choose that license?)

So that lots of games could have fun with these maps. (Openarena, Q3, Nexuiz, etc etc) :D
Nowadays its hard to reach some people who have made a certain maps... :(

Adware

[iYk6]

The want the game to be free to play, and supported by ads. Adware in executables has a bad rap, but people tolerate them in free online games.

that's great. We need more of these game companies

[sick_soul]

I am happy of course to see that having a Linux native version is a priority at least for some developers.
Too bad I really don't like Quake-like games, or any FPS.
If only the RPG companies would have Linux in their mind. Like Bioware, which delivered Neverwinter Nights (thanks!), but now turned its back on us with Dragon Age.

Advertising

[Anonymous Coward]

This session of QL is brought to you by...

The Irony...it BURNS!!!!

[rts008]

Now that's a bold statement from someone that has this as his sig!

Please learn the difference: à la = "in the style or manner of" ; aka = "also known as"

Fsckin' moron! LOL!!!

AHAHAHAAHAHHAAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

[Anonymous Coward]

A ten year old game is still only one of the few on Linux and Macs. Your OSes suck, face it.

Part of the game, so live with it.

[mad zambian]

No, it is no fun turning the corner and coming muzzle to muzzle with someone who is on quad damage, but on the other hand, it is oh so satisfying to then splatter them with the good old shotgun.

The power ups and weapons are all part of the game. They do have limited shots and durations after all.
The game. Ah.
The highly addictive game.
That I have spent many, many hours playing.
That I am feeling an urge to log on to right now. (twitch, twitch.)
It is seriously cutting into my /. time, dammit.
I must work towards my 25K frags award. (gibber, gibber. twitch, twitch.)
Flags to capture. Opponents to fry. Or splash. Or perforate. (gibber, gibber. twitch, twitch. mumble, mumble)

Great!

[Organic Brain Damage]

Now we can play utterly boring games on other platforms. I can hardly wait.

Re:Great!

[AlexMax2742]

Now we can play utterly boring games on other platforms. I can hardly wait.

2/10

Kudos to id

[scarolan]

Hats off to id software for making Linux versions of all their games!