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

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

[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.

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

[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.

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.

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:Interesting spin

[gardyloo]

one programmer is more than enough

So then zero is about right?

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. :)