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Mac, Linux Support For Quake Live, Preview of Rage

Posted by Soulskill on from the no-more-excuses dept.

AlexMax2742 writes "Great news for those anxious gamers who have been waiting for a Linux and Mac version of Quake Live. Support for both is being implemented with next Tuesday's update, according to project lead Marty Stratton, who gave the release date during a press conference held at QuakeCon 2009. A video of the press conference is up at QuakeUnity." John Carmack revealed that they're working on a "premium" subscription service for Quake Live, which will allow players to configure and run their own private servers. Also at QuakeCon, a new trailer was released for id's upcoming shooter, Rage. Kotaku posted an extensive preview of Rage, saying, "I've seen no game that, in this realistic style, looks so good and has a landscape so rich with visual splendor." A detailed presentation on id Tech 5, the new game engine behind Rage, was given at SIGGRAPH 2009 last week.

58 of 79 comments (clear)

  1. Wrong link by blackraven14250 · · Score: 4, Informative

    The link under "extensive preview of rage" is wrong. Should link to here, I think: http://kotaku.com/5337404/rage-impressions-gun-rage-road-rage-and-a-monster-closet-joke?skyline=true&s=x

    1. Re:Wrong link by yoyhed · · Score: 2, Funny

      Don't sweat it, no one here reads the articles anyway ;-)

      --
      WHO NEEDS SHIFT WHEN YOU HAVE CAPSLOCK/ DAMN1
    2. Re:Wrong link by Kratisto · · Score: 1

      No, but they might watch the (fucking) articles.

      --
      Conscience is the inner voice which warns us that someone may be looking.
  2. Sweet but... by hubert.lepicki · · Score: 3, Interesting

    why would I want to run it instead of ioquake3? I think most of long-term hardcore quakers already have their servers configured, other can easily play with ioquake/cpma too. Not sure if they make any profit out of it...

    1. Re:Sweet but... by Pinchiukas · · Score: 1

      I haven't played (io)q3 online for a long time, but I bet it doesn't have as much players as QL and it's not as easy finding a game as picking a server and clicking on it.

    2. Re:Sweet but... by dnaumov · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Because QuakeLive is not Quake 3.

    3. Re:Sweet but... by supernova_hq · · Score: 1

      Canada can't see it either, anyone got another source?

    4. Re:Sweet but... by morari · · Score: 1

      That's for sure. QuakeLive has too much of a crappy CPMA feel to it. The only reason to play Quake 3 anymore is for the Generations Arena mod anyway!

      --
      "He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
    5. Re:Sweet but... by hubert.lepicki · · Score: 1

      Err... not sure why CNQ3 is any better?

      Voice chat support - ioquake has it.

      True multiplatform (Sparc/Linux/Solaris/Windows) - got it.

      Good performance on Linux - checked.

      I didn't use CNQ3 to be honest and you brought my attention. Could you please explain to me why it's any better than ioquake3? Me and my bored sysamdim colleagues will be happy to hear ;).

    6. Re:Sweet but... by SanityInAnarchy · · Score: 1

      it's not as easy finding a game as picking a server and clicking on it.

      Erm, what?

      That's pretty much how all online FPSes have done this. You bring up a list of servers, click one that looks interesting, and join it.

      It's difficult to see how putting it in a web browser would help.

      --
      Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
    7. Re:Sweet but... by gbarules2999 · · Score: 1

      Because the matchmaking is halfway decent and gives you a game where you don't get your ass handed to you in less time than it takes for you to say "spawn camping."

    8. Re:Sweet but... by Pinchiukas · · Score: 1

      I mean there is no skill matching. :) And the overall experience is worse I believe.

    9. Re:Sweet but... by SanityInAnarchy · · Score: 1

      I mean there is no skill matching. :)

      Ok, makes sense, except that this is exactly, precisely the opposite of what you said -- skill-matching would not be picking a server, it would be clicking on the "take me to a server with people who suck as much as me" button, right?

      And the overall experience is worse I believe.

      Possibly. I haven't tried it. But I certainly would rather use native Quake 3, most of the time...

      --
      Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
    10. Re:Sweet but... by Pinchiukas · · Score: 1

      No, not really. It's more like "one player who has 176 frags 5min after the match starts, two with -3 and -17 respectively and one that is compiling his config." Not really my idea of fun. I personally have the most fun with players that are on the same level of skill as myself.

  3. Copyright morons by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Video is locked down to US only. Fucking twats.

    1. Re:Copyright morons by omgarthas · · Score: 4, Informative

      I'm from Europe and I'm able to watch it

    2. Re:Copyright morons by Fross · · Score: 1

      Whereabouts in Europe? I'm in the UK, and it won't let me :(

    3. Re:Copyright morons by orta · · Score: 4, Informative

      Don't forget that they were nice enough to let us watch the advert first then tell us that we can't watch it. Alternative link: http://www.gametrailers.com/game/rage/5315

      --
      my band is more brutal techno punk than yours
    4. Re:Copyright morons by omgarthas · · Score: 1

      I'm browsing from Spain, and my reverse DNS points to a .es domain

    5. Re:Copyright morons by Paaskonijn · · Score: 1

      I can see it too and I'm in Belgium.

    6. Re:Copyright morons by Tack · · Score: 4, Informative

      I'm from Canada, and I can't. For those having trouble, try: http://www.gametrailers.com/video/quakecon-trailer-rage/54146

    7. Re:Copyright morons by Tack · · Score: 4, Informative

      Direct download link: http://trailers.gametrailers.com/gt_vault/5315/t_rage_quakecon_80ac8088_hd.flv

  4. carmack video by Rogerpq3 · · Score: 4, Informative

    You can also check out the full video of Carmack's keynote here: http://www.quakeunity.com/file=2919

  5. Re:the good old days by TaggartAleslayer · · Score: 1

    Probably about 13 years ago, as Quake came out in 96', but man, I envy you. ADSL back then? You must have been an extremely early adopter very close to a telco switch. Remember ISDN? Yeah, I had that, and nobody else remembers either.

  6. As Carmack reads this by orta · · Score: 4, Informative

    I thought I'd say a big thanks from the Mac community!

    --
    my band is more brutal techno punk than yours
  7. HD Youtube link to trailer by Fross · · Score: 4, Informative

    For those outside the US, or who simply prefer Youtube (and it's a bigger version, too!)

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfeErZt3emc

    1. Re:HD Youtube link to trailer by Narishma · · Score: 1

      The original link works fine outside the US.

      --
      Mada mada dane.
    2. Re:HD Youtube link to trailer by thetoadwarrior · · Score: 1

      Some videos but not that one.

    3. Re:HD Youtube link to trailer by Fross · · Score: 1

      Not in the UK, it doesn't - see other thread above. The message it displays is "This is not viewable outside the US", implying to me that they've tried to restrict it to US only and failed, letting some additional countries through :)

    4. Re:HD Youtube link to trailer by chebucto · · Score: 1

      Not in Canada

      --
      The English word fart is one of the oldest words in the English vocabulary.
  8. Re:the good old days by KamuZ · · Score: 1

    I don't know you but i prefer low latency than tons of bandwidth anytime for multiplayer.

  9. Realistic?? by ivoras · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I don't know, maybe it's because of the uncanny valley effect on a larger scale but these new games seem increasingly unrealistic to me. I see it takes a lot of skill and C/GPU power to do a real-time image like this: http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/rage_quakecon2009.jpg but realistic? I don't know - something's missing there. Sometimes I think Q3A was more "realistic" than Fallout3 and newer games. *shrug*

    --
    -- Sig down
    1. Re:Realistic?? by Turiko · · Score: 1

      Well, if by realistic you mean photo-realistic, then this game is far more realistic. photo-realistic graphics are nowhere near ready for games... unless you like a slideshow, with 5 or more hours in between slides. Quake 3 was just a lot more simple, but it absolutely was NOT more realistic then the screenshot you provided.

    2. Re:Realistic?? by Goaway · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It's not the uncanny valley. It's just that it plain doesn't look anything like reality in the first place. The biggest culprit is the lighting, which pretty much no game has ever managed to get anywhere near right. I doubt anybody's even trying.

      Game developers seem to be attempting to create the most realistic depiction possible... of a video game. Certainly reality doesn't seem to be their model.

    3. Re:Realistic?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      you can have it
      a) realistic
      b)fast
      c)not take up all the processing power of a system

      you can only choose 2 outta 3 though

    4. Re:Realistic?? by drsquare · · Score: 1

      I'll take 2 and 3. I don't even want realism. In fact, 'realistic' graphics just look boring to me. It generally means ten million shades of grey and brown, overcast skies, and everything made out of concrete rubble.

      Why is all this new technology and processing power going to make games look less interesting than what I can see out of my window?

    5. Re:Realistic?? by falckon · · Score: 1

      you can have it a) realistic b)fast c)not take up all the processing power of a system

      you can only choose 2 outta 3 though

      not take up all the processing power of a system = fast

      You just get 1 out of 2.

    6. Re:Realistic?? by MrHanky · · Score: 2, Insightful

      But why would you want it more realistic? The real world is bland. Games are a means to escape reality for a while.

      What the game designers mean by 'realistic' is bigger textures and more polygons lighted by a bigger number of light sources, creating a more vivid picture, and that should be their goal. I like the 'realism' of stepping out into City 17 and its dreamlike yellow sunlight better than the prosaic realism of going out into the grey rain to fetch today's mail. It's a more exciting atmosphere. You don't get that by portraying 'reality' as-seen. You need to distort, over-focus on certain aspects, etc.

    7. Re:Realistic?? by JAlexoi · · Score: 1

      Wee ID did manage to get good games with excellent performance a number of times.

    8. Re:Realistic?? by Lemming+Mark · · Score: 1

      Agreed that the lighting is usually not realistic in games - AIUI it's pretty computationally hard to do realistic lighting even if there is a will to do it.

      I still think the unrealism described kinda is an uncanny valley effect though - in that Quake 3, for instance, looked sufficiently far from reality that you could kinda go "That's just a lo fidelity representation". The graphics were so (comparatively) basic that you didn't feel compelled to compare them with real life. With modern games, with the graphical quality being much higher in terms of resolution, polygon count, texture detail, etc it is now getting to the stage that it looks more like a slightly unreal photograph. The picture the OP linked is a good example - it looks like a digital photo of a scene that's somehow too perfect to be real.

    9. Re:Realistic?? by zokier · · Score: 1

      I blame the fancy HDR/Bloom/Blur -effects that have plagued this generation of games. Some of it hides the fugly lowres textures made for consoles, and some can be explained by the proliferation of Unreal Engine 3.

    10. Re:Realistic?? by zokier · · Score: 1

      One recent "game" (more like simulation actually) to for realistic graphics is DCS: Black Shark. Yes, it runs on 5+ years old engine, and has some lowres textures and other rough edges. But still, I think it looks more realistic than some more technically advanced games (for example HAWX). Another comparison is ARMA 2, and OFP 2. Arma 2 has much plainer and realistic look than what i have seen videos of OFP2 so far. Arma 2 probably compares favorably even to aforementioned DCS:BS in realism, but cant really say as I haven't played it myself.

    11. Re:Realistic?? by edxwelch · · Score: 1

      because the goal from the art point of view is to make it look good and that doesn't necesarily mean photo-realism. In fact, photo realistic rendered images can often be quite ugly

    12. Re:Realistic?? by Abcd1234 · · Score: 1

      It's not the uncanny valley. It's just that it plain doesn't look anything like reality in the first place. The biggest culprit is the lighting, which pretty much no game has ever managed to get anywhere near right. I doubt anybody's even trying.

      Need I point out that most movies don't have realistic lighting, either? Last I checked, the world wasn't filtered in green or blue, washed out in grays and beiges, or hyper saturated.

  10. Re:the good old days by nschubach · · Score: 1

    I had ISDN... was expensive as hell for me.

    --
    Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
  11. so, what are virtual textures anyway? by edxwelch · · Score: 1

    That document about id Tech 5 mentions virtual textures, but I couldn't find any easy to understand explaination. What are they for?

    1. Re:so, what are virtual textures anyway? by byner · · Score: 2, Informative

      As I understand it, basically the virtual texturing is how they organize the chunks of megatextures (upwards of billions of pixels in size) so that they can be streamed into memory in an effective manner even while the textures reside on media. This is targeted at the XBOX 360 for example where the textures might still reside on the game disc and you'd want to avoid game stutter from loading those huge textures on the fly.

    2. Re:so, what are virtual textures anyway? by edxwelch · · Score: 1

      Is it like a texture atlas so?

  12. Re:the good old days by RedK · · Score: 1

    Not only that, but ADSL became a standard in 1998 and that's about when it started being rolled out. This guy is on some serious medication, we're now down to 11 years.

    --
    "Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
    Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
  13. Does it support x86_64? by Drinking+Bleach · · Score: 1

    Quake Live on Linux is great news; means I can finally get rid of my Windows partition (which I only added because of Quake Live... ahem...). The only real concern of mine is whether they are bothering with an x86_64 version? If not, then I'd either have to keep Windows or find a way to run the 32-bit version of Firefox... neither of which are very appealing options.

    1. Re:Does it support x86_64? by SanityInAnarchy · · Score: 1

      Or use nspluginwrapper, which we've been using to run Flash for years now.

      --
      Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
  14. Is that all there is? by westlake · · Score: 1

    What I want to see is convincing proof that iD can still deliver a game and not a tech demo.

  15. Rage on Linux by diego.viola · · Score: 1

    Will Rage run on Linux?

    1. Re:Rage on Linux by diego.viola · · Score: 1

      Wikipedia shows Linux as one of the supported OSes for Rage nice :D

  16. Re:Why a special Linux port? by diego.viola · · Score: 1

    Running native on Linux is always better.

  17. Re:Pay? To provide a server? They must be kidding! by Ascagnel · · Score: 1

    It's because QL is free to end users. The server isn't so much for the traditional model of game server (you run server and everyone buys said game) as for clans to customize their servers as they see fit. For example: if you ran a clan that absolutely hated the rocket launcher, you could pay to get a server and turn the rocket launcher off on that server.

    --
    "It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine."
  18. Re:Why a special Linux port? by space_jake · · Score: 1

    The EvE Online Linux client disagrees.

  19. Re:Why a special Linux port? by diego.viola · · Score: 2, Informative

    The "EVE online Linux client" is not native, it's just a wrapped version of a Windows EVE executable with old Wine (Cedega).