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Quake Live Beta Opens Up Next Week

Unable to get an invite in the current phase of id's browser-based shooter? Next week, it's on.

A Living Quake.
A Living Quake.
What would you do if someone ran up to you on the street and said "hey, you wanna play Quake III Arena for free via some kind of wild browser-based launcher?" I'd probably kick them in the stomach because they're talking wild about things that just aren't possible.

That's my stance and I'm sticking to it, but that's really only because I haven't seen Quake Live running for myself. It claims to be some kind of free, ad-supported, browser-based first-person shooter based largely on Quake III Arena. As the sort of man who spent a sizable chunk of time playing Quake III Arena and still occasionally gets the urge to play it, being able to pop it open for some quick Quake sounds pretty appealing. Of course, the in-game advertising that's supporting it makes it sound a little less appealing. But I'll wait and see how that's stuff works out next week.

"Next week," you ask? This is the part where I stop blabbing on about my hopes and dreams and tell you that the ongoing beta for Quake Live is going to shift into open beta next week, on February 24. Sounds like the beta currently only supports Windows, though it'll eventually work as a cross-platform product. That's good, because if I have to return to my desktop machine to play it, I might as well just dig out my Quake III and Team Arena discs and reinstall the real thing.
Jeff Gerstmann on Google+

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jeff

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Edited By jeff
A Living Quake.
A Living Quake.
What would you do if someone ran up to you on the street and said "hey, you wanna play Quake III Arena for free via some kind of wild browser-based launcher?" I'd probably kick them in the stomach because they're talking wild about things that just aren't possible.

That's my stance and I'm sticking to it, but that's really only because I haven't seen Quake Live running for myself. It claims to be some kind of free, ad-supported, browser-based first-person shooter based largely on Quake III Arena. As the sort of man who spent a sizable chunk of time playing Quake III Arena and still occasionally gets the urge to play it, being able to pop it open for some quick Quake sounds pretty appealing. Of course, the in-game advertising that's supporting it makes it sound a little less appealing. But I'll wait and see how that's stuff works out next week.

"Next week," you ask? This is the part where I stop blabbing on about my hopes and dreams and tell you that the ongoing beta for Quake Live is going to shift into open beta next week, on February 24. Sounds like the beta currently only supports Windows, though it'll eventually work as a cross-platform product. That's good, because if I have to return to my desktop machine to play it, I might as well just dig out my Quake III and Team Arena discs and reinstall the real thing.
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Phished0ne

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Edited By Phished0ne

WOOT!!!!! i've been playing the beta and i cant wait for it to go live!


It is a pretty good recreation/re-imagining for Q3A
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TheMikelGuereca

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Edited By TheMikelGuereca

I wonder when the next installment of the series will arrive.

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MattyFTM

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Edited By MattyFTM  Moderator

Cool. I've been looking forward to trying this.

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Pazy

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Edited By Pazy

I really want to know what you require to install to play this. I tried to play Fallen Empires: Legion (another free browser based fps similer to tribes) but I couldent because the place I would want to play it in (college) dosent allow me to install plug ins and that required a specifical plug in. If Quake Live is totally just flash (or even with java etc.) then I could really get into it.

Ill find out next week I suppose.

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ThomasP

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Edited By ThomasP

The beta is pretty good. Old school Quake players who haven't played the series since the second game like myself; prepare to die, a lot.

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spiceninja

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Edited By spiceninja

I have been waiting months for this to open.

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Endogene

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Edited By Endogene

Also in the closed beta, looking foreward for it going open since i am absolute shit at that game and all the players in the beta are "l33t"...

Pazy said:

"

I really want to know what you require to install to play this. I tried to play Fallen Empires: Legion (another free browser based fps similer to tribes) but I couldent because the place I would want to play it in (college) dosent allow me to install plug ins and that required a specifical plug in. If Quake Live is totally just flash (or even with java etc.) then I could really get into it.

Ill find out next week I suppose.

"

Requires a plug in.
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Captain_Fookup

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Edited By Captain_Fookup
Tarsier said:
"i got the key for the closed beta a week or so ago but i am on a mac and i haven't gotten to finding a pc to play it on yet. i'll probably do that today."

If you have a newer mac you could just install VMware Fusion, install Windows XP SP2 (Legally heh) and run Firefox ect. I would but I'm fucking lazy and have Quake 3 Arena installed on my old G4 that's connected to my LCD tv.
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Pazy

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Edited By Pazy
Endogene said:
"Also in the closed beta, looking foreward for it going open since i am absolute shit at that game and all the players in the beta are "l33t"...

Pazy said:
"

I really want to know what you require to install to play this. I tried to play Fallen Empires: Legion (another free browser based fps similer to tribes) but I couldent because the place I would want to play it in (college) dosent allow me to install plug ins and that required a specifical plug in. If Quake Live is totally just flash (or even with java etc.) then I could really get into it.

Ill find out next week I suppose.

"

Requires a plug in.
"

Thanks for telling me, I dont think I can really get into this game now. Ive other games to play at home and if I want some Egoshooter action ive got other stuff installed on my system I personally prefare. Though ill probably try this for nostalgia's sake.

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stan12

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Edited By stan12

yeah, ive been playing the beta too, its pretty fun
instagib matches are the bomb!

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Defunctfrenzy

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Edited By Defunctfrenzy

Does anyone want my beta login? I played it once and got my arse kicked. I'm probably the world's worst gamer cos I rarely complete anything, but anyway, drop me an IM if you're interested and I'll look into getting stuff changed over. The only downer (for me) is you'll get to use my awesome login name and I won't.
First come first served.

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albedos_shadow

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Edited By albedos_shadow

Can't wait for it to open up, although I've been in for about a month now.

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MKHavoc

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Edited By MKHavoc

Good news, I've been waiting for this thing for a while now.

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Media_Master

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Edited By Media_Master

goody

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PLanter

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stephengotlost

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Edited By stephengotlost

I've been playing it over the weekend and it's lag-free and enjoyable.

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ch3burashka

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Edited By ch3burashka

A split second look made me think that the new 3D Thundercats game was revealed. Teh sad.

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abbathdoom

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Edited By abbathdoom

I got an invite for this weeks ago and after playing it once never went back. Battlefield Heros is what I really want a beta key for!

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Edited By MrKlorox

I have a beta login and let me say this: id had better increase the rank tiers to a number greater than five or there is going to be a LOT of people having a very shitty time (be it playing fools with a skill too low, or being raped by uber-douches who have played the game every day since 1999).

20 ranks should be sufficient. Not 5.

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derekh1029

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Edited By derekh1029

first time i went to play a few weeks ago on vista i launched the thing and it completely corrupted my video drivers and i couldnt reinstall the dang things. I was forced to reformat

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ToxicFruit

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Edited By ToxicFruit

im playing this now. just good old quake online

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Aberrant

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Edited By Aberrant

I have been waiting for this. This will be a nice waste of time while I am at work.

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Edited By Pazy

Rather anit-climacticly I got an email a few hours ago to join the Beta. Im gonna play some match's with it but its annoying to be in the beta this late knowing that it becomes worthless in a few days.

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lordofultima

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Edited By lordofultima

I'd prefer a browser-based UT99, but this will still rock whenever I want to just rail a couple dudes (no homo).

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Edited By cspiffo

I've been in the closed beta for a little while and I have to say I'm impressed.  It's still a bit buggy though.  I can't seem to play in full screen, just windowed mode.  Ive tried it on my high end and low end machines and it ran smoothly on a radeon 9200 so there's a good chance all of you will be able to run it.  Have fun guys.  Frag you later!

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Absurd

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Edited By Absurd

I will be trying this ;)

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JaredA

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Edited By JaredA

Looks pretty cool! I wish they did a little bit more of a graphics overhaul, though.

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strangeling

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Edited By strangeling

Good, because they forgot to accept me into the closed beta.

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Aeterna

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Edited By Aeterna

it's an awesome game. And only some MB that get's downloaded in total.. what more can you want? I love it.

And I expected you to already have an account, Jeff. Should've shouted out first, the community could've sent you one.

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yates

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Edited By yates

I'm alright with the ads to be honest as long as they're not intrusive. I'm been playing in the beta, not sure if the ads are actually fully implemented yet as the only ones I've noticed are tiny images in the bottom left corner of the loading screen.

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AspiringAndy

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Edited By AspiringAndy

Whatever.
Good for people with shit computers and no money I guess.

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Hector

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Edited By Hector

Never heard about this now. I'm really excited about this!

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afterburner1978

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Edited By afterburner1978

I am in this already and it's pretty good. Between this and Battlefield Heroes, this is gonna be a great year for free online brower based shooters (FOBBS?).


Hey FOBBS, new internet lingo, spread it around!

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Kohe321

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Edited By Kohe321

Huh, browser based quake? Sounds interesting...

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thiago

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Edited By thiago

I only wish Quake gets some ragdoll and physics this time.

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crunchUK

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Edited By crunchUK

sounds exciting i must admit

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Edited By GaspoweR

I was able to get an invite the closed beta very recently (2 or 4 weeks ago) after waiting for several months. Its pretty much Quake III with certain adjustments such as being able to hold more rocket ammo. My problem is that I'm just too far from everyone else whos playing this game so it gets pretty laggy on my end. I get stuck playing with the AI bots or just spectating matches that I join because of the lag.  Hopefully with the open beta, I finally can play against others closer to my territory not get fragged all the time coz of high ping. 

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Edited By Cubical

You still have to download and install a browser plug in  on the mahcine so what is the point?  everybody hasa copy of quake 3 sitting  around and there is more  servers aand mods for it.

I dont real care about the new stat tracking system I never even look at it.

Hell I alwasy keep quake 3 installed and i have been in the quake live beta foreveer  and you can copy  quake 3  to your flash drive and run it off that.

and if you cant run quake 3/quake live  then you are one sad person who should not be playing games because that is pathetic the quake 3 engine came out in 1999  and you can run it on a toster.

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GaspoweR

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Edited By GaspoweR

@Cubical


Agreed...
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Doogie2K

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Edited By Doogie2K

As an old-school UT fanboy, I'm nonplussed.  Of course, part of my problem may have been the fact that my Quake III disc from the Quake compilation was v1.33 and Team Arena forced it to v1.27, and broke everything, but I stand by my assessment back in 1999-2000 that Quake III was the supermodel of the lot -- tarted up, vapid and superficial -- while UT was the girl next door -- won't knock you out with looks but is utterly reliable and ages gracefully.  And I'm a Girl Next Door type.

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scurrybot

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Edited By scurrybot

it's good. one of few "new" things i  can run on my eee.

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TheIneffableBob

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Edited By TheIneffableBob

This game is like a honey-covered vagina.

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Edited By Stefan

I played the Quake Live Beta for some hours now and gotta say... well it's Quake III - If you liked that game you will also like this one. The graphics are the same, the models and the maps, at least in the beta. There are one or two maps added to the game but nothing to drastic. The console is back and hasn't changed a lot - you can still customize keys, zoom distance, letter colors etc..
The in game advertising isn't too bad, it's done like in burnout or other EA games where you have billboards with advertisement on it, but less rediculous as it seem, when I played it (in Germany) they had advertisment for the German release date of Friday 13th, which isn't too far of the game, I mean compared to EA who put axe ads in their games...
So far I like the game, but it doesn't deliver anything tremendously new. If you are happy with Quake III with all its mods and so on you might as well stick to that. Some years ago I even read that id software even removed the key check for online play since the game is old anyway - well they check for a key but not for a unique, you can have several people playing with one key...

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ahoodedfigure

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Edited By ahoodedfigure

The violence, the fashion faux pas, the making fun of Ryan's feet.  Just what kind of sit IS this!?!

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Edited By Pazy

What they needed to make this do to make it truly worthwhile is make it run of flash or jave. Something that almost all internet users have. The reason browser based games are so great is that if your bored at work or college you can do it for 5 mins then go back to work, but having to install a plug-in stops that being a reality in most works or college's. In my college I can work around the system to run plug-in's but its a real hastle, a lot easier to get a free game and run it through a LAN.

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shawn86x

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Edited By shawn86x

I JUST GOT MY BETA ACCOUNT WORKING AND I TESTED QUAKE LIVE WORKING AND 100% LOVE IT BAD ASS TO THE BONE CANT WAIT TO SEE THIS GO LIVE AND OPEN TO EVERYONE .  BEEN PLAYING QUAKE ALL MY LIFE AND IF YOU BEEN PLAYING QUAKE 3 OR ANY OTHER GAMES YOU WILL LOVE THIS GAME. ANYONE MAKING A QUAKE LIVE CLAN??????? msg me if you are peace all .

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piropeople13

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Edited By piropeople13

Jeff!?  What do you mean the in-game advertising makes it sound less appealing?  It's free!!

Unlike Xbox Live!  You know the whole NXE?  It is just a crappy, mandatory ad-delivery mechanism disguised as a useful update.  All those crappy links and pictures and videos now crowding your dashboard are paid placement.  And we PAY M$ $50 a year to look at ads on a piece of hardware we own!