After stumbling across something Marty wrote about in the developer blog, we thought it’d be a good idea to dive into the new server configurations:
“Speaking of TDM, we used the down-time tonight to also make a change to the Team Deathmatch server configurations for higher skilled players. We’ve had a number of requests to have weapon respawn times in Team Deathmatch set to 30 seconds. This creates gameplay that is difficult and frustrating for newer or lower skilled players, but we understand the value for players and teams that are higher skilled and particularly understand the nuances of TDM strategy and gameplay. To accomodate both types of players, we’ve set our higher skill matches to use the requested 30 second weapon respawn times (these matches will be labeled ‘pro TDM‘), but left lower skill matches unchanged (these will continue to simply be labeled TDM).”
Changes to higher skilled TDM server configs
New Duel map released: Blood Run!
The Quake Live team informs us that they released Blood Run a couple of days ago. The original version of Blood Run for QUAKE 1 was created in 1997 by Sten ‘ztn’ Uusvali as a homage to E1M5 Gloom Keep. During the QUAKE III Arena era, ztn did a remake Blood Run from ground up and re-released it in 2000. Over the last decade, Blood Run has been regarded as one of the premier Duel-maps, but is also being enabled for Team Deathmatch. Why are you still reading this article? Go out there and give a run!
Need More Skillz? Free Stermy Quake Live Lessons!
According to his personal/professional website: Alessandro “stermy” Avallone is apparently giving away 1 free hour Quake Live lessons to 3 lucky players.
You don’t get the opportunity to learn from one of the most successful FPS players in the world every day. So if you want to take your Quake game up to the next level this is your chance. If you don’t know who stermy is, read all about him here.
Siberia and Bloodlust CTF released!
It’s been a little quiet over here at Team Sexy HQ lately, mostly due to the fact that we’re all balls deep in finishing yet another year of “higher” education. V3A is sniffing glue at the architecture studio, while I am finishing up my senior thesis for a degree in IT-management. But, it’s important to keep feeding the hungry masses every now and then, so we thought we’d give you a little update on some of the new maps id has been pushing out over the last two weeks.
Quake Live update extravaganza: 1 of 6
Quake Live got it’s first out of six new updates today, slated one per qeek for the next six.
id Software is promising to add both new and classic maps. Round one is dedicated the old gem “Hidden Fortress”, a map that even appeared on the Sega Dreamcast version of Quake III Arena. For those of you who played it, you might remember it being one of the better arena-maps on the Dreamcast, and it’s being kept nearly identical compared to it’s old self. Originally designed by Martin Kaai Cluney for Raster Productions (the former Q3DC porting team), Martin is now a part of id’s RAGE developer team.
While new maps are good news, it still leaves us wondering: what about the promised platform updates? And what about the redone practice mode with better “rookie”-support? Seems to us like id might need to hire another developer or two to deliver within a reasonable time frame on their promises.
Marty Stratton: “Mac and Linux Are ‘Top Priority’ for Quake Live”
id Software’s Marty Stratton is at it again: In his latest post on the Quake Live developer blog he gives us a valuable update on the subject of the Mac and Linux port of the game: ‘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.’
How to: Behave on the internet
Internet forums seem to provide a nearly unlimited source of entertainment. The Quake Live Forum is no different. After just two months of operation, the forum has had 68718 posts divided on 10068 threads (as of April 22nd, 13:53 CET). To our amusement, a great number of these posts and threads provide not only some insight into what kind of people play the game, but also some moments of epic LOL/ROFL/LMAO/whatever you wanna call it. After sending links back and forth, we the crew at The Casual Quaker thought it’d be a good idea to write a little something on how you should and shouldn’t behave online.
Quakeliver.com is Dead
Quakeliver - Gone for good?
Suffering what appeared to be a pretty nasty virus infection or hacker attack some time ago, one of the oldest Quake Live fan communities, Quakeliver.com, remained defaced. The lack of intervention from the site creators caused many to fear that the site was history and that it wouldn’t be repaired and brought back. We now have information from sources close to the site creators that the site is in fact dead, and won’t be coming back.
The Railgun - What Is It Really?
The instawin AKA the slug of death AKA the pwnstick. It is the railgun - one of the most popular and amazingly fascinating weapons in gaming. But what is it really? We’re going to take a closer look at the history this incredible weapon, what it is and check out it’s real life roots.
Evolution of the Quake railgun
The railgun was introduced to the Quake universe in 1997 with the release of Quake 2, where it added a completely new element of skill and aim, and had a huge impact on gameplay. Able to deliver instant punishment over unlimited distances, balanced by a second-long railgun trail revealing the location of the shooter, it was the perfect addition to a finely tuned game.
