Quake Live Now Available To Linux Gamers

[Remco]

Carmack is pretty intelligent, so you can be sure, there are good reasons

But very likely because then you wouldn't have the web integration like you have now with leader boards, high scores and so on.

If you give it fair chance, you will see that the game is very well integrated into the website.

That would be my guess at least.

You can use a web content rendering engine like WebKit or Gecko to provide your application with web content.

Most 3D drivers are closed source, so why is closed source 3D ok, and Flash not?

Closed source display drivers are not OK. Some very smart people are working to resolve this issue. Two wrongs doesn't make a right.

[Louise]

You can use a web content rendering engine like WebKit or Gecko to provide your application with web content.

So they should just not support IE where most of the players are?

Closed source display drivers are not OK. Some very smart people are working to resolve this issue. Two wrongs doesn't make a right.

But there is also an open source Flash project

So following your logic, Flash is also ok

[eugene2k]

puts the classic but popular Quake III: Arena game and puts it

Something's not right...

[Remco]

So they should just not support IE where most of the players are?

You misunderstand. There is no support for anything, nor is it needed. You just have a client, which makes use of a web content rendering engine to display highscores and stuff. This rendering engine can be any cross-platform engine, and is simply shipped with the game.

But there is also an open source Flash project

So following your logic, Flash is also ok

Flash is not an open standard, while OpenGL is, and a Canvas 3D context specification will be. And may I add, Flash has nothing to do with Quake Live.

[KeithZG]

I'm not going to argue too strenuously since, yes, it's kindof weird that it has to be a web-browser based thing instead of a standalone client (and that it'd be far more impressive if you didn't need to install anything at all), but on the other hand it does seem like it's easier for them to create and disseminate the game this way. They're basically targeting only a few very related platforms (ie. IE and Firefox) with minor tweaks per-OS (which took them forever grumble grumble, but still). To me it seems like just how one might choose Qt or GTK+ or whatever as a platform, they chose web browsing.

And hey, they went through announcing, developing and releasing a Linux version in far less time than it's taken Epic for UT3 so far And hell if I can get UT1 to run on my modern Linux installs. So compared to their main competition, id is looking good.

[numasan]

I have my opinions, of course, but won't dwell on the open/closed nature of this matter.

All I will say is: This is freaking sweet! Q3A is still in my top 5 favourite games, and I promptly joined QuakeLive when I read the Linux-news yesterday, and had a blast for 2 hours. Will play some games tonight also, for sure. So no complaints from me!

[Tares]

Only for i686 ;/ doesn't work here on amd64 ;x

EDIT :
okay, I was to soon to jump into conclusions ;-) problem was with shiretoko not amd64, as for now the plugin is installed and it's updating. Hope it will work ;-)

about:config -> extra -> change Shiretoko to Firefox and leave rest as it is.

[Kano]

It does run with amd64 too here. I had to update mesa to 7.3 (from 7.0.3) to play it with Intel Q45, but now it runs even on onboard systems or lowend gfx cards. Well the engine is nealy 10 years old, so that should be normal.

[grantek]

Oh geez, quit whining:
- The source is open, this binary-only version is just a nice wrapped-up package to protect their art and content somewhat, which has value to them, and is paid for by ads. If you don't like it go play Nexuiz or something, which is just as good if not better (but the art may not be quite as nice)
- People are complaining that they're shipping a client that requires a browser as opposed to shipping a client AND a browser!?
- Shipping as a plugin means easy installation on all platforms - you just go to the website, authorise it to install, and play. There's no figuring out how to extract an archive, figuring out where to install or where to leave the unpacked client, going through your filesystem to find the executable when you want to play, adding package repositories on OSes that use them etc. It means anyone can play it, not just those that administrate the computers they use.

[FunkyRider]

What the fsck on earth is "shiretoko" ? Why don't you quit whiming and use a standard Firefox so the user agent string does not get messed up to something like "shakakawaraotoko" or some shit like that?

It's not id software's problem, it can't just go ahead and support whatever obsecure crap there are out in the wild. id has always had good attitude towards Linux world and when they take the lead and release a new title like they always do on Linux, you jumped out shouting because they don't support your "shiretoko"? So you think their effort of making Quake Live working on Linux so soon is not enough? Then what is enough for you?