All your Rambus are belong to us - David Icke's Lizard Wizard
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Quake Live lives
QUAKE PLAYERS REJOICE as ID Software has finally taken Quake Live out of beta and announced incentive packages.
ID launched 'Premium' and 'Pro' services today for the web browser-based, ninja-speed frag-fest Quake Live.
Quake-Live's beta programme was an attempt to apply Todd Hollenshead's 'Freemium' model for older ID games. The free-to-play game based on Quake 3 runs on Windows, Mac and Linux systems and plays in the browser. Not unlike Spotify's business plan, ID Software wanted play to be free but generate revenue from advertising. As a result, beta users were bombarded with ads.
Now Quake Live players are invited to cough up some money to avoid ads with the incentive packages.
For £1.59 a month, the Premium service gives punters access to 20 more maps and re-coded maps from other Quake games. There's a new freeze tag game mode, more level awards, clan tracking and match statistics stored for six months.
For £3.18 a month, anyone signing up to the Pro services gets all the above and more. Users can start their own game server, invite players and choose server location. Quake Live gamers who go for the Pro service can also invite three friends to play on Premium maps and will be given more clan tracking. They'll also get statistics stored for 12 months. µ
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I love Quake Live, but there's no way I'd pay for it. I don't play it nearly frequently enough to justify paying a monthly fee, especially since I suck and always get my ass kicked (their skill-level matching doesn't seem to work so well for me). Having said that, I don't mind the ads and I like id's model for this game, so I hope they do well with it. I'd like to see some more id Live games, too.
People who want to play Quake, Quake Live, or Quake II can host a server in game, or run dedicated servers. I used to run a dedicated Q2 Expert mod server back in the day. This functionality is built into the game. Why would anyone pay for something s/he already has?
This sounds like a pretty cool set up, and knowing the history of Id, it'll probably kick ass. The pricing is impressive as well, others should take note of this pricing scheme. Id likely will make a pretty good chunk on this, given the number of Quake fans the world over.
Id has always impressed me, not only with the games they create, but more over with their culture and business ethics.
They put together one of the coolest things I had seen a company do, at least at the time it was. In the run up to the release of Quake III Arena (1999), they got together with 3DFX (R.I.P) and AMD, who was getting ready to drop a bomb that would forever change the world of computing as we knew it. They put together a tour bus that has 10 gaming stations and they toured from Dallas to Los Angles, by way of Seattle, Hitting every major city on the way, including Phoenix AZ.
It was a frag fest like no other, not only did we get a taste of what Quake III Arena had to offer (beyond the demo), it was also the first time anyone outside of engineering circles had got to see this new processor that was about to be released by this nobody company AMD: Athlon... Holy shit was it impressive! It played Quake III like a dream. They made a believer out of me...
The seed was planted that day, I probably never would've bought an Athlon if it wasn't for that opportunity to experience it first hand. From that day on, i never looked back, I've been a fanboy tried and true!