Quake Live about to become Windows-only

[Neon_Knight]

ID Software Moving Further Away From Linux, QuakeLive Going Native

So id Software are moving Quake Live from a browser game to a native game, the bad news is they won't be supporting Linux (Or Mac).

This is after their most recent game Rage not getting a Linux client at all.

   Will there be Mac/Linux support?
    We will be unable to support Mac and Linux clients with this transition. While we have reports from our testers that the game works through emulation or virtualization software, we are unable to support native Mac and Linux versions. If you’re using Mac and Linux and have a paid subscription, you will only be able to access the game using emulation or virtualization software.

Source

Is that a joke, Quake Live is not going to support Linux, sadly not a joke. I wonder what exactly they are doing to make it not be compatible with Linux and even Mac.

With so many companies jumping into bed with Linux id's stance lately is quite shocking. One of our previous champions has fallen folks.

With Team Fortress 2 out on Linux now anyway is it really that big of an issue? I find TF2 to be all around a far better game than QL.

What are your thoughts?

http://www.gamingonlinux.com/articles/id-software-moving-further-away-from-linux-quakelive-going-native.2690/

Via Reddit:

http://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/1q6acb/quake_live_to_become_windows_only/

Quake Live out of browser and standalone by year's end

id Software will pull Quake Live out of a browser and make it a standalone game by the end of the year.

Browsers like Firefox and Chrome gradually outlawing plug-ins provided id Software with the nudge it needed to make the move.

"This change will allow us to have greater control over the game environment, and more tightly integrate the game with the online components going forward," explained id Software.

"Some of these benefits will be apparent from day one: getting in and out of games is a smoother experience, and you will be able to view server pings from the match browser before joining the game to better judge connection quality."

Unfortunately, Mac and Linux players will be collateral in the change over.

"We will be unable to support Mac and Linux clients with this transition," id wrote. "While we have reports from our testers that the game works through emulation or virtualisation software, we are unable to support native Mac and Linux versions.

"If you're using Mac and Linux and have a paid subscription, you will only be able to access the game using emulation or virtualisation software."

Quake Live is based on Quake 3 Arena which, behind Quake 2, was one of the best games in the whole wide world.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-11-08-quake-live-out-of-browser-and-standalone-by-years-end

Also via Reddit:

http://www.reddit.com/r/quake/comments/1q6hta/id_software_will_pull_quake_live_out_of_a_browser/

[Akom74]

Noooooooooo !!!!!

In this way ID Software is going to loose a very big portions of users.....

Bad idea i think..... .....

.

[*Ruthless*]

More players for OA to get

[Akom74]

More players for OA to get

I don't think so, if we not release nothing news to attract new users.

[Gig]

Uhm.. Google Chrome is going to abandon support for old-style plugins: http://blog.chromium.org/2013/09/saying-goodbye-to-our-old-friend-npapi.html
... and Firefox is going to ask for confirmation before running plugins: http://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2013/09/24/plugin-activation-in-firefox/
While the Firefox approach seems just a one-time-per-site confirm dialog box, Google asks developers to move to other technologies. I don't know such technologies, and I don't know how much "standard" they are.

Of course, letting out Mac and Linux users does not seem a great idea. Considering Chrome is very diffused, so letting out Windows Chrome users would have been a problem... Maybe id Software may have kepth both versions?

[Neon_Knight]

More players for OA to get

I don't think so, if we not release nothing news to attract new users.

OACMP in next December (no more delays, if there are minor glitches and minor stuff, too bad), and if we can get more like-minded people who understand what OA is, where OA aims, and is willing to help (this cannot be stressed enough, as it's the main source of drama), possibly OA3.

[Gig]

About influence of Quake Live existence/popularity on OpenArena popularity, I have never been sure if it's good or bad.
One may think that it's bad, due to attracting Q3-nostalgic people to QL instead of OA. On the other hand, one may think it's good, due to keeping alive the "Quake" brand, q3-style gameplay, and id tech3 engine: allowing people to know that Q3 existed, hence potentially search for infos about it and find out OpenArena existence. We're not in the "Quake" brand, of course, but we can still get some advantage from it.

In case QL would completely close, I can guess that in short-term we may have more players migrating from QL to OA, but in long-term, attention will fade out...

Closure of QL for Mac and Linux only... uhm.. maybe this may be relatively good for OA... but who knows... At any case, users losing freedom to choose does not sound a good thing... it's still sad.

[fromhell]

I think the motive of doing it is to combat people that block ads.

[Ingesecition]

Huh... that's strange. Feels like such a step backwards for this game. The unique thing about QL when it launched was that it was playable from any OS in a browser.

[*Ruthless*]

I kind of see it the same as well. It's pretty much a huge step backwards for Quake Live. I can't figure why they would take away such a large part of the community away. Maybe they have a deal with Microsoft going.  

I think fromhell will keep OpenArena on all platforms , we don't have to worry about our community losing those players, because Linux is probably 70% of OpenArena players.

[Neon_Knight]

Oh, don't worry about that.. OA will still be multiplatform, that's a given, moreso now that thanks to pelya and gamesboro OA went mobile on Android and Ouya.

[Suicizer]

I kind of see it the same as well. It's pretty much a huge step backwards for Quake Live. I can't figure why they would take away such a large part of the community away. Maybe they have a deal with Microsoft going.  

I think fromhell will keep OpenArena on all platforms , we don't have to worry about our community losing those players, because Linux is probably 70% of OpenArena players.

I'm forseeing a certain poll is coming along...