freemium? wtf? when did free no longer just meant that something didn't cost money?

What? Free... Quake?

I don't mind fragging someone by a Macdonald's in-game signboard *shrug*

if i don't have to download a spyware-infested install file, this may be the end of my social life.

productivity at work -100

Interesting. I really liked Q3 and if this lets me play it without resorting to less than legal means I will be tempted. However, what about mods? Could they find a way to work that in, because I would like me some Rocket Arena or Q3F.

My head just exploded. Seriously - I read this and KABOOM!! No more head. Then it got better and I set about typing this comment.

Shockingly, I'm all for ad supported games like this. It's free to play, and all I have to put up with is some ads. So what? There are ads everywhere. On TV, in magazines, on billboards - everywhere. Ads in games only bother me when it's just for the sake of greed. The best example is Bbox Live. After paying for the service, and paying for a shiny new theme, I have to put up with ads for T-Mobile covering up said theme.... it's just greedy. If XBL were ad supported, I wouldn't care, however, MS is getting a fuckton of cash for those ads (as will id and IGA in this case) because they target the coveted 18-24 male demographic. Those are the most spend-happy people in the world, and advertisers will pay top dollar to push their product to them.

I'm not sure where I was going with all that - but I hope to see more freemium games in the future.

@ Rbecho or maybe some OSP Capture-Strike?

Quake 3 screenshots?? Wow, that engine really is blast from the past. I used to play this on a Voodoo3 card. But now? Should I really insult my gfx card with that engine? Nowadays this is the game for soccer moms with integrated chip sets. Also let's see how happy Coke, McDonalds and Intel are when the gibs splatter all over their ads.

gotta agree, if its a clean app that doesnt require spyware... i dont mind ads in game to offset the price to zero :)

@What The Geek:
a good point well made. Ads only stick in the throat if you've already paid to play the game. Its like being charged to look at billboards. Or a shitload of ads on Sky TV.. i've already paid! howabout not having 6 minutes of ads!

Free, ad supported stuff that doesnt phone the mothership every two minutes with personal details about me will be welcomed. I hope its just in-game banners and that it doesnt overy identify me and how long i stare at billboard etc. Here's hoping!

I think this is a great idea, and would kind of like to see it used for other games. I'm sick of paying full price of $50-60 for a game only for it to be littered with ads and billboards and sponsors. TV doesn't get away with that, so why should videogames? If you've gotta sit through tons of ads, they should be paying for the game, channel, concert, or whatever.

Obviously, this idea doesn't come close to working with some games, as Final Fantasy 23, sponsored by KY Jelly and full of malt liquor billboards would kill the mood a little.

@phantam:

Coke and McDonalds will be happy as a hooker in vegas - they'll be getting exposure to a lot, and I mean A LOT of 18-24 year old males. This is an advertiser's wet dream come true. The primary focus of Quake will be the 18-24 year old men who make up a large portion of gamers - they also make up a large portion of dollars spent in the US. Everyone in advertising / marketing is always looking for a new way to target that demographic - this is marketing gold.

Quake 3 is greatness. Just straight up fast-paced shooting action. I say yes, emphatically yes to this
idea.

@GMC:

heh, maybe there will be a mandatory camera attachment that tracks your eyeball focus during gameplay to determine how long you look at each ad.

Seriously though, the point you've made concerns me as well - will this be *just* ad supported or will there be a buttload of spyware associated with it that tracks everything else I'm doing? I'm ok with ads - that's fine by me. Spyware? Eew. If it dumps a ton of spyware on my computer I'll go out and pick up a copy of Quake 3 on ebay on the cheap.

Awesome, but right now Warsow has me hooked.

@What The Geek:
i can't remember what game it was (PC shooter.. that narrows it down!) that could monitor how long your viewpoint lingered on a ad "poster" in the game world. This shit its real.
*tinfoil hat at jaunty angle

So....is this the same thing as Quake Zero?

first, counter strike online, now this? SWEET!

@GMC:

Yikes.

@fyre:

Yeah, i'm pretty sure they're the same thing.

Now, all they have to do is port threewave to this web-based interface and i'll be set!

There are so much free online shotter with the quake engine out there... ID really have to do something to get this little baby up.

But hey, free is free.

I'll definitely try this out. I wonder how well it will run...

@Southrncomfortjm:

AMEN BROTHER!

Is a interesting experiment for the suit guys. Good luck!.
For gamers, theres lots of interesting quake3 alike games, like Nexuiz, Warsow, OpenArena, Aliens Arena, Cube,... etc.. A new one will be wellcomed :D, more because all others are mostly opensource, so a closed source created by profesionals can show something news, imho.

this looks very interesting. I'm kinda skeptical, but I'll give it a look.

A free online game worth playing?! I'll believe it when I see it...

Office productivity will from now on be non-existent.

The screenshots looks exactly like Quake 3, so I hope they're mock-ups and there will be an actual improvement to the graphics, levels, player models, etc. or I'll just go back to my copy of Q3.

It'll need to support mods and custom maps for this thing to be successful. Q3 in part relied on the community for its popularity.

finally a REAL FAST fps and not all the turtle slow console fps...

@Obsidian: Being played in the web browser, I doubt its going to look any better, if anything it might look worse than the pics or it will be small windowed version of the game.

Whenever I think of Advertisement-supported gaming, or in game advertising, I think of this comic:
[www.penny-arcade.com]

But, free (as in beer) games are a good thing, as long as it doesn't spyware up your computer.

I hate the word freemium, but I sure do love the concept of online games in a browser. As long as it works with a browser like Firefox, that is - if they alienate the mac and linux users by making it IE only it will suck horribly.

Free, browser accessible online Quake? Sign me up!

I wonder if this will work in my Mac, one of the best FPS-games ever made, after Tribes games of course.

Oh hell yes, this is great, show me as many ads as you want!

Corporatism masquerading as Socialism.
IT IS A FUCKING TRAP!

I'll stick with my Halo 3 and my TF2, thanks. At least Bungie and Valve won't LIE to me about mechanically reprocessing my soul into that of an I.D. tagged demographic consumer slave.

*Does the Dew whilst donning a Headcrab hat*

What are you talking about? Valve record statistics on EVERYTHING. Who's lying to who? Huh?

@Hansel: Carmack's goal was to make this platform agnostic. Probably so.

The latest version of VMWare Server also run on the browser (with a tomcat service on background). I hated it at first, but once you set it fullscreen it work smoothly. So seems that a webbrowser can be a portal to launch something fullscreen withouth a huge perfomance hit. Other than PDF files on Firefox. Opening a PDF file on firefox may kill your comp0tar.

[quakelive.idsoftware.com]

*ahem*

Web-based?? What kind of voodoo-engine have they got in the oven?

NC Soft's Exteel now has in-game ads. And I gotta say, they're neat looking.

For those who are confused, this is essentially Quake 3, for free, in a web browser, with a bunch of community stuff tacked on. An interested experiment on Id's part.

so i take it that this is this quake zero?

edit: apparently that question was brought up, and answered. sorry for the (double) post.

Browser games are like mobile games and flash for me. Don't like, don't want and don't care for them. Not yet anyway. But nice to see something like Quake for a change compared to penguins or something.

WOHO!

*charges Plasma Rifle

At everybody who hasn't tried a 3D game in a browser... they have come a LONG way. They run full screen and at 60FPS as long as you have a computer that isn't decades old. You can even tweak your resolution and settings on some.

As for the ads in games, I hate seeing ads in games that I paid for. But if its free, I don't mind. No such thing as a free lunch... and maybe splattering somebody's head on a Burger King ad will make me want to eat a whopper.

@ GMC: A little bit late, but that "PC Shooter" you were talking about where they were able to track how long you looked at ads in game was Battlefield 2142.

Integrated community features is what most free quake games lack. Because theres no central databases to store players accounts, and stuff. "Central server" and opensource often don't mix. Is somewhat sad, because having a central server can add to a game: stats (like these from TF2), achievements (like XBox live), maybe score tables, guild vs guild scores, etc.. that "simple" stuff add to a game. Can be done by hand, and there are people that run "ladders" on free games, like QuakeWorld, but having it streamlined and automatized with the architecture can