QuakeCon 2008 Details

Going to QuakeCon 2008? The 13th annual event is being held at the Anatole Hotel in Dallas (my hometown!) from July 31st to August 3rd. Organizers are expecting 6,000 folks to be in attendance over the four day extravaganza. This year's QuakeCon will see the debut of QUAKE LIVE as well as an Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars console tourney, a QuakeCon first. Hit the jump for a full rundown and more details.

QuakeCon: July 31 - August 3

Orcs & Elves DS Play

Announcement Round-Up

Wow, that was a packed keynote!

During today's QuakeCon keynote John Carmack unveiled a flurry of announcements including id Software's newest franchise, Rage, and confirmation of a Return to Castle Wolfenstein movie. They also told the crowd that the new Wolfenstein game is being developed by Raven Software for the PC, 360 and PS3. The mutiplayer portion of the game is being worked on by Threewave Software.

Here's the breakdown:
id Software's New Game Unveiled
Quake Zero Announced
Quake Arena Headed to XBLA
Enemy Territory: Quake Wars Dated
id Forges Deal with Valve
Hollenshead Talks Wolfenstein Movie
Orcs & Elves II Hits Mobile this Holiday

Orcs & Elves II Hits Mobile this Holiday

At the end of the QuakeCon keynote Todd Hollenshead had Katherine Anna Kang, founder of Fountainhead Entertainment, take to the stage to show off a bit of Orcs & Elves for the DS.

After a bit of play, she announced that Orcs & Elves II will be hitting mobiles this holiday.

Hollenshead Talks Wolfenstein Movie

id Forges Deal with Valve

Looks like the rumors are true, id and Valve have decided to partner up to sell all of id Software's library, well almost all of it.

Todd Hollenshead told me today that that all of (well like 99 percent of) id Software's games from Commander Keen on up to Quake 3 will now be sold on Steam. The distribution deal also includes a mega pack, that lets you download all of those games for $70. Or $60 if you use the $10 discount code given out at QuakeCon today.

The games should be available now on Steam. Hit the jump for the full list of games and packs.

Enemy Territory: Quake Wars will be hitting the PC on October 2, id Software announced today during their keynote at Quake Con 2007.

Now word yet on when the title will be shipping for the PS3 and Xbox 360. One more reason to save up your money for this fall.

Quake Arena Headed to XBLA

Speaking with id CEO Todd Hollenshead earlier today, he told me that Quake Arena is currently under development for a release on the Xbox Live Arcade. Pi Studios will be working on the port.

Hollenshead said id was very pleased with the Xbox Live Arcade version of Doom and that he had a lot of fun playing it.

"It was amazing, sales were incredible," he said.

Quake Zero Announced

During today's Quake Con keynote the id folks announced that they have a team of developers working on a little pet project called Quake Zero.

QZ will be a free web-based version of Quake 3 multiplayer. Todd Hollenshead told me they decided to kick off this project for several reasons. First and foremost, id hated to see their game, once quite popular for online matches, losing its prominence in the online gaming scene, this will allow virtually anyone with a computer to play matches of their games.

Hollenshead said id also wanted to dip their toe in in-game advertising, and that this seemed like the best way to approach it. So expect ads to be running on the web page when you play Quake Zero,but free games for ads seem absolutely fine to me.

John Carmack today announced id Software's new franchise, Rage, a game that blends the best elements of action and adventure built on id's new id Tech 5 engine and developed for a simultaneous launch on the PC, Mac, PS3 and Xbox 360.

Todd Hollenshead, CEO of id Software, walked me through what to expect from the game and the Quake Con presentation earlier this afternoon.

"It's more than just a first-person shooter, we will show vehicles and racetracks, driving and racing elements," he said. "It is an action-oriented game but with a lot of adventure elements. It will be story driven, but you can also choose your own route to go through things."

The game's basic story is one centered around an oppressive "machine" you are rallying against. While the game, which id has been working on for more than 18 months, will still have indoor and outdoor shooter elements, it will also have plenty of racing including some road rage and the ability to mod and soup up your vehicle.

Expect to hear some news in just a few from the QuakeCon Keynote. id Software CEO Todd Hollenshead and technical director and co-founder John Carmack will be taking the stage for the back-to-back press conference and keynote address.

"We look forward to QuakeCon every year as an opportunity to have a great time partying and playing id games with our fans," said Todd Hollenshead, CEO, id Software. "QuakeCon's continuing popularity is a credit to the dedication of our volunteers and grass-roots support of sponsors and exhibitors; and the fans' enthusiastic and passionate response to our big announcements is inspiring."

Check back to read the news and our interview with Hollenshead.

Today and the rest of the weekend is a wee-bit convention heavy. We're simultaneously covering the 2007 QuakeCon, BlizzCon and Fan Faire. The news seems to be chugging along pretty steadily, so if you want to track just what's happening at your con of choice click the appropriate link below, or you can just catch them as they hit the main page.

BlizzCon
QuakeCon
Fan Faire

Beta 2.0 for Enemy Territories: Quake Wars is going live today. The new beta will include a new map, wider access and plenty of extra features:

• New Map: Valley (temperate climate, GDF-offensive map)
• Wider Access: All current ETQW Fileplanet Beta participants, plus an additional first-come/first-serve 20K participants will be eligible to join
• Offline play against the computer mode added
• Improvements to bots, game physics, audio and game interface
• Punkbuster added
• LAN game support added
• Player statistics tracking and leaderboards added at http://stats.enemyterritory.com
• Unranked server support included

Get it while it's hot over at File Planet.

File Planet

The Kotaku Quake Con Photo Stream

This year's QuakeCon kicked off at the Hilton Anatole Hotel in Dallas today with crowds expected to reach 6,000. Although the John Carmack keynote and press conference doesn't hit until Friday night, the Bring-Your-Own-Computer folks have already set up and tourney check in is well underway. The assorted tournaments will get under way this afternoon, with some running through till Saturday night.

"We look forward to QuakeCon every year as an opportunity to have a great time partying and playing id games with our fans," said Todd Hollenshead, CEO, id Software. "QuakeCon's continuing popularity is a credit to the dedication of our volunteers and grass-roots support of sponsors and exhibitors; and the fans' enthusiastic and passionate response to our big announcements is inspiring."

id will be giving away 3,000 VIP keys to the upcoming Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars Beta 2.0 and their are even a number of booths packed in with all of the PCs in the 25,000-square-foot exhibit area. NVIDIA, Activision, Antec, Armadillo Aerospace, Bgears, DeVry University, Dust-Off, EA Mobile, FSP Group USA, GameRail, The Guildhall at SMU, Ideazon, IN WIN, iZ3D, MSI, PNY Technologies, proGAM3R magazine, Patriot Memory, steelseries, Tritton, Turtle Rock Studios with Valve Software, and Wintec Industries will on be on hand to show off their wares, both hard and soft.

Quake Con

amBX To Light, Shake, and Blow QuakeCon