• Home
• |
• Downloads
• |
• Videos
• |
• Upload a File
• |
• Forum
• |
• Articles
• |
• Gallery
• |
• Contact

    With the recent release of Quake4, id Software has come under fire by the community for releasing a game that contained a problem ridden multiplayer component. Only a month or so after the game was released, unhappy members of the Quake community wrote articles announcing death of Quake4. id became aware of the issue and decided they needed someone who could represent them in the community, listening to the wants and concerns of their fans. Some fault id for not supporting the community enough, but as I will explain, the hiring of a full-time community liaison is not something that should surprise anyone. id Software has had a long history of being directly in contact with their community by supporting mod teams, hiring within the community, and holding the mother of all LANs QuakeCon.

    Extensive support for the Quake3 community was given by current id Software programmer Robert Duffy and and his former co-worker Paul Jaquays. Robert Duffy contribution to the Quake3 community came in the form of support of mod teams such as Urban Terror and Q3F. During QuakeCon 2000, both the Urban Terror and Q3F mod teams had access to ten computer at the event on which they showed off their mods to attendees. Paul Jaquays interfaced with Quake3 designers on the Quake3World Level Editing Forum, answering any questions people had. Many of the questions he answered became part of the Quake3 shader and level editor manuals which he wrote. He also helped the community in the release of multiple map packs for id Software's Team Arena mission pack for Quake3.

    Hiring from inside the online community dedicated to id Software games is nothing new. id Software co-owner and lead designer Tim Willits, was hired from the online Doom community after releasing several popular levels. Robert Duffy was also hired from inside the community after releasing QERadiant, a level editor based off QE4, the Quake2 level editor from id Software. The creators of the very popular Q3F mod for Quake3 came to id's attention and formed their own company Splash Damage. Since then, they have been contracted by id Software to work on several projects such as the the Wolfenstein mission pack which become the free standalone game "Enemy Territory", the Doom3 multiplayer maps, and currently the highly anticipated game "Enemy Territory: Quake Wars".

    In late 2002 when cheating started to become a intolerable nuisance on Quake3 servers, id Software responded by releasing an extensive update to their almost three year old game. The updated included the anti-cheating software named "PunkBuster" licensed from the Even Balance corporation. While people still complain about certain issues related to PunkBuster to this day, if it wasn't for inclusion of the software in the point release, the online Quake3 community would have come to a collapse.

    The most widely know and largest community project id Software has been a part of for many years is QuakeCon. Having started as a small gathering of Quake fans, it has turned into a huge event with thousands of id fans from all of the world converging on Texas to game with friends, see the latest id Software projects, and celebrate everything id. Having been to the past four QuakeCon events, I can attest to the huge amount of energy and time id puts into the event. While we have just seen recently other companies start similar events celebrating their games, QuakeCon is still the only free event out there.

    As discussed, id Software's support to their fan base has constantly been shown over the years. id's latest decision to hire a full time community liaison just adds to their huge list of community related achievements.

You are currently not logged in. You may post an anonymous comment, but it must first be approved to appear. We recommend that you either Login In or Register an Account to post under your name.

Enter Security Code: