Play Quake Arena Free

[Shire Le Buff]

http://www.quakelive.com/

I'm always interested in these "Free online games" and how they make their money. Quake Live for instance is a recently launched (still in Beta) updated version of Quake Arena you can play on your browser. It's supposedly entirely adbased which has some potential of making some decent money if this thing takes off.

They took a game they already made money off of and found a way to make some more money off it for pretty cheap. GENIUS!

I haven't gotten a chance to dive in yet, but the idea of a free game is awesome.

I've played other online games, usually some form of an RPG, that makes their money from small bonus items you purchase in game (like a 2 dollar sword, a new costume for a buck, etc.) These make a HUGE amount of money as these micro payments add up.

The internet is looking to be the solitary future for a lot of things these days (newspaper, comics, television). Is it the future for video games as well?

[Infinite Jerkgrinders]

heard about this from some coworkers, who say it runs just as smooth as the original version. Cool stuff, i'll have to check it out sometime.

As far as games being online, steam is already pretty close to being 'online gaming' -- allowing you to buy the game and download it without having to go to a store is really nice. I don't think we'll be seeing high-end games being availible for play directly online any time soon. Most computers can't take a lot of the heavir resolution graphics on their own, I doubt there is enough bandwidth to play a game like half life 2 completely online.

[Shire Le Buff]

Yeah there's the downloadable content which is becoming a larger part of the industry each month, but I'm talking more about the lower scale games. MapleStory for example. That is far from being as beautiful as Warcraft but the booger is 100 percent free (except for bonus stuff) and pretty darn fun if you want to play a MMORPG.

[oatmeal fetish....]

Holy fuck yes. Anyone want to play?

[Shire Le Buff]

On a related note: Battlefields Heroes

http://www.battlefieldheroes.com/

A brand new Battlefield game that has received great reviews. I haven't tried it personally yet (but this weekend seems promising) and I have great memories involving Battlefield 1942 and LAN parties.

It'll be making its money off of micropayments, meaning the meat of the game is free but if you want to buy a wacky looking gun or outfit, that'll cost you a buck. These add on's seem to fit well with the game's cartoonish art style. So it's not like you'll see a man wielding a giant lobster claw gun in the middle of a gritty battle for Normandy.

Free online games are exciting.

So there.

[oatmeal fetish....]

FYI I played quake for a few months using this and it was wonderful.

[Shire Le Buff]

With Battlefield we can actually set up our own games rather than being placed into a game with strangers of the same skill level like Quake did. Let's play some Ethan.

[oatmeal fetish....]

I never played the original so I will have to learn but okay! I'll download it next week when I gets a new computer.

[Shire Le Buff]

You chose from three classes (each with additional customizations you earn as you level up your character) and then you pick a team. Each map consists of two teams fighting over spawn points.