[Part 1] Progress, plans, and lots of work to do

[marty]

It's been a while since we've provided a broad update on the scope of activities that the QUAKE LIVE team is working on. Some of you may be totally new to the game, while others have been with us since closed beta and already have some insight into the information below (based on previous developer blogs). I'll try to organize the information in somewhat of an outline of broad topics with as much information as I can provide. Our goal with these has been to be as open about our plans as possible. That said, there will be some topics where we'd prefer to not divulge every detail here in a dev blog. We have activities, feature roll-outs, content additions and a number of other things planned that we will want to make a bigger deal of than just listing them in a developer blog. So, just because something isn't included below doesn't mean we aren't considering it or even working on it.

Awards and Leaderboards
If you've been with us since we first launched the open beta just over 2 months ago, you'll remember that we had a few crazy weeks of queues, database load issues, and ended up choosing to take our leaderboards and about 1/2 of our awards (all of the awards based on single frags) offline in order to improve the reliability and "up-time" of the QUAKE LIVE service while we re-engineered the way those systems work. Bringing these systems back has been the top priority for a number of the programmers here and we've made terrific progress. We've significantly changed the way that our back-end systems and database manage all of the statistical data and also the way that data is queried by players when being accessed from the website (i.e. leaderboards, match results, and profiles). We now have leaderboards back up on our INTERNAL test site. We'll be doing everything we can to load test these before re-enabling for the public. If all goes well, we expect we'll be able to make Leaderboards available again sometime this month (exact timing will depend on testing), and the awards should follow soon after.

Next Big Update
We're planning an update for the middle of May. In addition to including a number of bug fixes both in-game and on the site, this update will include a few updates/additions:

+ The "Practice" section of the site is being completely re-worked. You might think this is unnecessary, but it is being done to accommodate the following two elements - starting a practice match and tutorials/training.

--Starting a Practice Match - the reason this is being re-done is because the new interface/graphic design and general functionality for starting a practice match is nearly identical to, and can be applied directly to what we're developing for the "private server/match" functionality (more on that below). Once we roll this out, you'll have a good idea of how the basic interface will work for starting a private match. There will of course be extensions to this system to handle the additional demands and administration of a private match, but starting a private match will be very similar to, and as easy as starting a practice match against bots with the new interface.

--Training/Tutorials - We have a number of newer players and have had a number of requests for some ability to learn and practice the finer points of QUAKE. Training arenas and tutorials is something we've wanted to develop for a long time and we now have the first two - Rocket Jumping and Strafe Jumping/Running) that will be made available in this mid-May update (there will be a new section for these under the "Practice" option). These will include written tutorials explaining the basics of these skills along with videos, and demos that you can play back. For each skill we've developed a practice arena with challenges ranging from the very basic to the advanced. In addition to explaining how to begin practicing and mastering each skill, the tutorials will demonstrate how to achieve each of the challenges within the practice arenas. We also intend to include additional tutorials over the months on other skills.

+ We're also working with the issue of balancing teams in the middle of a match. This is something that potentially touches a lot of elements (mid-match voting, automatic callvotes, skill rating, etc.), but we want to make the system work better and will be working towards that in this next big update.

+ New Maps - the roll-out of this update will include the first of a series of new maps that we'll be releasing over a period of many weeks. This is where I'm going to leave things pretty vague so that we can do more to promote these as we're releasing them. We have a variety of arenas for every game type and a few of them may surprise you. We'll have some very obvious announcements up as we get closer and during the release window, so check back often for information and details. I know you want more information, but I only put this here so that there aren't a bunch of replies like, "BUT WHAT ABOUT NEW MAPS!!!!!" We're tuning and testing them, and you'll have the first of them with this update.

Private Matches/Servers
As mentioned above, some of the groundwork for this is being done with the practice match interface. We're also working on the back-end features. Next to the leaderboards/stats work and practice information listed above, private matches is our highest priority. We don't have a date for this availability yet, but it's integral to a lot of the things we'd like to do with competition sites, events, and even just your ability to play privately with your friends, so we understand the urgency, and will deliver it as soon as possible. The plans for this service haven't drastically changed, so if you're unfamiliar with our plan, please read Part 1 of our first developer blog (about half-way down). Again, once we roll-out the new interface for starting a practice/bot match, you'll have a pretty good idea how the interface for starting a private match will work.

Skill Matching
We're fairly happy with the changes to the Duel skill ranking system that we made a few weeks ago and will continue to test and tweak that. We will also be moving those concepts and calculations (where appropriate) over to the team based games in the next few weeks. We'll let you know when you can expect different matching results.

Competition Feature Set
We've been working with a developer in creating a feature set that can be used for competitions and in private matches. We've discussed this briefly before, but the basic functionality allows for time-outs, locking teams, and various levels of administration rights (to allow for referees, match admins, captains, etc.). We plan to be testing this privately in the very near future and will provide more information in a later post. Again, this functionality will not be enabled for public games, but will be available to partners running events, tournaments or ladders with us, and also available with the upcoming private match/server functionality.

Punkbuster
We are aware there are still some issues with players being wrongly (and repeatedly) kicked from games by Punkbuster. We are taking this very seriously and obviously want to eliminate any frustration that our anti-cheat measures cause non-cheating players. If you are having problems being wrongly kicked by Punkbuster, we have a forum that provides an outline of some things you can try, but also includes a list of questions that will help us get to the bottom of this issue if you will help us with answers. We are working with the PB developers to set up some one-on-one time in IRC with individuals experiencing problems, so that we can better understand and solve these issues.

Mac/Linux
These have proved more difficult than expected, but we're getting close. We expect to also be testing Mac and Linux versions of QUAKE LIVE internally this month and then making those publicly available just as soon as we feel they are ready. This work is being done by a separate programmer in parallel with the other work that we're doing, and is his only priority - point being, that this is a top priority for us and not being delayed because of other work.

Continue reading [Part 2]