The sampler matches have been switched up again and we are now running Domination on Purgatory.

Domination pits two teams vying to capture control points scattered around the arena. Players spawn with all weapons near a control point that they own, or randomly around the arena if none are owned. Capture a point by standing nearby, and then defend it from incoming attackers attempting to do the same.

As always, the Sampler servers are available in limited capacity, so look for matches named "Domination Sampler" and enjoy!

As promised in our last update, we've marked all arenas as available for Standard matches. Start a Match users may need to refresh the page if you aren't able to select all arenas. Have a great weekend!

QUAKE LIVE Premium Pak 17 is now online. This update features three new arenas from both community members, and a new in-house arena targeted at our Clan Arena mode. We are also announcing our plans to players in response to our recent downtime.

Premium Arenas Added

• Repent:

Repent is a new Clan Arena map from id Software. Set in the bowels of a decaying place of worship, the forgotten elder god who calls this cathedral home has grown angry and jaded towards mankind in his years of solitude. Refusing to be cast aside and banished to the nether realms, he now holds together his decaying cathedral with every ounce of power left in him.

Repent excels in Clan Arena matches ranging from 2v2 up to 8v8, and has unique item layouts and additional support for Free For All, Duel, Team Deathmatch (2v2), Freeze Tag, and Red Rover.

• Arcane Citadel:

Making a return to their TDM roots the authors of Purgatory and Limbus, 'akm' and 'Yellack', bring us the gothic beauty of Arcane Citadel. Here combatants battle for control between the moon-lit quad courtyard and the perilous battle-suit pit, and with no Railgun in sight, players must fully commit to their fight if they wish to regain control of lost territory. Arcane Citadel also comes with its own mood music, a new sinister sounding music track by re:deep.

Crafted for 4v4 Team Deathmatch, Arcane Citadel also supports for Free For All, Clan Arena, Freeze Tag, Domination, and Red Rover.

• Cure:

Ferdinand 'cityy' List, the author of Silence, debuts his latest duel arena, Cure, in Quake Live. Cure is set in a mid-century European village where an abandoned post-war sanatorium resides. Twisting halls leading through and between highly vertical multi-tiered alleyways, commonly result in visceral close quarter combat as players stragetically chose their paths through this spacious villa.

Cure has been designed for Duel, and includes additional support for Free For All, Team Deathmatch (2v2), Clan Arena, Freeze Tag, and Red Rover.
Code Updates:

• Hud Scorebox Element fixed on Large HUD.
• No longer allow servers owners to be kicked via 'callvote clientkick'.

Arena Changes

• Overkill
  - Resolved a large number of z-fighting issues.
• Warehouse
  - Added additional spawn points to better facilitate large matches and reduce spawn frags.
• Wargrounds
  - Added additional spawn points to better facilitate large matches and reduce spawn frags.

Additionally, as a token of our appreciate for your patience through our recent downtime, we are happy to announce the following:

• Subscriptions Extended: The expiration date for all subscriptions have been extended by 3 days, to make up for lost time.

• Free Premium Arena Weekend: We are opening up access to all arenas from Friday, May 10th through Sunday, May 12th. Players will be able to play on all arenas at all membership levels, and our Pro subscribers will be able to launch standard matches utilizing the full array of maps.

• Accept our Repentance: The new Clan Arena map from id Software, Repent, will be added to this month's Standard Map Rotation and available for everyone to play beginning today.

QUAKE LIVE Premium Pak 17 is now online. This update features three new arenas from both community members, and a new in-house arena targeted at our Clan Arena mode. We are also announcing our plans to players in response to our recent downtime.

Premium Arenas Added

• Repent:

Repent is a new Clan Arena map from id Software. Set in the bowels of a decaying place of worship, the forgotten elder god who calls this cathedral home has grown angry and jaded towards mankind in his years of solitude. Refusing to be cast aside and banished to the nether realms, he now holds together his decaying cathedral with every ounce of power left in him.

Repent excels in Clan Arena matches ranging from 2v2 up to 8v8, and has unique item layouts and additional support for Free For All, Duel, Team Deathmatch (2v2), Freeze Tag, and Red Rover.

• Arcane Citadel:

Making a return to their TDM roots the authors of Purgatory and Limbus, 'akm' and 'Yellack', bring us the gothic beauty of Arcane Citadel. Here combatants battle for control between the moon-lit quad courtyard and the perilous battle-suit pit, and with no Railgun in sight, players must fully commit to their fight if they wish to regain control of lost territory. Arcane Citadel also comes with its own mood music, a new sinister sounding music track by re:deep.

Crafted for 4v4 Team Deathmatch, Arcane Citadel also supports for Free For All, Clan Arena, Freeze Tag, Domination, and Red Rover.

• Cure:

Ferdinand 'cityy' List, the author of Silence, debuts his latest duel arena, Cure, in Quake Live. Cure is set in a mid-century European village where an abandoned post-war sanatorium resides. Twisting halls leading through and between highly vertical multi-tiered alleyways, commonly result in visceral close quarter combat as players stragetically chose their paths through this spacious villa.

Cure has been designed for Duel, and includes additional support for Free For All, Team Deathmatch (2v2), Clan Arena, Freeze Tag, and Red Rover.
Code Updates:

• Hud Scorebox Element fixed on Large HUD.
• No longer allow servers owners to be kicked via 'callvote clientkick'.

Arena Changes

• Overkill
  - Resolved a large number of z-fighting issues.
• Warehouse
  - Added additional spawn points to better facilitate large matches and reduce spawn frags.
• Wargrounds
  - Added additional spawn points to better facilitate large matches and reduce spawn frags.

Additionally, as a token of our appreciate for your patience through our recent downtime, we are happy to announce the following:

• Subscriptions Extended: The expiration date for all subscriptions have been extended by 3 days, to make up for lost time.

• Free Premium Arena Weekend: We are opening up access to all arenas from Friday, May 10th through Sunday, May 12th. Players will be able to play on all arenas at all membership levels, and our Pro subscribers will be able to launch standard matches utilizing the full array of maps.

• Accept our Repentance: The new Clan Arena map from id Software, Repent, will be added to this month's Standard Map Rotation and available for everyone to play beginning today.

The next Sampler matches are now online, and are running Freeze Tag on Warehouse.

FreezeTag is a game of freeze or be frozen. Two teams collect weapons, armor, and powerups, and attempt to frag the opposing team, causing them to freeze in place. Frozen players can be thawed by the heat of their teammates standing close by, or by being pushed into an environmental hazard. Teams score points by freezing the entire other team.

As always, the Sampler servers are available in limited capacity, so look for matches named "FreezeTag Sampler" and enjoy!

The May 2013 Standard arena rotation is now online. On the first Monday of each month, we will be cycling the Standard arena pool. Rather than only having access to the same standard arenas day in and day out, each month we will now feature 24 arenas selected as playable for Standard-level matches.

Newly released arenas will remain exclusive for at least three months, but every other arena is eligible to be included in the cycle.

Standard Map Pool:
Start date: May 6, 2013
End date: June 3, 2013

Base Siege (CTF)
Blood Run
Demon Keep
Dismemberment
Distant Screams (CTF)
Dredwerkz
Evolution
Fatal Instinct
Hearth
Hell's Gate
Industrial Accident (CTF)
Infinity (CTF)
Longest Yard
Proving Grounds
Purgatory
Repent
Siberia (CTF)
Spillway
Terminal Heights
Three Story
Thunderstruck
Troubled Waters (CTF)
Vortex Portal (CTF)
Warehouse
Wicked

Early Monday morning, the QUAKE LIVE infrastructure suffered a major outage impacting stability and performance. Over the past 48 hours, we've been working to resolve the issue, and have now restored service to the public. While all attempts have been made at ensuring the site remains stable, we may run into intermittent issues going forward, so please continue to be patient while we work through any remaining issues.

The outage forced us to rollback around 6 hours of data, from approximately Monday 2AM CDT, to 7AM CDT. This has the following implications on end-users:

• Any accounts created between in the above time window will have to be recreated.
• Changes to your profile, settings/binds, friends, and other account data may need to be recreated.
• The scheduled content release has been delayed until the site's stability is established.
• Compensation for the downtime will also be announced once the site is presumed stable.

QUAKE LIVE is now back online. We have temporarily reinstated service and are monitoring its stability as we conduct further testing. Service may be sporadic, and the site may be taken offline again if needed as our staff continues to resolve the performance and instability issues we have been experiencing.

We will have a more detailed post, containing our plans going forward sometime in the near future.

Check out the preview of new content coming soon to Quake Live! http://www.quakelive.com/#!preview/qlpp17

The next Sampler matches are now online, and are running 1-Flag CTF on Courtyard.

1-Flag CTF returns from the original Quake 3 expansion pack Team Arena. A neutral flag spawns in the middle of the arena. Teams must pick up the flag, and deliver it to the enemy's flag stand. Two wrinkles are added compared to normal Capture The Flag: the ability to throw the flag a long distance instead of dropping it in front of you (look for the prompt below the flag icon on the HUD when you're holding the flag!) and the ability for flags to be boosted by jump pads and teleported when touching portals.

As always, the Sampler servers are available in limited capacity, so look for matches named "1-Flag CTF Sampler" and enjoy!

We are happy to announce the opening of a location in São Paulo, Brazil, donated through members of the Brazilian QUAKE LIVE community. This location is currently open on an experimental basis as we judge if bandwidth and other requirements are able to meet the load requirements of the player base there. As a result, currently all matches are untiered, and players may run into lag issues during peak hours. We will continue to monitor the situation and our options going forward.

Update: We now also have a donated location in the Turkey region now online.

We are happy to announce the opening of a location in São Paulo, Brazil, donated through members of the Brazilian QUAKE LIVE community. This location is currently open on an experimental basis as we judge if bandwidth and other requirements are able to meet the load requirements of the player base there. As a result, currently all matches are untiered, and players may run into lag issues during peak hours. We will continue to monitor the situation and our options going forward.

The sampler matches have been switched up again and we are now running Harvester on Inner Sanctums.

Harvester is a team-based game mode that hails from the original Team Arena release. Fragging the other team will cause a colored skull to emit from an obelisk located in the middle of the arena. Grabbing the enemy's skull, and running them to the enemy's base will score you a point for each skull captured. Grabbing your teammate's skulls will deny them from the enemy. The first team to reach 15 skulls captured is the winner!

As always, the Sampler servers are available in limited capacity, so look for matches named "Harvester Sampler" and enjoy!

The April 2013 Standard arena rotation is now online. On the first Monday of each month, we will be cycling the Standard arena pool. Rather than only having access to the same standard arenas day in and day out, each month we will now feature 24 arenas selected as playable for Standard-level matches.

Newly released arenas will remain exclusive for at least three months, but every other arena is eligible to be included in the cycle.

Standard Map Pool:
Start date: April 1, 2013
End date: May 6, 2013

Almost Lost
Arena Gate
Battleforged
Camper Crossings (CTF)
Cold War
Courtyard (CTF)
Dueling Keeps (CTF)
Electric Head
Eviscerated
Focal Point
Forgotten
Hektik
House of Decay
Inner Sanctums (CTF)
Jumpwerkz (CTF)
Leviathan
Left Behind
Lost World
Overlord (CTF)
Realm of Steel Rats
Space Camp
Space CTF (CTF)
Theatre of Pain
The Edge

We are happy to announce a new match location in Oslo, Norway, donated courtesy of Host1. You may need to refresh the site in order for the new location to appear in the Match Browser and Start a Match sections. Enjoy!

The Sampler Matches have been updated, now running Red Rover on Terminatria.

Red Rover is a mix between Clan Arena and Free For All. When you frag a player on the opposing team, they switch to your team and help you hunt down the remaining enemies. The round ends when all players are on the same team. You gain one point for every player you frag, and lose one point for every time you die. The player with the highest score at the end of 10 rounds of play is the winner!

As always, the Sampler servers are available in limited capacity, so look for matches named "Red Rover Sampler" and enjoy!

The March 2013 Standard arena rotation is now online. On the first Monday of each month, we will be cycling the Standard arena pool. Rather than only having access to the same standard arenas day in and day out, each month we will now feature 24 arenas selected as playable for Standard-level matches.

Newly released arenas will remain exclusive for at least three months, but every other arena is eligible to be included in the cycle.

Standard Map Pool:
Start date: March 4, 2013
End date: April 1, 2013

Beyond Reality (CTF)
Brimstone Abbey
Cold Cathode (CTF)
Cold War
Concrete Palace
Corrosion
Devilish
Double Impact (CTF)
Gothic Rage
Hell's Gate Redux
Hero's Keep
Hidden Fortress
Ironworks (CTF)
Japanese Castles (CTF)
Nameless Place
Reflux (CTF)
Sorrow
Stronghold (CTF)
Terminatria
Tornado
Toxicity
Trinity
Vertical Vengeance
Windsong Keep

We have applied a small follow-up update to address a few issues that arose following our Feb 26th update.

Code Updates:

• Fixed the 'Air Control' Start-a-Match option.
• Fixed the Freeze Tag 'Round Delay 0' Start-a-Match option.
• Fixed the 'Teams are tied at 0' team score message.
• Round based games once again will kick players after 180 seconds of inactivity, but the new code will now accumulate time across rounds, but does not count time dead/froze/paused against them.
• Addressed an issue that would perpetuate telefrags in some round based gametypes, when a map had too few spawn points available.

Today's update is an interim update featuring many fixes to improve the game experience, and numerous fixes and gameplay improvements to our arenas.

Duel Updates

• Premium Duel Scoreboard now preserves match data, addressing issues caused by forfeited matches or disconnected players.
• Duels can no longer start with more than 2 players, who were added via the admin 'put' command.
• Server admins may no longer use the 'put' command to place more than two players into a match in progress.
• Server admins may no longer use of the 'allready' command if more or less than two players are in the match.
• Fixed Duel's short name display to read "DUEL" instead of "DM" on the Premium Duel Scoreboard.

Round Based Game Mode Updates

• Players who die during a round countdown will now immediately respawn alive, rather than be excluded from the round as a dead player.
• Inactivity kicks are no longer triggered while dead or frozen.
• Players are now dropped after 25 seconds of inactivity in round based game modes.
• Fixed players in Freeze Tag from being able to prematurely fire if they respawned during a match or round countdown.
• In addition to held power-ups, we now remove dropped power-ups between rounds in Freeze Tag.
• Players may no longer use of the 'forfeit' command during round countdowns.
• Prevent infected from getting weapons in warmup in Infected Red Rover.
• Fixed instaInfected, zombies were spawning with the set Starting Weapons value instead of just gauntlets.
• Gametypes that do not allow item spawning will now utilize the best starting weapons order in warmup, if no weapons are present.

PQL Ruleset Updates

• Increased the consistency of the chain jump boost, also improving telejumps.
• Increased the speed gained by circle strafing.
• Increased the speed while turning with air control.
• Clamp weapon respawn time to a minimum of 10 seconds.
• Max ammo values decreased in item collection based gametypes.
  - MG: 100, SG: 20, GL: 20, RL: 20, LG: 100, RG: 20, PG: 100, BFG: 10, NG: 20, PL: 5, CG: 100
• Adjusted player respawn delay, now within a 0.5 and 3.5 second window.
• Vertical jump velocity gets capped, keeping the cumulative effect of chain jumps in check.
• Draw Tiered Armor Availability icons added to inform players when an armor is unavailable for pickup.
• Removed extraneous console variable spam when rulesets are changed.

Misc Game Updates

• Removed /systeminfo command, could be exploited to cause a client crash.
• Rail trails are now properly aligned with the gun barrel, taking custom values of cg_gunX/Y/Z into account.
• Re-enabled the TeamKill Complaint system.
• Fixed an issue that would occur when using a medkit with more than 125HP and firing the weapon in the same frame.
• Lightning Gun muzzle point is positioned correctly when crouching.
• Fixed clientside prediction errors when using custom values of RampJumpScale.
• Weapon Gravity options in Start-a-Match now properly take in account custom values of g_gravity.
• Freecam spectating no longer uses a third person offset, and custom values of cg_thirdPersonAngle will no longer break spec cameras.
• Smoothed out changes in height/viewheight when the spectatorCam flies into a flight of stairs.
• Smooth out viewheight change when crouching while in third person.
• Allow +moveup/+movedown on ladders to help dictate direction (ala Q2). This allows you to be looking up as you crawl down the ladder.
• Draw "-" on the scoreboard in place of the -999 forfeit score on all scoreboard feeders.
• Corrected end game scoreboard messages during a forfeit. "You finished with a score of -999"
• Corrected end game scoreboard messages in Harvester, and improved capture messages when only one capture was made.

Web Updates

• Added 5 Premium Experience PQL Awards
  - Too Fast: Complete 1 online PQL match.
  - Air Bender: Complete 1 online PQL match in Duel, Capture the Flag, Clan Arena, and Team Deathmatch.
  - Paratrooper: Complete 100 online PQL matches.
  - Dogfighter: Complete 500 online PQL matches.
  - Ethereal: Complete 1,000 online PQL matches.

Arena Updates

• Aerowalk
  - Fixed a hall of mirrors effect on the green armor teleporter.
  - Fixed the skywalk ceiling clip exploit.
  - Fixed the alignment of the ceiling clips in the lightning gun room and the central atrium.
  - Fixed clipping above two door archways.
  - Fixed texture alignment on trim of the teleporter exit ledge.
  - Made the fencing no longer cast shadows so that you can see the pipe detail work behind them.
  - Fixed the mispositioned weaponclip on the fencing near yellow armor.
  - Improving lighting, getting rid of the black wall section near the grenade launcher teleporter and the black stair faces in mid.
  - Improved the positioning of some of the small ceiling lights.
  - Fixed the position of the angled light near high RL.
• Campgrounds
  - Fixed texture alignments on the upper level floors, near both railgun and rocket launcher.
• Foolish legacy
  - Removed the no-weapon-drop from the waterfog in the megahealth pool.
• Infinity
  - Added a new route from mid to high base rocket launcher.
  - Added a ladder connection between the water tube and the new high route.
  - Moved the railgun to the new water tunnel ledge.
  - Removed one of the spawns near plasmagun and one of the spawns near the mid shotgun.
  - Added a wall in the perimeter to give the teleporter pool more cover.
  - Added 25hp to the new doorway in mid.
  - Added 25hp to the teleporter pool.
  - Made water in mid deeper, added underwater route below the bridge.
  - Fixed skull dispenser in Harvester.
• Left Behind
  - Removed no-weapon-drop from the waterfog in the railgun pool.
• Overkill
  - Renamed the 'Visor courtyard' to 'Ranger courtyard'.
  - Fixed z-fighting in hall near Ranger courtyard.
  - Fixed texture misalignment on floor near fog pit.
  - Removed some exploitative clips.
  - Clipped some exploitative ledges.
• Quarantine
  - Fixed two clips on the staircase between red armor and the back teleporter.
• Reflux
  - Fixed texture alignment on curved brick wall by megahealth.
• Realm of Steel Rats
  - Texture density and alignment fixed on the curved brick walls in the lightning gun, lower rocket launcher, and quad rooms.
• Space Chamber
  - Fixed the inappropriately sized red armor item timer due to a stray 'team' key on the item.
• Terminatria
  - Total Health increased from 525 to 700.
  - Total Armor increased from 235 to 280.
  - Jump pad behind the railgun area replaced with teleporter
  - Quad and Megahealth areas rebuilt.
  - Numerous graphical and gameplay orientated tweaks.
  - Duel mode added - item and weapons layouts changes, upper Rocket Launcher and Grenade Launcher rooms are blocked off.
  - Duel mode: Two way teleporter added at the Lightning Gun.
  - Made tesla sfx on teleporter nonsolid
  - Replaced cables with a new dark cable version for improved alpha blend
  - Fixed trim construction near quad
  - Fixed trim construction near lg
  - Fixed texture alignment on all volumetric lights
  - Fixed wall texture scale behind GA teleporter
  - Fixed stair ramps near quad
  - Deleted obscured portions of the decorative pipes outside of the arena
  - Cleanup, making some structural brushes into detail brushes
• The Edge
  - Removed the no-weapon-drop from the waterfog in the railgun pool.
• Wicked
  - Fixed duplicate spawn point at RL spawn, which caused an imbalance in the spawn point selection process.

The sampler matches have been switched up again and we are now running Domination on Deep Inside.

Domination pits two teams vying to capture control points scattered around the arena. Players spawn with all weapons near a control point that they own, or randomly around the arena if none are owned. Capture a point by standing nearby, and then defend it from incoming attackers attempting to do the same.

As always, the Sampler servers are available in limited capacity, so look for matches named "Domination Sampler" and enjoy!