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id Software talks about Quake Live open beta launch issues


It's been about 36 hours or so after the open beta launch of Quake Live but id Software's free-to-play version of Quake III Arena has not had a smooth launch, mostly due to the tremendous amount traffic the game has generated. Some people have waited for an hour or more to actually play the game once they sign onto the site and then get put into a queue.

id Software's Marty Stratton has posted up an update on the Quake Live message boards. Here is his statement on the long queue issues:

We obviously didn't intend for tens of thousands of people to have to wait in the queue, but it was put in place for a reason, and that was so once you made it to the site, it still performed fairly well and didn't crash under heavy loads, which for the most part has worked well. We apologize for the frustration a line causes, but it will be in place until we can scale and optimize our back-end to accommodate "everyone." This is our top priority right now and when we get to that point, there will be no queue. You can certainly trust us on this - for a game funded by advertising revenue, we don't want a queue keeping you out anymore than you want it.

Stratton also addressed the sheer number of people trying to play the game during the open beta launch. Check out his statement after the jump:
As mentioned in the developer notes post, it's was very difficult to estimate how many people to expect when opening this. There are so many things that can affect traffic to a site, and like many online games or services during launch, we got slammed. We also had a number of hardware and software issues that we're still working through. It's important to at least note that we're trying to walk a fine line with this project, in that we're running a backend system more like an MMO than a FPS; but we're not charging you $60 up front to help offset our costs or charging a monthly fee to play. Hopefully, it then makes sense to everyone that we need to be responsible with the costs of our infrastructure and grow or optimize as demand warrants. We're in this process now..

Stratton also states that for the time being all games are set up as un-ranked which means stats from playing games are not being collected from players. This is to ensure that all players go through the required bot training to set up their initial skill level. Stratton said, "We will return to normal stats reporting as soon as possible." Stratton also said that issues with email conformation delivery and password recovery are also being worked on.

Stratton's final statement is, "Everyone here appreciates your patience during these early days of opening the site. We've seen a lot of terrific "reviews" of the site and game from those that have made it through the queue and hope that everyone remembers that we want you in the game as bad as you want to be there - so we're working hard on all of the above and will continue to keep you updated."

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