An unhappy development has occurred in Quake Live today, as id Software has announced that they will be cycling the standard arena pool and removing the “callvote map” function for regular players.
On the first Monday of each month, the studio will select 21 maps as playable for Standard-level matches. Newly released maps will remain exclusive for three months, but every other map is eligible to be included in the cycle.
Additionally, id Software is adding a new arena voting system which supposedly increases the variety of the arenas played. Players on Standard-level matches now have a choice to vote between three arenas at the end of every match.
Only players who pay a monthly $4 fee will for Premium access will can select maps from the entire arena pool. Just as well, only matches created by Pro players will retain the opportunity to have the option to change arenas at any point.
In practice, this means "callvote map" function is gone unless you're a Pro-player and on a server created by a Pro-player. The choices you’ll have as a standard, non-paying player will be limited to relatively undesirable maps.
The new patch appears to be an attempt by id Software to drive subscriptions for the game. Unfortunately, as the community isn’t taking well to the changes, there’s a good chance it may end up driving users away.
