QuakeWorld is an Internet multi-player specific version of Quake.

QuakeWorld (abbreviated QW) is an update to id Software's seminal multiplayer deathmatch game, Quake, that enhances the game's multiplayer features (namely UDP support) to allow people with dial-up modems to achieve greatly improved responsiveness when playing on Internet game servers.

Modern broadband connections such as cable and DSL can use the QW model of network handling and game physics. Official id Software development stopped with the test release of QuakeWorld 2.33 on December 21, 1998. Latest official stable release was 2.30.

QuakeWorld's most important feature is its rewritten networking code (for client-side player prediction and delta compression). Player prediction allowed QuakeWorld clients to compensate for high latency, thus allowing dialup users to move around in the virtual world without being affected by the disorienting effects of latency. This helped Quake network play reach an additional market, as opposed to those who had LAN or broadband connections at the time.

It did not address what some considered exploits, namely bunny hopping, wall-hugging, and zig-zagging. These bugs have shaped the recent part of QuakeWorld's life, allowing for additional dimensions to playing style, and are now seen as features by much of the community.

QuakeWorld was seminal in popularising deathmatch, and, alongside Ultima Online, internet multiplayer. It is considered even today by many die-hard players to be the best multiplayer game, such that several games featuring QuakeWorld-like gameplay elements have been developed, including the Quake III mod: Challenge ProMode Arena, Painkiller, the freeware game Warsow, a mod for Quake 4 called Quake4World, and a free game called Quake2World based on the Quake 2 engine.

A license to QuakeWorld was given to Valve Software L.L.C. in 1996, which was heavily modified into the GoldSrc engine, which powers Half-Life, Team Fortress Classic (a follow-up to the QuakeWorld mod Team Fortress), and Counter-Strike, among others.

In December 1999, John Carmack of id Software released the server and client source code of Quake and QuakeWorld under the GNU General Public License as a Christmas present to the world, and this spawned a plethora of 21st century updates to this famous game first released in 1996. A few years later John Romero released the map sources under the GNU General Public License in October 2006. Among the popular clients today are FuhQuake, ezQuake, More QuakeWorld, with ezQuake being most popular.

QuakeNet, the largest Internet Relay Chat (IRC) network, originated in 1997 as a network for QuakeWorld players.

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About Giampaolo Rossi.

Fond of computer and video games. Stay informed of the latest news on games for Linux and Android. The future of gaming is in Linux. All you need to know about How to play Windows games on Linux.