Beta 2 is now released. Our announcement follows. Enjoy.

Thanks for all the feedback, particularly on the forum, on the first beta!  We've made a number of improvements to this in light of your feedback (though we've not been able to squash all the bugs you reported -- we are working on it!)  Here are the changes...

• You can now launch a server and a remote console session from the Launcher.

• We've a "key to the sounds" document on the Launcher menu.

• We have included the old documentation for AudioQuake 0.3.0.

• All documentation written by us is in HTML format now, so should be easier to navigate.

Please note that the old AudioQuake 0.3.0 documentation has not been updated to take into account the new Mac/Windows release, nor the new GUI launcher, so please ignore the parts about installation, the old command-line-based launcher and anything to do with Linux (for now). We are working on updating the documentation as soon as we can, and would suggest that if you're totally new to the game, you wait until we've been able to do that before playing.

Please remember that AudioQuake was and is a research project and not all of the Quake levels are very accessible -- however a number are, and a number of accessible multi-player levels are provided, as well as a server.  Most importantly, we are working on updating and including the Level Description Language (LDL) with AudioQuake ASAP so that you can make your own maps for the game.

Please keep the feedback coming; we're doing our best to address the issues and make improvements.

Yep, any feedback appreciated.

If you want to run the server "Headless" (i.e. without GUI) there is a little more work to do, I fear. But it absolutely starts and runs from the launcher now, or it should anyway. Have fun.

The short answer is that yes you can do it, but I wouldn't rush into it.

To get rotating maps working you will have to know the Quake commands and modify the cfg file. And to get multiple servers up you will have to listen on different port numbers, and run ports through your NAT box.

The thing to understand is that Quake is always client-server; even when you play single-player, what's happening is that the client is actually speaking the server protocol to itself, internally. The server program merely externalises that server function into a separate process. So, learn how to use the main engine first, i.e. the whole of Quake, and then you can learn how to run the server with the right config. You can choose which map to start, which game mode, and whether cheats are enabled or not.

I will see whether or not it would be possible to run Quake from a directory rather than the launcher; that might be helpful. In the meantime, don't be alarmed if things are patchy; it is beta after all.

You can replace the sounds; those are just standard wave files. Go ahead and supply replacements. These are loaded in preference to the pak files; if you want to replace in-game sounds, you can do that, too; just provide files of the names as they are found in the pak files.

Thanks for bringing this up, I will make sure we have good instructions.