The level of ridiculousness just reached the sky.
There is a way to save Quake Live. I will use my poor English and try to tell you how I would do this.

- All maps and modes should be free for everyone.
- No pro accounts (we are all equal).
- Micro-payments, many many things to buy (but these things will not affect the gameplay, no direct advantage over players who don't want to buy anything).

Most of the things would be very cheap (1$ an 2$). To buy anything you would have to pay money to your account, and then you would be able to spend it anytime:
- Custom weapon skins/sounds. LG that looks like a laser (you can change the color), weapons that look like weapons from other ID Software games (Quake 1, 2, 4, Doom, Wolfenstein), real world weapons, fantasy weapons, weapons from movies, many many other possibilities. One weapon would cost 1$ or 2$. If you would buy the whole pack you would have some discount.
- Custom map skins. It means that you would have the same map but with different textures/ambients. Maps that would look like maps from other ID Software games, wild west skins, futuristic skins, fantasy skins, real world skins, again many many other possibilities.
- Custom items skins/sounds.
- Custom icons.
- Custom fonts (to use in your hud).
- Custom sounds (hit sound).
- Custom voice texts. You will be able to buy a text like: “Hahahaha I won you noob”, bind it to some key, and then say it during the game (your model will say it).
- Custom gestures (taunts). You will be able to buy some win dance and use it during the game, to humiliate your opponent.
- Custom logo (clan emblem or what you want) on the model. (you could buy it for yourself for 2$ and you could also buy it for you clan, in the second case it would cost more, like 5$).
- Custom logo (clan emblem or what you want) in your CTF base (you would have to buy it for your clan).
- Custom flag design for CTF.
- Being able to use colors (in chat, your name, your clan tag).
- Custom console skins.
- Custom scoreboards.
- Other things that now are in pro/premium accounts (like exclusive awards).
- Things regarding statistics/match histories etc.
- Being able to start your own server (you would buy a monthly ticket for this).
- One time payment to disable the ads before the game.
- Different QuakeLive site layout.
- Some stuff for moviemakers (special effects, etc.), trickjumpers etc.
- Blinking color (you would buy it once for 1$ and then use for all things that can have colors: enemycolor, chat color, nick color, crosshair color etc.). I was able to do this with config (no cheating) even now in QuakeLive, and it looks awesome!!! But it blinks only about 75% of the time.

I was able to came up with all this in like 15 minutes, it means that there is probably even more things that could be sold. It would make the game more interesting.

If all this will not be enough to save the game, then we will need some more drastic move. ID would have to disable the enemymodel. You will see the model your opponent have (you will be able to change the enemy color though). Only a few most popular models would be free (keel, tankjr, sarge, some woman model, about 5 free models). Then you would have to pay if you would like to use some other models. ID would have to be careful to not make some weird models that would not fit the hitbox.
Besides the models, you would be able to buy some other things, like helmets, hats, caps, even some cloak, if you are weird :)

I am not playing Quake on regular basis anymore (mostly because I don't have time). I would like to play from time to time, but the whole map thing stops me. I would for example want to just jump over hub3areo on local, but I can't because I would have to buy pro account.

I am a Quake player for over 10 years and it's sad for me to see what ID is doing with the game. I would like to hear what do you thing about this idea (I know it's nothing new, but for some weird reason ID has other, ridiculous vision). If many people would support this idea, maybe ID would change their mind.

Anything is better than disabling the voting...

Let's save Quake!