Premium Maps Added:

* Double Impact (CTF):

"Double Impact" comes to us from Pawel "ShadoW" Chrapka, who originally made a variant of the map for the Quake 2 based project Quake2World. This is his third map in QUAKE LIVE, previously releasing "Leviathan" and "Dreadful Place." Double Impact features two large winding bases with many routes in and out. It's most distinctive features are a disconnected room in the middle only accessible via teleporter that holds a Red Armor, and a set of spikes near the top flag room entrance that trap anyone inside, forcing them out into the flag room.

* Overlord (Terra CTF):

Based on Team Arena's most popular terrain map, "Overlord" brings us back the battle between two feuding castles. Newly renovated and reinforced, two gothic castles lie at either end of a mountain pass surrounded by the walls of a green valley. Players can speed through the valley, picking up a multitude of items, powerups, and holdables. When you grow tired of enemies stealing your flag and speeding out, use the mountainsides to make sure none shall pass, or grab our new jetpack-style Flight holdable and rain down sweet flaming revenge from the 3rd dimension.

* Tornado (TDM/CA/FT):

Another beautiful arena from the designer of "Hektik", comes the new level "Tornado", forecast to become a modern day classic. Tornado features three main areas. The main room consists of two large curved walkways with a Megahealth at the bottom. The Battle Suit room is reminiscent of "The Bad Place" from QuakeWorld, with a walkway built over a lava pool, causing searing pain to those who suffer a little too much knockback. Finally, the Quad Damage room is flanked by a small pool of water, punishing players trying to take a shortcut to the Quad. In a whirlwind of swooping passageways themed in warm and cool, Tornado brings fast paced action that is bound to lift you out of your seat.

Holiday Maps Added:

Ho, ho, ho! The holidays are upon us, and Santa has brought each of you a special present! For the next three weeks enjoy our Holiday Arenas, including free Freeze Tag on Winter's Edge, and earn this season's holiday award - "Winter Nights". During this time, Santa himself will be a playable character model on all servers (selectable within the in-game player model menus).

* Silent Night (Terra CTF):

Back by popular demand is "Silent Night", a holiday-themed remake of the popular arena "Distant Screams" from Team Arena. A vast mountainous winter wonderland, explore Silent Night's tundra landscape alongside eleven teammates for some chilling 12v12 Capture the Flag combat.

* Winter's Edge (FFA/FT):

Hailed by many as the greatest deathmatch map in Quake 2, "The Edge" makes a holiday appearance in Quake Live as "Winter's Edge". All players now have a chance to enjoy this timeless classic in both Free for All and Freeze Tag.

Web Updates:

* Clan Profiles - Click on a person's clan tag from their profile page to view the clan's basic information and roster. This section will be further expanded in future updates, and will eventually also handle clan management.
* Spawn Protection is currently being forced off from all pro-user launched servers. The option has been removed until we address the outstanding issue/exploit.

Code Updates:

* New Premium Duel Scoreboards - Available to Premium users online, and all players in offline bot matches, the first of our new Premium Scoreboards brings a wide range of match stat data to the in-game experience including per-weapon accuracy, damage, and frags, item pick-up tallies, average item pick-up times.
* Added Santa model for use during the holidays, selectable within the in-game player model menus.
* IGA ad system fixes and improvements.
* Lightning styles now use lightmapped quality effects, regardless of r_vertexlight value.
* Added r_mapOverbrightCap (Default 255, <0-255>): Allows you to cap the brightness of surfaces brightened by r_mapOverbrightBits (Most useful when using high values of r_mapOverBrightBits; vid_restart required after a value change).

Map Updates:

* Asylum, Japanese Castles, House of Decay, Siberia, Trinity, and Quarantine: These maps have had lighting adjusted while in Vertex Lighting mode.
* Battleforged: Removed grenade ammo in TDM
* Japanese Castles: Fixed ad-wallhack-bug
* Purgatory: Swapped RG/SG placements
* Retribution: Added anti-camping measures for the portal room in CA, and fixed nonsolid metal supports
* Solid: Replaced CG with LG in non-FFA gametypes
* Space CTF: Fixed upper ledges so that you no longer step over them.


what do you guys think?