Getting Started Again

[Evolution]

What's required?:
pak0.pk3

Simply you only need access to this file, it is the only thing that id Software holds exclusive copyright over. It contains 85% of their unreleased, private, content.

Quake 3 con be obtained on Steam, Amazon, eBay, or many other places at any time for $10 or less.

A valid cd-key is no longer required, PunkBuster has been easily beatable and no longer updated for Quake 3 in many years(so it's rarely on) and the performance impacts outweigh the benefits. Few of the remaining servers have PunkBuster enabled or sv_strictauth, both of these required a valid and unique cd-key.


Getting an engine:
http://eu.promode.ru/index.php
http://www.q3df.org
http://fraglove.com/index.php
http://ioquake3.org

What about QuakeLive?:
QuakeLive is great if you don't want to play custom mod and are okay just playing vq3, OSP, and/or CPMA and the gametypes they support. Mods developed later in Quake 3's life span like XoneXfer and Revolution made many improvements that were not captured in other mods, and there are plenty of custom and unique mods(Excessive+, Bid for Power, many unlisted) that cannot be played in QuakeLive because they are "closed" servers.

Lets not forget the limited custom map selection, custom skins, sounds, etc. (Quake 3 is one of the last highly customizable(read mod-able) games.

How do I find a server?
Short of playing on one of the THB servers that have the addresses listed in various places and asking Dwel13R or Evolution.. There is Qtracker, a game server browse that supports Quake 3, Battlefield 1942, Battlefield 2, and more. Qtracker can be obtained @ http://www.qtracker.com/

If you feel adventurous, you can also seek out kquery - kquery.com seems to be missing, but kquery was an improvement over Qtracker and is now one of the few alternatives without Gamespy and The All-Seeing Eye(ASE).