How to get colors in your Quake Live nickname

December 21, 2008 67 comments Article

Veteran Quake players know all about it, but many new players wonder how to have colors in the Quake Live nickname and clantag.
This is something very easy as all it requires is the addition of color codes. Each color has its own number and by using a ^ you can tell Quake to interprete what follows in that color.
^1 = Red
^2 = Green
^3 = Yellow
^4 = Blue
^5 = Cyan (light blue)
^6 = Magenta (purple)
^7 = White

Other colors are not yet supported.

You can set the colors in your name manually by editing your Quake Live config:

seta name “^1Flo^2wer^3Po^4wer”
This will give FlowerPower

Or just change the nickname colors directly in the console

/name ^1Flo^2wer^3Po^4wer

(It is impossible to change your nickname in Quake Live, but you can add colors! So don’t bother trying a different name, Quake Live will not accept it.)

Colored text messages also works in general ingame chat. Although most will not have time to chat with colors, many like to implement it using chatbinds.

Example:
bind p “say ^1:^4p” will give :p

Keep in mind that in Quake Live there is a length limit for nickname and clantag, 15 and 5 respectively, but this does not include the color codes! Have fun changing the colors in your nickname!

67 comments

  • <cite>Lashknife</cite>

    Perhaps I can extend the config generator with a name preview field that instantly shows what it looks like on a lightgray background.

  • <cite>Ant786</cite>

    Whats the console all i hav are cgamex86.dll,qagamex86.dll,qzconfig,uix86.dll,quakelive.dll and repconfig
    wich 1 do i click on
    i clicked on quakelive.dll and it said i needs to find the program that made it to open the file?? please can u help me thanks 😀

  • <cite>Lashknife</cite>

    you don’t start quakelive by clicking a file
    you surf to http://www.quakelive.com, you login and you click a server and the play button to start the game. It’s a browser-launched game, not a standalone exe like we’re all familiar with from other games.

    You cannot play QuakeLive offline

    In the quakelive website, you cannot add color coding to your name field in the profile, you have to do this either in config (see the other faq items here) or ingame in console.

    In console you type:
    /name ^3yellow^4blue to get your nickname “yellowblue” with the word yellow in yellow(3) and the word blue in blue(code 4)

    let us know if you got it working 😉

  • <cite>puter_geek_00</cite>

    Ant786 – Start up a match, don’t enter it, just spectate for now. Then hit CTRL,ALT,~

    That opens up the console. then type in /name ^2Ant786

    that will change your name to green.

  • <cite>Ant786</cite>

    um how do i make a game i never new u could make a game and ive and both of u to quake plz can u go on line around 7:00clock in england time if ur from usa thnx ;D

  • <cite>mobbb</cite>

    one problem is that some keyboard layouts use the ^ to open and close the console which makes it impossible to enter colors there. a solution is to press Alt+9+4 to get the ^.

    may be worth adding to the guide! 🙂

  • <cite>Lashknife</cite>

    Yes, but not through the website’s profile page, there you can only type the clanname, not any markup.

    To enable colors, use the console or execute a config with this line:
    seta clan ^1c^2la^4n
    This will result in clan

  • <cite>psycntrl</cite>

    benutzer einer deutschen tastatur bekommen die konsole auf mit:
    “strg + alt + ^”, haben jedoch das problem ein “^” nicht schreiben
    zu k?nnen da das die konsole wieder schlie?t.
    ——————————————————————-

  • <cite>Lashknife</cite>

    if you are in the game on a server, when you press ctrl+alt+ the key above the TAB key (for qwerty ~` and for azerty ??) then the console opens.

    If you type there cg_comallowconsole 1
    then you don’t have to press ctrl-alt, just the key above TAB to open/close the console.

    now in that console, you can do as instructed to get colors in your name.

    gl!

  • <cite>Serbe0</cite>

    hello there!

    to colour your name or any message in quakelife is cool! but i think it would be mutch cooler if there is somethink like a colour text generator for online games, you type in your text and can change the colour of each letter, and then u can copy the “code” like ^2he^3ll^5o so you can also take a look if you liek the combination of some colours in your name!

    maybe there is a computerfreak who make us a online QL colour text gen 🙂

    BTW: my english sucks 😛

    -Serbe0

  • <cite>Mackmac</cite>

    Hi it’s mackmac I have enabled the console and I can make it come up it’s just when I type in /name then mackmac it dosent do any think I need help

  • <cite>Mackmac</cite>

    By the way if u want black then it’s ^8 that’s all I know and the other coloures can u help in saving my coloured name

    Sorry about the spelling

  • <cite>Mackmac</cite>

    Right I’m finally in colour but black does not work sorry guys who thought It did thanks for the help id u want to add me and get ur name in coloured letterin my name is mackmac

  • <cite>Lashknife</cite>

    what kind of keyboard do you have? the console opens with ctrl + alt + (the key right above the TAB key)

    or if you put /com_allowconsole 1 in your autoexec.cfg or custom cfg that you may have, then you don’t have to type ctrl + alt anymore and can just use the key above TAB to toggle the console.

    I don’t know of a keyboard that has the # there…

  • <cite>kezgetz</cite>

    its # and ~ its shift to make the hash a ~
    im from the uk, and i have a compaq pc and i have the original compaq keyboard with it (i didnt want the wireless one it wasnt very good)

    i have no idea what any of the 1st bit means

  • <cite>Zyloid</cite>

    Hey guys can anyone tell me how to work with the color black in QL i really would like to use black.. ive looked at other webs and it says ^^8 or ^^0…

    THX,
    QL addict

  • <cite>Lashknife</cite>

    you cant get black in your name!
    no way possible! the extra added ^ will make ql think you’re trying to change your nickname, which is not possible, so don’t even bother

    to chat in black, or in your clan name, type ^^8 it will add an extra black ^ in between but what follows is colored black, it’s a bug that this works as it’s not intended.

  • <cite>NailTheCasket</cite>

    i got into the console thing and i typed:
    /name ^1NailTheCasket
    then it will show
    nailthecasket(in normal color) changed his name to NailTheCasket(in red)
    NailTheCasket(in red) changed his name to nailthecasket(in normal color)

    idk whats going on :/

  • <cite>Lashknife</cite>

    That is very strange, ^1 is a perfect working color selection.

    I just tested to see if in-game name is case sensitive but it isn’t, so that doesn’t matter either.

    The first change to red makes sense, but the automatically changing back doesn’t…

    Tried with a different color yet? Or something like /name nail^1The^2Casket to see if the problem also exists when you dont specify the color as first thing?

    Also try:
    /name “^1NailTheCasket” with quotes to see if that helps anything at all (don’t matter if the last ” will be looking red when typing it in console.

    gl!

  • <cite>KILLERKILLS</cite>

    well if you have microsoft word on a mac go onto it make your name on word in whatever colours you want copy it then go onto quake live click sign in then go to the name bar and paste E.G.

    KILLERKILLS

    LICNESE2KILL: well if you have microsoft word on a mac go onto it make your name on word in whatever colours you want copy it then go onto quake live click sign in then go to the name bar and paste

  • <cite>PigManSlayer</cite>

    Ok, I have been trying to do this. I got it on my clan name, then when i went to the console to put colors in my name it just made my whole name lowercase. So now when I go into a game its lowercase without my clan and colors. Can somebody help me fix this??

  • <cite>PigManSlayer</cite>

    Ok, now I have my name back to the way it was originally, with certain letter capitalized, like my name I use here, but I would still like to get colors in my name. Please help.

  • <cite>Lashknife</cite>

    PigManSlayer and Wildy Slayer.
    I’ve made this comment also in the config generator comments but i’ll repeat here:

    Max number of characters for the combined length of clan + name + colorcodes is 26 (or 28? console tells you this)

    so
    ^1clan ^4nickname is shorter than 26 and will show colors

    ^1c^2l^3a^4n ^5n^6i^7c^1k^2n^3a^4m^5e however far exceeds that max limit and will result in a colored clan but your nickname plain white lowercase.

    Keep this in mind as there is no other way to have long names with many colors. (they hurt on the eye too anyway 😉 )

  • <cite>PigManSlayer</cite>

    Ok thanks for that help. 25 is what my in game console says but that’s ok. I’m not sure if you have already covered this but is there anything special that I need to type into the in game console to include my clan tag? When I type in my name and clan tag in the console to change it, it won’t include my clan because it is not part of my name, so I change my name to the colors a want and then my clan doesn’t show up in games but the colored name does. If you wouldn’t mind please help me with this and just tell if this is normal or if there is something extra that I need to type in so I can include my clan tag.

  • <cite>PigManSlayer</cite>

    Never mind what I said. I got it now, I didn’t realize that my clan tag had reset itself when I changed my name. So I have it all done and no more help is needed. Thanks for what you gave me though.

  • <cite>WiNdCH1LL</cite>

    Can someone please tell me what the command is to save the name once u color it, so I don’t have to redo the colors every time. I would really appreciate it.

  • <cite>Lashknife</cite>

    normally, if you set it once, it stays remembered, unless you unset it somewhere else.

    check your /home/baseq3 folder for an autoexec and if it exists, if it holds name and clan commands.

    if it does not exist, perhaps make it and put your /set name “blabla” and /set clan “bla” in there

    remember, max 5 chars for clan and max 16 for nickname (and you cannot change nickname). This excludes the color codes.

  • <cite>Lashknife</cite>

    Console is a sort of input+log display

    you can open it pressing ctrl+alt + ~ (the key above the tab key, could be ?? for azerty or ‘~ for qwerty or whatever)

    if you put /com_allowconsole 1 there, you only need to press the key above TAB, not ctrl-alt anymore

  • <cite>KILLERKILLS</cite>

    well if you have microsoft word on a mac go onto it make your name on word in whatever colours you want copy it then go onto quake live click sign in then go to the name bar and paste

  • <cite>termenatorboy</cite>

    when i went into the console i typed /name ^6 and my name turnd pink but then when i when on to quake live next day and i done it did not work so then i kept on tryimg still not work but then i had black on ^2 please help as soon as possible thanks?

  • <cite>Lashknife</cite>

    been a looooong time since I played quake and I’m a bit out of the command stuff, but iirc, if you do /name it only remembers for this session, it does not save it.
    use /seta name ^2yourname to make it remember

    ^2 resulting in black???? never heard of such a…. bug…. idk 🙂

    Also keep in mind the total limit allowed for both name and clan + colorcodes. (just in case your name starts reverting back to white)

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.