Quakespasm 

That’s for SP. others will have to comment on MP. 

There's a few good choices for SP if you're interested in running custom maps.

Quakespasm is the baseline Fitzquake-variant that everyone uses and tests against.

Mark V is another Fitzquake-variant that's a lot like Quakespasm with a few QoL tweaks. It has some nice bits but also might not perform as well as Quakespasm in some situations IMO. (It also might be the easiest way currently to play Nehahra and some other old weird stuff like Shrak.)

FTE is the poweruser option. Lots of available widgets and features, but also a really good switch you can throw for "just make it look like original Quake". A consequence of all the stuff going on in FTE is that sometimes the latest build will get broken in some way, but that's not been as much of a problem recently I think & Spike is good about fixing it when that happens. It's not my daily driver yet but it's fun to have around. 

Thanks for the work on this podcast guys, only heard a few episodes (not really into podcasts) but it's cool to heard people's voices.

Madfox, ORL, Tronyn, digs, and necros I'd really like to hear from. 

 

Yeah my podcast is the bomb, drop by any time 

Thanks for the comments everyone, looks like SP is QuakeSpasm by default, anyone got a link so I can be sure to get the latest and greatest? 

You asked about in-engine features for downloading and installing maps...

I think FTE is the only one with an actual user interface for grabbing stuff from Quaddicted. It's a little hard to use though IMO.

With Mark V you can manually install from Quaddicted using console commands.

The "Quake Injector" tool is a comprehensive out-of-engine app for installing from Quaddicted and launching your Quake engine. It's a Java app, which is a setup hurdle for some folks.

New releases take a little while to get to Quaddicted, so I would guess that everyone on this board (including me) does a whole lot of just manually downloading and unzipping files still, outside the engine. 

Quakespasm: http://quakespasm.sourceforge.net/download.htm

If you're on Windows make sure to just use "quakespasm.exe" which is the newer version based on SDL2. There's another exe in the download based on an older SDL version but IMO there's no good reason to use that.

Mark V: http://quakeone.com/markv/

FTE: http://fte.triptohell.info/downloads 

Thanks! So there's no magic solution for the downloads (that doesn't have sharp edges?) If the old school method is still best, I'm fine with that. The bit I'm missing is the visibility into what maps even exist to download from the past... many years. 

I don't think the Quake Injector that Johnny mentioned has any sharp edges. If Java is your concern, then just remember that OpenJDK exists and that you don't have to download from Oracle. Download from Azul Systems or pretty much any vendor aside from Oracle and you can avoid the bloat.

Quaddicted has a variety of sorting options in case you're at a loss for what to play. Sort by date and work your way backwards.

I think that Kinn and Johnny already have all bases covered. I'd also add that if you're interested in co-op, Quakespasm Spiked is excellent. I also use ezquake for other multiplayer endeavors like QWTF. 

http://icculus.org/twilight/darkplaces 

Is the single best tool I've found for getting into the Quake back-catalogue.