As many as you may or may not know, I'm working alongside multiple people to try and bring back the MTA 0.x series for GTA III/VC. Some of you may ask why I even bothered just saying that, or why I'm here. The reason is because I would like to do the same for VC:MP. Admitting it or not, the mod is dying. Development, assuming there even is any happening right now, is being kept so secretive that users aren't even sure if the mod is still being coded. 0.4's Public Beta turned out to be a horror fest, the site can barely stay up half the time, and the popularity in the mod has gone downhill very quickly ever since users became unsure of it's stability in the community. I would like to change this. I'm asking that the devs try and pull themselves together and begin coding again, (and if they have been this whole time, publicize it). I'm also asking that the community get involved in repopulating this mod. I'm also willing to help out in any way I can. Might I suggest a new website design as well? New users have no clue that the forum still even exists because there is no link to it. The forum is also lacking a link back to the main domain, or the downloads. An overhaul with a fun, fresh look might give it a boost of confidence in the users' eyes. Also, more publication of what's going on with the team. I know I mentioned it a few times already in my post here, but besides development, overall just post about how things are going. Are tests going well? Are devs on a small break to clear their heads? Is a special event related to VC:MP coming up? Etc.
Anyone else who also has ideas, post them here. I would like to see what everyone thinks about this.
Do you even play VC:MP, SugarD?
The development isn't that secretive, it's just not happening at all. All you need is to contact Maxadator to find out. And as I heard from him, serious development isn't going to happen ANY time soon because of the occupation of developers with more serious stuff. Like a job, school, family ect.
But I agree with you that it's ridiculous that there's not even a link to the forum in the main page. And more popularity would surely be nice.
I have a feeling that you haven't been observing VC:MP very closely SugarD. Without meaning to sound condescending, most of your facts are plain wrong.
VC:MP has been growing steadily for the last 3 years or so. The playercount in 2008 averaged at about 25/30 players online max. In 09 it was probably closer to 40 and now it can be seen to get up to over 130/140. This is in part due to the release of R2, but mostly because of the efforts from certain members and bodies within the community to promote activity and keep the game alive. There are a couple of servers that have been putting a lot of dedication into the effort and the clan scene is larger than it has ever been.
The official website and consequently the Master Server List have been going up and down for as long as I can remember; It is not a new thing. I remember in 2008 they went down for about 2 months or so, or maybe 3. But we still carried on. Many of us have tried to help the devs in some way or another, even with the offer of financial support and MSL mirrors, but sadly it's a lost cause. We have accepted that trying to affect the official side of VC:MP is a waste of time and effort, instead, it is up to us to influence the unofficial side; ie. clans, servers, events.
The most helpful thing you could do realistically would be to put effort into one of those things, not this. There is a community in VC:MP, one far larger than any time in the last few years, it's just not on this forum.
SugarD... I remember the name from LU and MTA forums... Oh that you :o.
You said some true things in your posts, but devs are deciding what to do. Some of these points were already discussed, but that's all for now.
Yeah that's true devs may be busy with real life, but look, someone paid for the server & domain so the mod is not dead yet.
On some nightly test, max said that he would be happy, if there would be more active developers, who knows how to code a MP (for example people who would know how to do a trainer for a game using memory hacking etc.).
Its not so easy unfortunatelly... But Charleyutton is right, we've got more players than ever. Now ther is over 80 players playing. Earlier (0.1d, 0.3) almost everybody played on LW, now its different. ~15 players on one server, ~20 on second, ~15 on third, etc. It's not so bad as it seems ;) One problem is, that we have nothing to test now :( I think if players knew that devs are coding and new version will be out sonner or later, there would be more active players. And this forum would be alive.
Quote from: YaceQ on December 28, 2010, 11:06:31 PM
One problem is, that we have nothing to test now :(
Again, I disagree. There are many ways in which VC:MP could be manipulated but isn't.
There are 2 ways we can still 'test' out VC:MP's capabilities:
Ingame: Learning new glitches and bugs. We're constantly finding new glitches and it would be silly to say we know them all now, as some have come out as recently as a couple of months ago.
Outofgame: Whilst VC:MP's scripting capabilities are often slandered, it's not because they are necessarily particularly limited, it's that they're not easily accessible. If someone were to put a decent amount of time into learning complicated scripting and game manipulation, I'm certain they would come up with things not seen on any server at present.
It's all good and well sitting here going 'oooh it's the devs fault or vcmp's fault for being so limited' or 'oooh we need a new version because we've exhausted this one.'
I think it's probably time people stop calling the devs lazy and actually putting some work in themselves to make the most of a mod that has plenty more potential than that which has been displayed so far.
The dead forums here aren't because the devs are lazy, it's because people are lazy.
QuoteIngame: Learning new glitches and bugs.
Do you mean those VCMP bugs or VC's map glitches?
QuoteIf someone were to put a decent amount of time into learning complicated scripting and game manipulation, I'm certain they would come up with things not seen on any server at present.
Yeah, if someone spend some time on scripting, he will make something awesome, but have you ever tried to script for a other MP or in the basic SCM? There are thousand of functions, which are not available for VCMP, but could be!
QuoteI think it's probably time people stop calling the devs lazy and actually putting some work in themselves to make the most of a mod that has plenty more potential than that which has been displayed so far.
What do you suggest? Make a user-modded-VCMP-version :D?
Quote from: [AoD]NC on December 29, 2010, 12:32:06 AM
QuoteIngame: Learning new glitches and bugs.
Do you mean those VCMP bugs or VC's map glitches?
QuoteIf someone were to put a decent amount of time into learning complicated scripting and game manipulation, I'm certain they would come up with things not seen on any server at present.
Yeah, if someone spend some time on scripting, he will make something awesome, but have you ever tried to script for a other MP or in the basic SCM? There are thousand of functions, which are not available for VCMP, but could be!
QuoteI think it's probably time people stop calling the devs lazy and actually putting some work in themselves to make the most of a mod that has plenty more potential than that which has been displayed so far.
What do you suggest? Make a user-modded-VCMP-version :D?
@Your last comment, it almost seems like that's how things will end up happening in the future if the devs don't come back. It happened to MTA 0.x, so I can see it easily happening here.
@Klaus: I won't even get into that topic with you. Yes, I'm from Argo, and only Argo, but I'm not even about to discuss that one.
Edit: I know there's a topic discussing it on the SA:MP forums, but what about the future possibility of open source? It worked well for MTA: SA and kept their mod from dying completely, and even helped them pick up a few good devs to assist with all the work. Maybe VC:MP could benefit from a similar method.
@NC: 1) VC:MP bugs. Fighting glitches etc.
2) Fair enough
3) No, I'm talking about my previous points.
Note guys, that VCMP is STILL property of the VCMP team so maxorator, bakasan and Falcon. If they will be back, they will decide what to do.
Moving to open source? Was discussed on this forum, but I doubt that this will happen to VCMP. VCMP's 0.1c source was released and look what happened: there were so many multiplayers built on this source (see VC:MV, VC:P, VCO partly and many many more). For now VCMP is the ONLY available multiplayer for VC (correct me if I am wrong).
@Sugar: I have heard about the project for bringing MTA:VC back. MTA:VC is oldschool, that's maybe the only reason why to play it. Towncivillian has maybe fixed many bugzors in MTA's scm file, but he won't make a better sync? Also MTA is using a SCM file, VCMP since R2 don't even need a scm file.
Just my two cents but if you look around, there ARE servers with some pretty good scripts, for example theres SvM, HA, MDM, MDR, all official servers, even with their own forum section here, with some unique scripts on offer to the public. The problem is everyone just flocks to either XE or UMS, with UMS being a cheaters paradise, I hate to say it but there are more cheaters around now than there ever was.
Quote from: Charleyutton on December 29, 2010, 12:00:11 AM
Quote from: YaceQ on December 28, 2010, 11:06:31 PM
One problem is, that we have nothing to test now :(
Again, I disagree. There are many ways in which VC:MP could be manipulated but isn't.
Could be, of course. But there is more players playing in servers like XE or UMS than in servers with great scripts. Dunno if u remember 0.2 version and this town in sky. There were hundreds of players on this tests. It was smth different than 0.1d. Scripts are ok, its not possible to do everything with them. New versions, progress in VC-MP, it will encourage more players to play this game. Scripts aren't for all server, new version is.
Don't agree with you Jacek. If there won't be a new release, players will simply leave this MP. Even if there will be a new version, every day passed meanwhile means that some players will leave this MP.
Quote from: YaceQ on December 29, 2010, 10:12:36 PM
Could be, of course. But there is more players playing in servers like XE or UMS than in servers with great scripts.
Well Argonath has some pretty neat scripts and is as well quite populated
Yeah and SvM has been getting at least 30 players at some point every day. It just crashes and loses them all because of the damn memory leak.
@NC: Can't you see that players aren't leaving, they are coming and coming. The playercount is higher than it's been for over 3 years and it's still growing.
@Force: With regards to number of cheaters, it depends where you play. XE, whilst it has a very basic gamemode, has an extremely efficient admin script and admin team. There are virtually no cheaters there and when there are, they get removed within a few mins. Same goes for SvM (although not to the same degree, as it is still growing).
It's interesting to see that the majority of people posting here rarely, if ever, actually go ingame. (Not having a go at anyone, just making an observation)
I dont think a new version will help much.
When a new player joins VCMP, he doesnt know anything about 0.4, PAWN vs mIRC , new scriptable features etc etc.
He just: either likes it, or does not like it....
i mean its still Vice City....most decent gamers around the world have a platform that can afford much better games.
So, new version or not....the rate of new players coming to VCMP will be the same.
Im not discouraging the release of 0.4 , it will bring some regulars back. :)
Quote from: Force on December 29, 2010, 07:58:19 PM
I hate to say it but there are more cheaters around now than there ever was.
Im more concerned about the illiteracy rate in VCMP....like 50% players these days dont speak english.
Its irritating to explain them anything,then they ask same stupid questions over and over again.
I guess well educated players play GTA4 these days *sob*
Quote from: Charleyutton on December 30, 2010, 01:50:51 PM
@NC: Can't you see that players aren't leaving, they are coming and coming. The playercount is higher than it's been for over 3 years and it's still growing.
The player count was even higher in the past. And players nowadays are really poor than it used to be. Quality pwns quantity.
No doubt that vcmp is under average and its getting worse.
QuoteI dont think a new version will help much.
ofc will help,helped in R2,fixed bugs added sniper and rockets fast switc,etc...
because of the new features bring more players to vc-mp.
QuoteWhen a new player joins VCMP, he doesnt know anything about 0.4, PAWN vs mIRC , new scriptable features etc etc.
depends,has many forums teaching how scripting;
http://liberty-unleashed.co.uk/VCWiki/Main_Page
http://vcmp.liberty-unleashed.co.uk/forum/
and here.
has mIRC,Pawno and Squirrel Language to script.
you can find script easily.
vc-mp needs to be updated.
Quote from: [AoD]NC on December 30, 2010, 01:32:38 AM
Don't agree with you Jacek. If there won't be a new release, players will simply leave this MP. Even if there will be a new version, every day passed meanwhile means that some players will leave this MP.
Lolz i've just said it? We need a new version.
People needs changes. Again, 0.1d version. There was a time when only few players played VC-MP, it was June 2006. Littlewhitey was going to close server because almost nobody played, not only in this server, but all VC-MP. Public beta tests of 0.2 have brought new live to all servers. The same was now, with R2. Normal 0.3z, x wasn't so popular.
Quote from: Klaus_Meine on December 30, 2010, 01:41:33 AM
Quote from: YaceQ on December 29, 2010, 10:12:36 PM
Could be, of course. But there is more players playing in servers like XE or UMS than in servers with great scripts.
Well Argonath has some pretty neat scripts and is as well quite populated
Argonath is totally different than all other servers. And ok, its quite popular, but its not as popular as XE or other servers with almost no scripts (comparing to Argonath, A/D etc).
Quote from: Call_me_Dad on December 30, 2010, 03:11:59 PM
I dont think a new version will help much.
When a new player joins VCMP, he doesnt know anything about 0.4, PAWN vs mIRC , new scriptable features etc etc.
He just: either likes it, or does not like it....
So, new version or not....the rate of new players coming to VCMP will be the same.
Im not discouraging the release of 0.4 , it will bring some regulars back. :)
Quote from: Charleyutton on December 30, 2010, 01:50:51 PM
@NC: Can't you see that players aren't leaving, they are coming and coming. The playercount is higher than it's been for over 3 years and it's still growing.
Players have been coming to VC-MP since R2 version was released. Rocket launchers, snipers, headshoots and other new features encourages people to play VC-MP. Before it wasn't so funny as it is now. Be honest, majority of new players wants to fight with these weapons, have fun with headshoots. They dont know glitch, FS. The most powerful weapons (for players who have played SP only) were added in R2 version. Who is fighting with stubby in single player? Almost nobody.
Meh while posting I have hacked the forums sorry for downtime :/
(ofc joking, now my post)
Quote@NC: Can't you see that players aren't leaving, they are coming and coming. The playercount is higher than it's been for over 3 years and it's still growing.
But WHO will play a game that is now a few years old? Older players will be more and more busy with real life and younger will choose new games. Also
QuoteBe honest, majority of new players wants to fight with these weapons, have fun with headshoots. They dont know glitch, FS.
So none of this new players won't play with me :<.
QuoteIt's interesting to see that the majority of people posting here rarely, if ever, actually go ingame. (Not having a go at anyone, just making an observation)
If you want to know, I am just concentrating on my final exam I AM LEARNING :O (guys, don't make so much noise!). But I am ready for a beta test at any time, if there would be such a need :).
Quotevc-mp needs to be updated.
Btw. someone show me a mod, who is good and wasn't updated for a long time?
QuoteLolz i've just said it? We need a new version.
(Angielski do piachu i zakopać!)
QuotePeople needs changes. Again, 0.1d version. There was a time when only few players played VC-MP, it was June 2006. Littlewhitey was going to close server because almost nobody played, not only in this server, but all VC-MP. Public beta tests of 0.2 have brought new live to all servers. The same was now, with R2. Normal 0.3z, x wasn't so popular.
I am just thinking how many players would play VCMP with object support. Finally, they can place ramps and build new towns! I have also made a nice tool for them, but won't say anything more about it for now :p.
Also remember, that VCMP is a property of the developers, which are now inactive, so this topic is something like free-talk.
Quote from: Call_me_Dad on December 30, 2010, 03:11:59 PM
I dont think a new version will help much.
When a new player joins VCMP, he doesnt know anything about 0.4, PAWN vs mIRC , new scriptable features etc etc.
He just: either likes it, or does not like it....
i mean its still Vice City....most decent gamers around the world have a platform that can afford much better games.
So, new version or not....the rate of new players coming to VCMP will be the same.
Im not discouraging the release of 0.4 , it will bring some regulars back. :)
Quote from: Force on December 29, 2010, 07:58:19 PM
I hate to say it but there are more cheaters around now than there ever was.
Im more concerned about the illiteracy rate in VCMP....like 50% players these days dont speak english.
Its irritating to explain them anything,then they ask same stupid questions over and over again.
I guess well educated players play GTA4 these days *sob*
мудацкий пост года!and here are some words in English so the nazi ass mods won't delete this post again.
Quote from: [AoD]NC on December 29, 2010, 02:12:50 PM
Note guys, that VCMP is STILL property of the VCMP team so maxorator, bakasan and Falcon. If they will be back, they will decide what to do.
Moving to open source? Was discussed on this forum, but I doubt that this will happen to VCMP. VCMP's 0.1c source was released and look what happened: there were so many multiplayers built on this source (see VC:MV, VC:P, VCO partly and many many more). For now VCMP is the ONLY available multiplayer for VC (correct me if I am wrong).
@Sugar: I have heard about the project for bringing MTA:VC back. MTA:VC is oldschool, that's maybe the only reason why to play it. Towncivillian has maybe fixed many bugzors in MTA's scm file, but he won't make a better sync? Also MTA is using a SCM file, VCMP since R2 don't even need a scm file.
You corrected yourself there. :P
Towncivilian is doing much more than that, and for the time being, yes, he can't do much for sync as that is in the source itself. MTA doesn't want to give it up. That doesn't mean that big changes aren't coming ;)
What's wrong with Open Source? So what if other MP's were built on it. What's wrong with that? That's a good thing! The point of the multiplayers is so people can play together! Don't hog your ideas all to yourself!
Quote from: SugarD on January 21, 2011, 10:04:48 AM
What's wrong with Open Source? So what if other MP's were built on it. What's wrong with that? That's a good thing! The point of the multiplayers is so people can play together! Don't hog your ideas all to yourself!
Open source is a nice idea, but it's just never gonna happen, cos of the nature of the devs.
Quote from: [AoD]NC on December 31, 2010, 12:24:38 AM
QuoteIt's interesting to see that the majority of people posting here rarely, if ever, actually go ingame. (Not having a go at anyone, just making an observation)
If you want to know, I am just concentrating on my final exam I AM LEARNING :O (guys, don't make so much noise!). But I am ready for a beta test at any time, if there would be such a need :).
Fair enough I'm not blaming anyone for not playing VC:MP, I'm saying that those who don't should not speculate like some kind of know it all gurus on the behaviour of players in general. So many misplaced preconceptions and misjudgments have been made in this topic that it's not surprising there is no communal resolve in this forum.
The frustrating thing is, nothing that I or anyone else can say will change any of your minds because you've been around for too long, thinking what you've been thinking for too long. Just look at HeAD's posts in the UMS board. The kind of attitude displayed there is the same as the attitude from all the other VC:MP grandees which has been conducive to nothing more than the crumbling of the central community.
Of course it's not too late to be saved but for the real advancement of VC:MP, and the revival of the officially backed community, the devs need to wake up and hand over some responsibility to various key figures within the thriving unofficial community; e.g. HeAD, who has done more for VC:MP activity than any of the other people in this topic has ever done.
At least bring a patch for servers that fixes the memleak, that will keep the servers alive and players ingame :'(
And full servers attracts more players to join, "Oh this server has a lot players, it has to be fun" -> Join.
I don't think VCMP is dying anytime soon, but I can see why sugar could worry about it... my biggest fears for VCMP failing are:
-the MSL dies and nobody cares.
-the VCMP site/forums go down completely and download links for the client/server become obscure.
...and at times I've often felt or expressed the need to show the developers that I and others felt VCMP shouldn't go down like that, and show that we're trying and we care..
so all that said, I can totally see why this thread has brought the old discussion up once again, and I consider it a credit towards cutton's points that the sentiment is coming from a relatively fresh face in the realms of this topic.
the fact is, VCMP has a unique position in the world of online gaming, and not because of its small community, but because it has unique gameplay offerings that other games just don't have. it has things that other online games from the corporate profit model of online gaming actually have systems in place to prevent that certain competitive gamers enjoy and cannot get anywhere else. because of this, VCMP will always retain a player count and some dedicated community activists, as long as there's support for the server browser and MSL we should be just fine.
about the success of basic scripts in VCMP.. in a nutshell it's because certain people want to simply create their super-cool gameplay script and let it fly on its own without any responsibility to the players, fairness, gameplay balance, or any respect for the gameplay mechanics and dynamics.
it takes a bit more than a good script with a cool idea to run a server in a game like this.
don't get me wrong, I have the utmost respect for anyone who attempts any sort of original game mode, or even attempts to make an already tried idea actually work out for once.. but when people overlook what a script must do in order to address universal VCMP gameplay issues on their quest for the most popular game mode, I think they should re-assess their goals and plans before blaming VCMP scripting capability, or blaming XE/UMS, or even suggesting XE is part of some sort of script-apathy problem in the VCMP community.
before I go, I've got to say that it seems if people could set in-game boundaries for players easier and with more precision, and allow for more vehicles placed on the map, we'd be able to move forward with the scripting and gameplay ideas that are more in-line with VCMP's natural sand-box free-roaming chaotic gameplay, that have sorta been shelved for the day we get an autistic miracle-scriptor, or the day a magical VCMP release answers all of our prayers and lives up to all of our wildest dreams.
Well, it's good for sure there are more and more players playing VC:MP, but it could be a LOT more. In my opinion, the problem is VC:MP doesn't enable much for scripters - there are no checkpoints, no dynamic pickups or vehicles, nothing to detect which keys have players pressed, no textdraws etc. Therefore there really cannot be any unique script to hook more players to this multiplayer.
I run popular SA-MP server, where I managed to script a lot of features from singleplayer. I would like to script similar mode also for VC:MP (with races, properties, minigames and sub-missions etc.), but I can't, because I miss a lot of functions, therefore I was only able to script some simple DM server, which could a lot of players find boring.
Quote from: niCe on January 25, 2011, 06:50:58 PM
Well, it's good for sure there are more and more players playing VC:MP, but it could be a LOT more. In my opinion, the problem is VC:MP doesn't enable much for scripters - there are no checkpoints, no dynamic pickups or vehicles, nothing to detect which keys have players pressed, no textdraws etc. Therefore there really cannot be any unique script to hook more players to this multiplayer.
I run popular SA-MP server, where I managed to script a lot of features from singleplayer. I would like to script similar mode also for VC:MP (with races, properties, minigames and sub-missions etc.), but I can't, because I miss a lot of functions, therefore I was only able to script some simple DM server, which could a lot of players find boring.
Perhaps you should take a glance at this:
http://liberty-unleashed.co.uk/VCWiki/Scripting/Squirrel/Functions
Dynamic pickups, vehicles and key functions.
Oh thanks, there is no linux server for that though, right?
Quote from: niCe on January 26, 2011, 05:10:28 PM
Oh thanks, there is no linux server for that though, right?
Yeah there is: http://vcmp.liberty-unleashed.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=2.0
Bring in some contests to get people to participate. I don't know :P
Quote from: splitpeamaster on January 29, 2011, 07:00:06 AM
Bring in some contests to get people to participate. I don't know :P
Quote from: OutlawZ on January 29, 2011, 10:38:03 PM
Vice city ladder (http://vu.vrocker-hosting.co.uk/index.php#9)
Vice city clan tournament (http://vu.vrocker-hosting.co.uk/index.php#10)
Vice City Dueling Championship (http://vu.vrocker-hosting.co.uk/index.php#1)
:)
lol recheck the links
QuoteAn Error Has Occurred!
Unable to verify referring url. Please go back and try again.
/edit: here
Vice city ladder (http://vu.vrocker-hosting.co.uk/index.php#9)
Vice city clan tournament (http://vu.vrocker-hosting.co.uk/index.php#10)
Vice City Dueling Championship (http://vu.vrocker-hosting.co.uk/index.php#1)