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[MTATeam (gast)]

I'm sure lots of people are wondering what we're up to, so here's a quick update.

Currently we're working hard on various features for Deathmatch. Most of these are going to stay under wraps for now, but I think they'll be great fun when we release. We've got most of the basic game stuff done now, which is good, but as always there's a few little glitches that have to be resolved. These are the most frustrating part of developing MTA - you can spend days or weeks trying to fix a problem and then end up with one line of code that solves it at the end! We'll be spending the immediate future working on a few features that Deathmatch needs. Once that's done, we've got quite a bit of time penciled in to work on the editor. This was a huge success with race and has, I think, made race so much more fun than I (and many other people) imagined. We hope to build on this with an much improved editor and enhanced map system in Deathmatch.

We'll have some more concrete and interesting things for you to see soon - watch this space!

As always, if you have any suggestions, questions or comments either use the comment system on this blog or visit our forums.

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[MTATeam (gast)]

One of the things we get asked over and over again is when we'll be releasing. I'm sure many people understand why we can't say when, but for those that don't, read on.

Developing a piece of software goes through 2 main stages before the release - feature implementation and bug fixing/tweaking. Our development process, like many other development teams, call these stages alpha and beta respectively. The alpha stage is the most predictable stage - its all about adding new features. In most cases we can estimate how long a feature will take to implement to within a day or two, although there are some exceptions of course. Now, say our road map for deathmatch feature-wise has around 20-30 features on it of varying degrees of complexity, you can see that if we estimated just when we would reach the beta stage, we could be around a month out with this estimate. You can see already this makes it hard for us to tell when the final product will be done. Beta stages can be even more unpredictable. You have to remember with MTA that we do not have the source code for GTA. If we cause a crash, or an unwanted result in GTA we have to work out how to fix it in the assembly (low level, not easy to understand) language for GTA. Almost every other software product, mod and game does not have to deal with this issue. As anyone who has done development will know, fixing bugs can be very time consuming, so again this can easily throw off any estimates we make for a release date.

We know from past experience that the community is not forgiving for broken promises. As such we have tried to avoid making promises as much as possible. We know people want MTA: DM in their hands as soon as possible and we want to get it out ourselves. We could promise a release date far into the future, like many game publishers (for example Rockstar sat on GTA:SA for PC for several months before they released it although it was complete), but we do not think that having a firm release date is better than giving you MTA sooner.

Of course, we welcome your opinion on this matter, just please don't ask us for release dates - we do our best to get you the best game possible as soon as possible, there's nothing you can do to help us (unless you're a developer, in which case speak to us on IRC or the forums).

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[MTATeam (gast)]

I just switched forum styles. Now anyone can enjoy a forum style that fits a bit more with the rest of the site. The style isn't an exact match but it is inspired by the rest of the site. I hope you all enjoy it. Please note that some small changes can still folow.

I also started gathering some old media files to put together a new media gallery. Once finished you should be able to find most screenshots and movies from the past in it. As well as other memorable images.

Click for more

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[MTATeam (gast)]

We've spent the last few days improving the on-foot and shooting sync code a little. Here's a video showing how it works at the moment:

Click on the screenshot (or here) to download the movie.

These videos were captured at a ping of about 100 milliseconds, which is a fairly average ping on good servers. We're very happy with how it looks and works so far </img>, and as the video shows, the shots are deadly accurate, even on moving players.

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[MTATeam (gast)]

A few weeks ago we released a video showing how our sync looks like with about 100 ms ping and today I'm happy to say that we've improved it a lot. During test one player had a ping of 700 ms to the server while the other had 300 ms and the on-foot and weapon sync looked singleplayer smooth at all times (just like in the video). Then we tested shooting at running players with rifles and m4's, and they hit very reliably at that ping. You can aim directly at running players with 1 second pings and the shots will hit (even more reliably at smaller pings), which I have to say makes the game very enjoyable and less frustrating.

In addition to improved sync we've also implemented tons of features we will be happy to announce around Beta time </img>.

Have a nice day!

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[MTATeam (gast)]

Yesterday I synced the vehicle damage model for vehicles. This includes doors, panels, lights and tyres. It basically means that a damaged vehicle will look the same for all players in the server, even if you leave a vehicle somewhere in the server, disconnect and join two hours later (assuming no vehicle respawn set). This ofcourse includes popped tyres and broken tail-lights.

I think this adds a nice feeling to the game of things being synced down to the tiny details and it only took a few hours to implement. Stay tuned for more updates soon!

Cheers </img>.

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[MTATeam (gast)]

Some time ago I introduced a picture system on our main site. From today the system randomizes between the 5 latest submissions. It is now also possible to comment on the pictures (with your center login) and I also added a gallery to browse trough all previous ones.

Remember, all the shots have been made by our QA team and are selected by them and not by the developers.

Just have a look </img>

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[MTATeam (gast)]

Well its been a while since i posted an update on here (been working on quite a lot of things that have, up to this point, not really warrented a blog post.. that and life </img>). Anyway, I have been creating a new Admin Client for the first MTA:SA Deathmatch release. The admin system in DM is being written from scratch and should end up being a easy and effective way of remotely controlling your servers.

Firstly i'll cover the biggest user side change.. that is that the admin system is now a lot more "command" based. That is, you can use commands in the client to do things (ie "kick Oli"). The admin client itself will have shortcuts for some of these commands (ie the kick button will simply do the command for you) but some things will simply be commands. This unifies the entire admin system quite nicely as the various forms of admin all go through the same system (ingame rcon admin, admin client, remote client, server console, etc).

Inside the offical admin client (pictured below) these commands are prefixed with a '/' (much like mIRC), so simply typing something will just say that as text in the server chat. I have tried to make this new client as user friendly as possible, so it has a simpler and less cluttered design, there is a menu system for doing tasks quickly, a status bar for easy to see information and the entire client is resizable. The client can be seen in the picture below (click for a full size version):

This, however, is not the only way of remotely connecting to your server. If you lack the means of using an admin client, you can now simply telnet into your server and use the commands through this (once logged in of course </img>). An example picture of this is below:

On a more technical note (mainly for people who enjoy making their own admin clients), this new admin system is based in TCP for communicating. I will release the netcode for this once it is complete and the DM mod is out.

If anyone has any comments or suggestions please don't hesitate to bring them up either here on the blog or on the forum.

Oli

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[MTATeam (gast)]

Today we recruited a new member into the MTA Team. MrJax, who a lot of you will know as the author of another MOD for GTA:SA.. GTA:Rumble, asked to be considered for admission recently. After some team discussion and discussions with MrJax it was decided that he would be a welcome addition to the team.

I would like to point out that in no way is this a merger between MTA and GTA:Rumble. The GTA:Rumble project will no longer be developed by MrJax (I don't know if anyone else will want to step in and take over from him on it) and we will not be using any of the code from GTA:Rumble in MTA.

It is our hope that MrJax will be able to help out in many areas of MTA and generally make it a better quality and more enjoyable game. All please welcome MrJax </img>

Oli

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[MTATeam (gast)]

I have just spent a few hours writing a new ban system for the MTA:SA Deathmatch Server. This system uses XML (The same language used for the .map files in the race mod) to write the ban list. This allowed me to write more than just the IP of a banned person to the list.

Here is an example of what is now stored in the ban list:

<banlist>
<ip address="127.0.0.1">
<nick>Oli</nick>
<banner>Oli</banner>
<reason>This is a test</reason>
<date>07/06/2006</date>
<time>21:22:35</time>
</ip>
</banlist>

This obviously gives server owners more information on who has been banned from their server and why/by whom/when. I have also written several admin commands for this information to be obtained (for example you can find out who has been banned by a certain admin, or how many people on a certain day were banned, etc).

Not a huge update i know, but just felt like making a blog post </img>

Oli

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[MTATeam (gast)]

Well its been a while since the QA reported any news.

Recently we recieved a new alpha release - and things are shaping up very nicely. I feel the current alpha is of a very high standard and maybe even worthy of release. But the team are constantly adding features to make this perfect - they've been working hard at cramming as much as possible and I know they're as desperate to get this thing out as you are.

Weapon sync is shaping up nicely and our latest alpha has improved from our last and as past videos suggest - the shots are deadly accurate. We've also got some improvements to drive-bys and new explosion sync...grenades have the same effect on all screens </img>

We've left you guys with some eyecandy to feast on:

Oh that's right, I didn't mention trains, did I? </img>

With more and more features being added the first beta is on the horizon. The team are on a tight schedule and working to get it to you as soon as possible - hold on - it'll be worth the wait. About the QA? Well we're testing more than ever, finding and locating bugs, to keep up with the teams' fast development.

- Talidan

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[MTATeam (gast)]

There hasn't been an update for a while, but rest assured that the team have been working very hard on the mod. They have been working extremely hard to implement a very large feature that all of you will be pleased with when it is announced. The reason why there haven't been any updates is because to tell you what has been done involves revealing this feature prematurely.

I can say that the team have been trying to sync as many GTA elements as possible. This will mean that there will be fewer glitches than MTA:VC, which people used to exploit in order to gain an unfair advantage.

The big question on everyone's lips is "when will it be released?". No-one on the team knows the answer to this question. Any release dates could be complicated by real-life issues, last minute bugs, and certain features being harder to implement than expected. However, some people seem to be expecting a release in the next couple of weeks, which is highly unlikely.

To keep you occupied, here is a gameplay video made by Bishop, a QA team member.

http://mirror.solidecom.net/MTADM_QAvid.avi - mirror by Solide

-- QA Team

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[MTATeam (gast)]

Hi people.. been a while since any of us devs made an update.. mainly because there are only 3 of us active right now.

I have been implementing an ingame full size radar map (pictured below) which can be turn on/off at the press of a button. Here is a picture of how it looks so far (click to enlarge):

This is not finished yet though, I am currently working on making the radar map have a zoom system and customisable transparency.

Since MrJax has joined he has been working on various things in the deathmatch mod.. one of his major features done is a key binds system.. which works on both GTA and MTA keys. The MTA key binds works through the command system.. so you can bind any command to a key </img>

On a final note, for those who do not know, there was recently a mention to MTA in a gamespy article. The article can be read here:

http://xbox.gamespy.com/xbox-360/saints-row/718937p1.html

Thats all for now </img>

Oli

PS. Dave says hi

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[MTATeam (gast)]

We've been having some great progress on MTASA. The recent addition of MrJax to the team has allowed the team to cram more features in to the r2 release than expected. And of course, something we can show off:

The pictures show full trailer support - this extends from fuel tanks over to simple containers. Both tow-trucks and and standard heavy trucks can carry other trailers.

MrJax has also been working on all new team support. One example is a feature that is found in almost every team multiplayer game

As you can see, you can now use a 'teamsay' function to chat with members of the same team, which elminates past needs to setup MTAMA scripts to do the job. By default this is bound to the 'y' button, but as mentioned before, this can be changed with the new Keybinds system.

There are some more new cool features coming along - stay tuned!

- Talidan

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[MTATeam (gast)]

Lately we've been having more work on MTA DM. Although there have been lots of holidays for team members, there is still a lot of activity. eAi and ChrML are currently working on bug fixing and general sync issues, MrJax is implementing new misc features as I'm sure you've seen already, IJs is working on some new GUI features which we'll be sure to show off at a later stage, while Oli has been working on the server side of things, as well as fixing up the full size radar map.

The most recent major addition to MTA DM is the new vehicle respawning system. This is vastly changed from the system featured in the old core (MTA 0.x) and is now more efficient. Vehicles now respawn after periods of inactivity. This means you cannot steal every car in the map and stash them away somewhere hidden like you could in 0.x, and also means it'll generally be easier to find vehicles. Vehicles also do not have to respawn immediately after their destruction, but customisably have a delay to prevent destruction of vehicles simply to 'fix' them. Delays after inactivity and destruction can be set, if any at all, by the map maker. Vehicles also no longer magically respawn to their original position after the player who last occupied them disconnects. They now use the inactivity delay system which makes syncing more efficient.

We've also had some further progress on the all new team support. MrJax and eAi have implemented something that has been requested hundreds of times in the past for previous MTA releases.

No, its not bad sync or someone turning on their health hacks. The screenshot shows friendly fire support which is the most reliable method of preventing teamkills. This adds huge gameplay value to team games and complements the teamsay function well.

That's all for now.

- Talidan

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