Shift to 0.4?

[Knucis]

Y'all hate 0.4 because you can't do the craps you do in 0.3z, 0.4 is better and always will be, try something new because new always better.

Why aren't we playing gta v then?

We should :p

[Charley]

vcmp dying everyday.

People have been saying this since I first joined VC:MP, 8 years ago. The average playercount around peak times now, as compared to then, is about four times higher. VC:MP is not dying. I went onto sky city a couple of days ago and found a server full of people, many of whom were able to fight quite well, and at least four or five of whom could speak fairly decent English. There are plenty of players out there, they're just not being brought into the community. What we had in 2008, what really brought activity to the community, was a set of driven, committed community leaders who were able to tap the (extremely limited) source of players; think Kill3r, Strike, HeAD, rulk, CoLa_Sky, Darfy, Ashay, Jack_Bauer, and our VU leaders. There are no equivalents in today's VC:MP.

People say that the problem is a reduction in English speakers. I disagree. Look at the list of leaders I just gave: in 2008, all but 4 of us had fairly poor English. It just takes motivation and collaboration. A few people need to start driving this thing. Maybe open up a new server that is open to new players becoming actively involved; host some events. I see people in the VU trainee and rookie ranks who would be more than capable of running a server with a community focus, just like XE back when it was good.

Anyway we're digressing. I guess my point is that the players exist, they're just not in the right place. What is the solution?

Should all server owners start sending messages telling people to upgrade? Should official servers be asked to shut and move? Is it possible for the R2 client to send people a message?

We risk what happened to VC:O and LU happening to 0.4.

[WiLsOn]

I think server owners too lazy to move to 0.4. 

[stormeus]

These are all excellent suggestions. The fact of the matter though is until the player base feels a sense of urgency to migrate to 0.4, people will not migrate to 0.4.

This is a point I highlighted in the VC:MP forums at one point — 0.4 was revered as the solution to all of 0.3's problems until it was released, at which point it was ignored. No one will move en masse until server owners:

1. Migrate to 0.4.
2. Tell their players they are on 0.4.
3. Shut down their 0.3 servers.

We've already started by removing the 0.3 Squirrel server.

If we ever regain access to the 0.3 masterlist server we will forcefully accelerate this by phasing it out. Until then it's up to the community to facilitate this move.

PS: Welcome back Charley!

[Kelvin]

How about a client that can make us join both 0.3 and 0.4 servers? I think this can increase the playercount of 0.4.

[stormeus]

How about a client that can make us join both 0.3 and 0.4 servers? I think this can increase the playercount of 0.4.

Give us another five years to pull this off.


That wouldn't increase the player count on 0.4 servers anyway. That would increase the number of people using a 0.4 client, which they would use to join 0.3 servers that lack half of 0.4's features and fixes.

[Charley]

These are all excellent suggestions. The fact of the matter though is until the player base feels a sense of urgency to migrate to 0.4, people will not migrate to 0.4.

This is a point I highlighted in the VC:MP forums at one point — 0.4 was revered as the solution to all of 0.3's problems until it was released, at which point it was ignored.

Yes, I agree. I always treated the presumption of the 0.4 panacea with extreme doubt.

It is definitely up to the community to start moving people to 0.4, and there is no better place to start discussing how than here (that is, presuming the same number of people who used to visit this forum still do).

Perhaps it would be a good idea to open up a bunch of ghost servers, with bots in them, whose servernames declare that 0.4 is here and point people to the new forum where they can download it. It is simply a matter of getting the message across, because I'm certain that 99% of VC:MP players simply don't know that 0.4 exists.

And we must pressure server owners to start moving and assisting in the shift. Does anyone know if anyone at Sky City or LWs has put into their scripts announcements about 0.4? That should be a priority.

Following a different prong of inquiry, how come access to the official site and the masterlist has been lost? This is perhaps one of the bigger obstacles, because when vcmp is googled, it is the old download page that is shown. If the website can't be changed, Stormeus, do you still have admin permissions on the forum? You could hide or archive all the boards except for that which pronounces the move to the new forum, and the release of 0.4.

What's perhaps most concerning if access has been permanently lost, is that if the 0.3 masterlist is to go down (which it often has done in the past, for a number of reasons), then VC:MP will certainly stand the risk of dying. I can't remember which year it was but there was a period once when the masterlist was down for a month or two, and the damage to VC:MP was gigantic. It took at least a year for the mod to gain a playerbase comparable in size to that which had been lost.

What exactly has happened?

P.S. Thanks!

[WiLsOn]

I saw LW 0.4 topic in their forums but didn't read (ehm too lazy) and about sky i just saw irc channel for that, sounds to me that they are moving slowly.

[Thijn]

Little something I made ages ago, clearly shows there are people playing but certainly not a stable amount or many.
http://thijn.ovh/vcmp/test.php

[stormeus]

And we must pressure server owners to start moving and assisting in the shift. Does anyone know if anyone at Sky City or LWs has put into their scripts announcements about 0.4? That should be a priority.

I don't believe this has been done. I don't believe Sky-City has even started development on a 0.4 script, and XE development seems to be sluggish. I have no idea what's going on with EA, or the other, smaller multinational servers that tend to draw crowds at times.

Following a different prong of inquiry, how come access to the official site and the masterlist has been lost? This is perhaps one of the bigger obstacles, because when vcmp is googled, it is the old download page that is shown. If the website can't be changed, Stormeus, do you still have admin permissions on the forum? You could hide or archive all the boards except for that which pronounces the move to the new forum, and the release of 0.4.

About a year ago, bakasan moved the vicecitymultiplayer.com domain to an Amazon Web Services instance to alleviate downtime and hosting issues, but didn't share details with the rest of the dev team — not out of malice or spite, in my opinion, but solely because the thought may not have occurred to him that we may need to do something with it in his absence. I have no means of contacting bakasan and I'm not sure if anyone else does. If we were to regain access to the server and simply redirect the domain to vc-mp.org, Google's results would adjust accordingly.

What's perhaps most concerning if access has been permanently lost, is that if the 0.3 masterlist is to go down (which it often has done in the past, for a number of reasons), then VC:MP will certainly stand the risk of dying. I can't remember which year it was but there was a period once when the masterlist was down for a month or two, and the damage to VC:MP was gigantic. It took at least a year for the mod to gain a playerbase comparable in size to that which had been lost.

Simply agreed.

[Knucis]

And we must pressure server owners to start moving and assisting in the shift. Does anyone know if anyone at Sky City or LWs has put into their scripts announcements about 0.4? That should be a priority.

I don't believe this has been done. I don't believe Sky-City has even started development on a 0.4 script, and XE development seems to be sluggish. I have no idea what's going on with EA, or the other, smaller multinational servers that tend to draw crowds at times.

Sky-City already has started development afaik.

[stormeus]

And we must pressure server owners to start moving and assisting in the shift. Does anyone know if anyone at Sky City or LWs has put into their scripts announcements about 0.4? That should be a priority.

I don't believe this has been done. I don't believe Sky-City has even started development on a 0.4 script, and XE development seems to be sluggish. I have no idea what's going on with EA, or the other, smaller multinational servers that tend to draw crowds at times.

Sky-City already has started development afaik.

Then it's painfully slow. The 0.4 server has been available since July 2014, and was released precisely so scripters could get a jump start on preparing for its release candidacy and impending final release. It's been eight months since then and Sky-City still doesn't have a 0.4 server, while Littlewhitey's got one up for testing within days of the 0.4 release.

[Klaus]

Then it's painfully slow.

Yeah Storm, that reminds me of another certain server you might know of..

There are no equivalents in today's VC:MP.

Cheers.

[stormeus]

Then it's painfully slow.

Yeah Storm, that reminds me of another certain server you might know of..

Yeah it is pretty shitty I haven't been able to work on Argonath on account of VC:MP development and school/college prep. I'm pretty much stuck between a rock and a hard place.

[ferrari32]

Then it's painfully slow.

Yeah Storm, that reminds me of another certain server you might know of..

There are no equivalents in today's VC:MP.

Cheers.

Saying that Argonath has a very dedicated playerbase makes no sense, as the only people who haven't left it at some point are a handful of guys from your clan, and some guys from WS. I'm not saying the reason is because the server is bad or anything, but it might have something to do with it being down every once in a while, one time it was even offline for months.