Idea to save VC:MP

[krystianoo]

SA-MP does not have more players than VC-MP because it turns a Spitfire's permanent bans into temporary 6 month bans.

It has more players because GTA:SA was the most popular GTA before GTA 5. It has more players because it's easier. You shoot someone in SA-MP or MTA, he shoots you back - it all works. In VC-MP, you can die in less than a second because of someone's laser aim with M4. In VC-MP, once you get shot with a shotgun you are going to die. All of us here might like that, but the truth is SA-MP is easier, more well-known and more accessible for the average player. Not to mention that it is more refined than VC-MP.

[morphine]

Charley, how about you modify your idea and try to lean it towards Discord?

this is the foundation for everything that we have been discussing over these past few pages.

this alleviates the need of developer/beta-tester input because we're not going to improve VC-MP by starting from the development aspect. we've got all we need in that aspect, obviously with some room for future improvements, but this is more long-term than what we need to focus on right now.

we're going to start by rebuilding and centralizing the social infrastructure of VC-MP into something much more sophisticated than has ever been before and waiting for / chasing the dev team is not necessary for something that we can perfectly manage ourselves.

1) false. as I already wrote - we don't need beta tester / dev input for what we can manage ourselves.

2) it doesn't really matter what NewK has said about any past state of VC-MP development, because it's all retrospective. what we need to focus on is the present moment, and our plans for tomorrow.

3) solutions for this broken multi-player mod can only happen through collaboration, so it's either we all come together for the occasion in our own right, or none of this will ever launch off the surface.

[Charley]

I think a discord server is a great idea, but isn't that just better catering to the players who are already here?

One of the main reasons I made my proposal was to capture the new, unique visitors to the VC:MP forum. A discord server doesn't solve the problem that when people first google this mod, it looks dead.

[Gulk]

[Thomas]

everything ok with charley's first post,replace krystianoo with someone and all the toxicity goes away.

One thing still I dont like about devs are not ready to accept new people in development. VCMP devs should invite new active players and divide the tasks of controlling the downtime. They should also take the responsibility of appointing proper people before going "inactive". I still remember (SLC) who was very capable of carrying out the dev work but for some very reason and weird decision, he was not taken in, otherwise the situation would have been a lot of different by now.

Let's talk about this topic a bit.

As far as I remember, SLC no longer has the time or interest to engage in VCMP development. I'm pretty sure the same applies to Murdock and Shad. That leaves us with a question, what option do they have? There's Zurix but I doubt if VCMP devs would ever appoint him due to not knowing him much. Who else is there?

The rest of us to get even more gifted and upgrade our VCMP resumes thats what  .

But maybe Murdock could come around though, he's been asking me of 3D modeling tips and tricks.....I mean that's hope right there right?

oh yes we're up to something in sky-city


oops leak.

[NewK]

NewK comes here and tells us how 10 years ago people also used to say VCMP was dying and to back it up with proof. Well, there's the proof. We are at an all-time low.

There's certainly highs and lows, right now we're at a low for sure, not trying to deny that. That low can also be explained by the fact that there werent any new(public)  summer releases. Usually every summer there are new updates coming out but that hasn't happened this year, so there's not as much interest.

Also we're nowhere near an all-time low, we've had way worse than this.

You guys can "believe" NewK's words but the truth is that 0.4.7 was supposed to come out one year ago and the fact that nothing has ever been publicly said or announced about it since then should make you think.

Not sure what you're trying to imply here. What exactly did you wanted to be said publicly about it? Since the last public beta, it was said publicly rel007 was being worked on. Which is still true to this date. Development was on hold for a while last year but this is no longer the case.

Sure, you might have had 27 or 99 private releases. You might have had plans to promote the mod. Ok? But the average player has seen nothing of it and it doesn't look like they will.

I never made the point that its good for the average player that there were alot of private builds being tested and there was a plan to promote the mod. The reason I said that was simply to show that the beta team, is not infact inactive and silent as people think, that has nothing to do with this discussion of Charley's points, you can consider it offtopic. It was simply talked about because morphine brought it up.


To be clear here, I'm not against better promotion of VCMP since that's obviously a good thing. I just don't think appointing community admins/mods on VCMP forums is the way to go about it. Because as I said, people are already using VCMP forums to promote their servers/events (sometimes even server updates are posted there). So the only thing that would change is that they would have a rank now.

[krystianoo]

1) false. as I already wrote - we don't need beta tester / dev input for what we can manage ourselves.

Yes, you need it if you want to start changing the VCMP forum (which was one of the major points of this topic) which is the first result when you google "gta vice city multiplayer".

...

I don't think there's anything we can discuss about. My 0.4.7 comment was made because the public beta was supposed to be IIRC the last step before a public release, but the beta 'failed' and since then Stormeus has disappeared and a year has passed already. I know the beta team is not dead, I know AdTec is working on the mod but to pretend the situation is more green than grim is a mistake in my opinion. Otherwise I guess we agree.

Personally I believe that development-wise we might be in the worst point of VC-MP "history" so far. You can correct me on this but I don't think that in the last 5 years (and 7 years, not sure about 10 years) there has been a period with the main two developers missing and no big progress being made public for over a year, just like the situation is now.


Nobody needs ranks. In my opinion we should all agree that VC-MP needs better marketing, promotion and we should all come together to create a better main page with versions in as many languages as possible, with semi-tutorials on newbie-friendly servers and on how to play, with screenshots showcasing the best 0.4 features like being able to drop Rustler bombs on players with Barbie skins on GangstaRas's rendition of a tropical island.

[morphine]

ok we are all literally reiterating each other's shit at this point.

I think everybody gets the idea -

we need to start.

[aXXo]

I think a discord server is a great idea, but isn't that just better catering to the players who are already here?

One of the main reasons I made my proposal was to capture the new, unique visitors to the VC:MP forum. A discord server doesn't solve the problem that when people first google this mod, it looks dead.

With the help of developers, we would need to put the Discord link everywhere:
Homepage, Forum, ModDB, VCMP Browser *.

When a new player discovers VCMP, we have to get him into discord. I think it will work better to troubleshoot VCMP problems. Also, it will introduce them to the community. Frankly, it is the VCMP community, not the game and servers that keeps us all here, isn't it?

It is easier to join Discord with a single click as a guest and say "hi" or "i can't connect". Imagine doing this on 2010 forum and mIRC  .
The landing channel can be tailored to only allow guests and experienced(non toxic) players to interact.
We can not control what servers the new players join and the experience they have there. But if they all join a common platform, it will be easier for us to assimilate them.


*
Another idea:
We need to replace the Official VCMP Browser with a new one. People did create some interesting ideas(George and YSC) but it did not materialize.
It would need some proficient programming. But it could potentially solve a lot of problems:
- Modern looking
- Discord Link and possible integration.
- Error messages and launch failures redirecting to discord/forum.
- Shareable Launch server URLs( ?? )
- More visible "Internet" tab, coz swear to god when I was 12 yo I thought VCMP is just an empty Favorites tab and went to MTAVC.
("You do not have any servers in your Favorites. Browse the Internet tab or our Discord server to discover new people to play with."
CLICK HERE!!!)

[ripmemes]

SA-MP does not have more players than VC-MP because it turns a Spitfire's permanent bans into temporary 6 month bans.

It has more players because GTA:SA was the most popular GTA before GTA 5. It has more players because it's easier. You shoot someone in SA-MP or MTA, he shoots you back - it all works. In VC-MP, you can die in less than a second because of someone's laser aim with M4. In VC-MP, once you get shot with a shotgun you are going to die. All of us here might like that, but the truth is SA-MP is easier, more well-known and more accessible for the average player. Not to mention that it is more refined than VC-MP

SAMP is not famous, it gained fame.

VCMP went in a downhill the moment some admins started being narcissistic, and the servers got boring, and no major gamemode other than A/D style or DM ever existed.

Let me refute your post:

1- 

It has more players because it's easier. You shoot someone in SA-MP or MTA, he shoots you back - it all works. In VC-MP, you can die in less than a second because of someone's laser aim with M4. In VC-MP, once you get shot with a shotgun you are going to die.

it is not about being easy or not, it is about being competitive, and VCMP is in fact more competitive than SAMP.

CSGO is not easy, it's hard. Call of duty is way harder, with DM fuckfests and you get shot every second.

they're both successful, while VCMP is not, compared to SAMP. we agree that gta sa is better and more famous, and definitely SAMP's going to have more players, but VCMP can have its playercount larger than it is today.

there is a clear lack of imagination, with every mass tdm server feeling the same, playing the same, as you run like a beheaded chicken in a narrow place trying to gun down whoever is in front of you.

no racing servers, no battleroyale servers ( doable ), not many unique and fun RPG servers, and actually no freeroam servers.

" bUt HeY idIoT, wE hAvE fReErOaM sErvErs, GTFO "

if you call something as lazy and shitty as LWs a freeroam server, or the other few servers, then you've never played actual freeroam.

the closest thing to freeroam is VKs, but even that, it is far away from being freeroam. you spawn directly into the main world where combat takes place and soulless admins grief noobs for sprees.

if you ask me, why freeroam is very important, it is because the one that has the most playercount in SAMP. ( UIF server )

Freeroam is an open world that implicates different types of game modes, aside from freeroam itself.

you should receive a menu upon joining server to get into any of these gamemodes

including:

1-Freeroam: a free open world where you spawn in a heavily modified map with ramps and big structures, you can do whatever you want, you can go on godmode and fly everywhere, get in a fancy vehicles and drift, or you can have a fight with a bunch of friends and strangers.

2- Demolition derby: self explanatory

3- Racing: different tracks in custom and main map, where you can race with other people in the same gamemode

4-Deathmatch: in certain arenas ( check uif gameplay videos to see how unique their maps are )


freeroam server can have other gamemodes, like:

-Fallout ( dw not a post apocalyptic nuclear roleplaying game ) : you stand with bunch of dudes in a platform and try not to fall as parts of that platform is falling out.

- protect the president: TDM match where robbers have to assasinate the president and cops have to protect him.

- Cops V Robbers: Self explanatory, not like that fucked up unbalanced mixture of everything that turns you into a grinding machine that we have today. as if Just Cause, Gta and Pewdiepie had a baby whose name is VccNr.


Conclusion: it really saddens me how VCMP has a great advantage over SAMP and MTA, the ability to add custom stuff without replacing already existent assets, it could've been exploited in favor of attracting more people into the game. and especially useful for newcomers who look for this type of servers. psst, UGMP will have this feature 

no way people would cope with the frustrating nature of LWs where old players endlessly kill and hunt down newbies, only 0.5% decide to stay in VCMP and take it upon themselves to learn how to fight. because they were patient.

the other merely have a reason to come back, while if they joined a real freeroam server, they'd happily join again and test all the other gamemodes without having to be constantly DM'ed and abused by assholes.

[Vedder]

So ideas so far are:

Updating vcmp forum
Creating a vcmp discord
Create tutorials for newbies
Create more adaptable gamemodes and structures for newbies

I am also up for the idea of a video. What was interesting for me when I was a 9 years old kid searching for VCMP multiplayer mods, I was impressed for those images in the 0.3z intro screen of players sitting in bars, some riding fucking motorbikes others crashing cars. A good video that can include scenes of VCMP from different angles can also motivate people to try out the game.

[NewK]

I don't think there's anything we can discuss about. My 0.4.7 comment was made because the public beta was supposed to be IIRC the last step before a public release, but the beta 'failed' and since then Stormeus has disappeared and a year has passed already. I know the beta team is not dead, I know AdTec is working on the mod but to pretend the situation is more green than grim is a mistake in my opinion.

Depends on which situation you're refering to. The beta team situation is certainly more green than dim. If you're talking about player count, there's been a drop as stated before but as I said, this was probably caused by no public updates which is expected due to 2 lead devs missing, and also due to the fact that VCMP forums were down for nearly 2 months early this year. But yea we had worse than this for sure.

Personally I believe that development-wise we might be in the worst point of VC-MP "history" so far. You can correct me on this but I don't think that in the last 5 years (and 7 years, not sure about 10 years) there has been a period with the main two developers missing and no big progress being made public for over a year, just like the situation is now.

The status of VCMP development right now is "Active". Which is the best we can ask for when 2 of the lead devs are missing. We've had that before during 0.3 days but that probably was more than 7 years ago. Progress will of course be slower but it's progress nontheless. Also back when stormeus was active, he was only active during the summer. He just got alot of stuff done since he's a lead dev. Right now there's been progress since the start of the year. Another thing that people that keep asking for new devs don't seem to realize is that any new dev that inherits a big project such as VCMP will have long period of accommodation with the codebase and will obviously not be able to progress as faster as lead dev. AdTec has done an amazing job so far, introducing new features aswell as fixing alot of game breaking bugs in rel007 and rel006 too, so I wouldn't call "Active" development to be "in the worst point of VC-MP "history".

[PunkNoodle]

Yes guys indeed there's a lot of constructive feedback here but...... have you heard of UG-MP?

[Smok3]

whaaaat

[ElvenKing]

I have got some new and old players in VCMP via game advertisement on different gaming discord servers. I can tell that it will literally help the case, it's just that we require some good video content like promotional videos, video containing some game-play parts from different vcmp servers featuring some cool custom content and stuff. I have a team working with me on a new vcmp project which is about to come. I'd like to give some time to the vcmp promotional work once we launch the server.

Quote from @axxo
last reply.....

Very well said!
I require two or three discord channels i guess where we can exchange some banner work, ideas and the concerned things.
We have had enough discussion here i guess :grin: Let's do less talk and more work. @Newk or some vcmp beta-tester must be the ones to create an official vcmp discord server i assume so that we get somewhere to start with