Idea to save VC:MP

[napoleon]

let me explain what is missing here as someone who returned to the game a few years later.

Admins is banning new players because they think he/she were previously banned players. I've had this a million times. (I am safe now,I don't know what happens in the future)

the second problem is, when I enter a server, the masters are constantly killing new players. it is very difficult for the new player to learn VC-MP combat system. do they come back to the game they got killed? of course no. he/she can learn cs go, valorant at his own, because there are many tutorial videos. but he cant learn VC-MP. We have to make a comprehensive video for them to learn the VC-MP fights.

the third problem is, the community is not friendly and helpful to newcomers. I know this from myself. it is very difficult to join a community. everyone knows each other, but you don't know anyone. and no one is getting closer to make friends with you. when you say hi, their reaction is "Weren't you banned?" what ?  empathize yourself with the newcomer. Everybody is egoistic, hostile. I'm here because of my real life friend. I would never come here on my own.

[NewK]

"VCMP is dying"

I strongly disagree with the premise that "VCMP is dying". This is just something everyone likes to say once in a while because they're no longer as interested in VCMP as they once were. A pattern I've been noticing over the years goes a little something like this:

Player A player loses interest in VCMP. Causes? Pick from the list:
- Banned from popular server
- Kicked from a clan
- Involved in some other VCMP drama that had a bad outcome to his side

Player A now starts claiming "VCMP is dead" due to their discontent with how things went while he was an active player/member of the community, but not because of an actual playercount drop ( Because who cares about actually backing up your statements with data, right?). And this is the most common pattern I notice about people who say vcmp is dead. There's also one other cause but which doesn't seem to happen as often, which is when a player moves on to different games, leaving the VCMP community but somehow still has enough information to claim vcmp is dead, even tho he's no longer here to see it.

The reason why I dont believe vcmp is dying is simple. I've been hearing this same thing ever since I started playing.  Every single year since I joined this community in late 2007's people have been saying "VCMP is dying" and every single year some new VCMP event hits record breaking numbers, even this year with VCDC and VW hitting 80+ players. There was no event back in the day who was even close to these numbers. This alone goes to prove that the people who say VCMP is dying are obviously just discontent with things in the community or due to some of the causes mentioned above and dont actually know if VCMP is dying.


Now, with that being said, I'm not dismissing any of the problems pointed out, but as Charley said there really is no point  in discussing stuff you can't change. So I'm just going to focus on the other ones.

VCMP Forums

Take a look at the official VC:MP forum. This is the first point of contact for anyone new to the mod. It is a graveyard. It's a boring, semi-forgotten wasteland of half-literate randomers. I put it to you that this is the main problem.

If by graveyard you mean inactive, I have to disagree. There's alot of cool new client side libraries being released there (sometimes weekly), perhaps this is not noticeable for people who are not into server development or people who dont even use the VCMP forums, but I assure you there's alot of interesting stuff going on in that section of the forum. Now if you say the forum is "boring" I guess that debatable, because boring is relative. For server developers I guess its not that boring, but for the general player or newcomer it may seem to be a bit boring indeed.

Your suggestion about community leaders is already happening I believe, just in a different way. Whenever there's a VCMP event people usually post on VCMP forums about it. I think its best to let this be handled by each server staff and event staff than to appoint people with empty titles and ranks to do something that they're already doing. I always like to avoid more ranks/positions since that further splits up the community, not to mention the drama that comes with it ( ex: why is player A leader, he did _BAD_THING_ why not me instead, I did _GOOD_THING_). Another thing is that what you call community mods/admins already exist, in the shape of beta testers. All beta testers are forum moderators. Many of which belong to different clans. VCMP devs themselves dont really do much when it comes to moderating the forum. All of that is usually done by the beta testers. And if you say say the beta testers are all inactive then you really dont use the VCMP forum at all. Because last year there about 6 or 7 new beta testers that were recruited (myself included) and they're the ones who have been moderating the forum for the past year and testing private vcmp builds. There's alot of stuff that happens behind doors that people dont see, when it comes to moderating the forum and testing new builds, detecting bugs/testing bugfixes/creating reproduceable bug scenarios, etc...

About contacting storm or maxo, you won't able to reach them for the time being. Maxo was around a few months ago and after many conversations we were able to convince him to give control to AdTec of a few more VCMP resources, to avoid the forum/update server/masterlist dying everytime maxo or storm are MIA. Things like the client update server and some other stuff are now accessible to AdTec since seems to be more reliable (being always around and whatnot), Which is why we were able to get the forum back up (with some help from VRocker aswell) and also restore some dead links on the forum but not all unfortunately, like the wiki and a few other links are still down since only storm and maxo are the only ones with access to that sort of stuff, that is another thing which AdTec should have access to aswell as moddb too.

Promotion

We (beta team) actually had a way to promote VCMP after rel007 was released but since that was pushed back because of some game breaking bugs that was held off aswell. There's been alot of testing going on, as I said theres alot stuff that happens behind closed doors that people really dont see so they just default to "VCMP is dead". The beta testers are active (when it comes to testing and moderating the forums). Not every single one of them of course, but enough to make a difference.

[JuaN.]

let me explain what is missing here as someone who returned to the game a few years later.

Admins is banning new players because they think he/she were previously banned players. I've had this a million times. (I am safe now,I don't know what happens in the future)

the second problem is, when I enter a server, the masters are constantly killing new players. it is very difficult for the new player to learn VC-MP combat system. do they come back to the game they got killed? of course no. he/she can learn cs go, valorant at his own, because there are many tutorial videos. but he cant learn VC-MP. We have to make a comprehensive video for them to learn the VC-MP fights.

the third problem is, the community is not friendly and helpful to newcomers. I know this from myself. it is very difficult to join a community. everyone knows each other, but you don't know anyone. and no one is getting closer to make friends with you. when you say hi, their reaction is "Weren't you banned?" what ?  empathize yourself with the newcomer. Everybody is egoistic, hostile. I'm here because of my real life friend. I would never come here on my own.

what should be done before giving lessons and telling a community what to do with newcomers is to be honest and dont be a liar, lying about your past aliases, nicknames, identity whatever only god may know where the hell did you come from.

only those guys that are hiding something like you and get angry and reply back with hostile replies like you do, mayne that is for something yet you are trying to fool us with that lame story of "i played back in 2012 and i recently came back" who in the hell would believe that? you came back after 8 years of inactivity yet you have high-average skills? go and try to fool other ppl around or those that believe you.

before giving tips and others what to do you should stop lying and show yourself, and i repeat you are lying and hiding yourself for something otherwise you would not.

[MasterOz]

I was depressed after hearing those "VCMP is going to die" statements but after seeing comments of newk and some others,hope got nourishment and refreshment.
I really want to play a part but idk how i can in helping VCMP.
But some advices above are applicable though.

[Vedder]

I agree on NewK saying that the vcmp forum is active and it's not actually the problem. As much as I've tried to help newbies to make them stay in the past, it's frustrating for them to get killed over and over.

I believe there are a lot of chances of saving the community, I made a post in a latinoamerican forum two years ago and with only that attracted like 5 or 6 old single players who always wanted to try multiplayer but didn't know it existed.

Yeah, we cannot talk about changing the attitude of players towards newbies, but we can create dynamic tutorials, new gamemodes that aren't that thrown to pure deathmaching and can help new people like VCCNR, promote more the forums (thats at the end what keep us here).

I also agree with Krystianoo on his points.

[napoleon]

let me explain what is missing here as someone who returned to the game a few years later.

Admins is banning new players because they think he/she were previously banned players. I've had this a million times. (I am safe now,I don't know what happens in the future)

the second problem is, when I enter a server, the masters are constantly killing new players. it is very difficult for the new player to learn VC-MP combat system. do they come back to the game they got killed? of course no. he/she can learn cs go, valorant at his own, because there are many tutorial videos. but he cant learn VC-MP. We have to make a comprehensive video for them to learn the VC-MP fights.

the third problem is, the community is not friendly and helpful to newcomers. I know this from myself. it is very difficult to join a community. everyone knows each other, but you don't know anyone. and no one is getting closer to make friends with you. when you say hi, their reaction is "Weren't you banned?" what ?  empathize yourself with the newcomer. Everybody is egoistic, hostile. I'm here because of my real life friend. I would never come here on my own.

what should be done before giving lessons and telling a community what to do with newcomers is to be honest and dont be a liar, lying about your past aliases, nicknames, identity whatever only god may know where the hell did you come from.

only those guys that are hiding something like you and get angry and reply back with hostile replies like you do, mayne that is for something yet you are trying to fool us with that lame story of "i played back in 2012 and i recently came back" who in the hell would believe that? you came back after 8 years of inactivity yet you have high-average skills? go and try to fool other ppl around or those that believe you.

before giving tips and others what to do you should stop lying and show yourself, and i repeat you are lying and hiding yourself for something otherwise you would not.

I am not teaching anyone a lesson. this has to be the same on all platforms. you have to help new players first. It is bad not to help a newcomer and kill her constantly. I just explained what I experienced as a participant. and about hostility, you are the biggest example with this comment. If you think I'm someone else, you have to provide proof.

[MasterOz]

I think you are [kfVU]Legend.
kf = kicked from

[JuaN.]

first, why does a newcomer have to be a female?

and this isnt the right place sorry for going off-topic, its my fault but couldnt resist seeing a guy like napoleon a guy that came out of nowhere with high skills and claims he has no past nicks or aliases.

and no im not hostile with everyone but to those that are trying to fool the community yea i am hostile and you are the best example for that, plus you kept avoiding the questions about your past and old aliases, this is not the first time we have caught a lying cunt trying to make a fresh start after a few months or years of being inactive(lying cunts that used to cheat ,stats pad, death evading) then suddenly the lying cunt makes a fresh start being so talktative, friendly etc towards the community then gaining power and influence on vcmp.

does anyone remember the TLK.Belial/Slingshot case from some years ago? this seems like pretty much the same, oldies like charley, morphine and a few others might remember it

[ripmemes]

yeah hostility in community is frustrating.

many clans don't oppose to their participants' behavior towards other people.
and many of those hostile people belong to certain clans.

many servers don't punish players who irrationally insult others.

so there's that.

seeing how No_Mercy has been spat on, he regretted that he hacked ( which should be enough ) but then everyone started getting cocky, abusive, unfriendly and ill bred. he left VCMP, even when he turned out to be good at the end.

many of today's admins have hack history ( not the contemporary ones, I'm talking about those from 2009 ) but they changed themselves, they don't need to be rejected to change, they just needed the ban to realize they're wrong.

like it or not, VCMP's community is one of the worst. feuds between factions, greed, ego, and hatred. that's like nationalism but in a fucking game, in each one's clan.

yeah few clans are friendly to each other ( that when looking superficially at it ) but then you find that SS and MK are hostile. both having veterans and a well respected place in this community.

VCMP has a lot of shitty rolemodels here, dramas don't keep it alive.

we can change it, if at least we can't, veterans / admins can change it.

this one'll get brain donors, just an example of how some people don't get sick of hating.

[GangstaRas]

When I came to VC:MP properly in 2009, yeah it was all about the experience of multiplayer itself on this singleplayer game, but after 0.4's release, VC:MP really brought out the creator side in me personally. So despite being here so long, honestly VC:MP forums was only useful to me around 2015.

As someone who is not inherently a programmer, no serious background in it, just hobby work here and there, the Wiki was and is a broken place to me. The minimal is done for most things, but it really doesn't teach anything. It's a review guide, and if purposed that way then sure it has done its work, but it's not the way to go moving forward as it's definitely no place to truly get how-to information on everything it speaks of, it assumes you already have some coding background.

That is a flaw that costs the community, because now we're saying only the privileged (the knowledgeable) should make servers and manage anything VC:MP related. I mean to say it bluntly, I get it, beta testing, server development, it's no role for a fool, cuz that's how we get servers that save unhashed passwords right? But with that, we have elitism and brain drain as our reaped harvest. We can debate that VC:MP is dying or not, what we can't debate is that VC:MP is pretty stagnant in feature set. That is fact.

We're at a point where more knowledge is needed for more creative work. I think the community would be a lot further ahead if everyone has the know-how to express their own creativity and/or dig for that knowledge themselves if needed.

We have same set of people doing the beta testing, making servers, logos, 3D models and whatever else, how will the community grow in a self-sufficient manner? When I got into 3D modeling that fact became very clear to me. Many persons are curious about how to do certain things, and these persons are trustworthy, amicable and could prove to be potentially functional assets to the community's growth if they knew where and how to start.

So if there was a proper robust setup to start, then we would potentially have a much better expression of creativity, far less brain drain to worry about, more robust and polished servers to play on, and then, word of mouth takes over from there.


Re player experience, as my story goes, I came in 2007 on a shit PC and some MK guy was practically stats padding with me at 3 FPS back then. When I came back in 2009 on a good PC, I was not one of the persons who intuitively learnt the fighting style, I needed the assistance of a clan. Should we publicize the general fighting style for newbies to watch? I don't know but honestly speaking I don't see it as a deterrent from VC:MP, but rather a deterrent from a particular server that doesn't fit the player's needs. For example, if racing was a serious thing in the community, that's where I'd truly be night and day. That's my game genre mostly.

But you see if we set a new standard to the name server developer, i.e. if all the server developers were on not just a scripting level, but a level where you know the game engine you're working in inside and out (GTA:SA's multiplayer community has done this right), I can confidently tell you that a server inspired from:

• PUBG / Fortnite
• Battlefield / Planetside 2
• DOOM 2016
• GTA 5
• Midnight Club
• Twisted Metal
• Rocket League

Are all well within reach, and whomever does it brings a fresh new idea into the mix. Some purists might say then that you're taking away the sandbox of Vice City and that's not really necessary for a new game mode and that is true. But honestly, unlike GTA:SA, or even GTA 3 to a degree, Vice City isn't a very versatile map for some ideas that can really happen.

[lol55]

nothing much but i completely disagree with your idea.
You have no idea how specific group works in vcmp and how they are targetting other groups but it does not matter with current system since no one got power and no one can do anything against anyother group except banning from their own server.

This idea will just kill the mod completely.

have a nice day

[napoleon]

first, why does a newcomer have to be a female?

and this isnt the right place sorry for going off-topic, its my fault but couldnt resist seeing a guy like napoleon a guy that came out of nowhere with high skills and claims he has no past nicks or aliases.

and no im not hostile with everyone but to those that are trying to fool the community yea i am hostile and you are the best example for that, plus you kept avoiding the questions about your past and old aliases, this is not the first time we have caught a lying cunt trying to make a fresh start after a few months or years of being inactive(lying cunts that used to cheat ,stats pad, death evading) then suddenly the lying cunt makes a fresh start being so talktative, friendly etc towards the community then gaining power and influence on vcmp.

does anyone remember the TLK.Belial/Slingshot case from some years ago? this seems like pretty much the same, oldies like charley, morphine and a few others might remember it

I just told my mind to how to save VC-MP on my first comment as you can see. and you started talking irrelevant. if you want to know who is a liar, let me tell you. a guy didnt even speak to me once and hostile to me directly. you didn't even ask me who i am. and also, i am not after gaining strength in this game. I'm just playing on my free time to have to have fun. unlike you 
if you have a idea which it contains to revive VC-MP, share your idea here, but you're here for a fight obviously. we can argue elsewhere

[JuaN.]

first, why does a newcomer have to be a female?

and this isnt the right place sorry for going off-topic, its my fault but couldnt resist seeing a guy like napoleon a guy that came out of nowhere with high skills and claims he has no past nicks or aliases.

and no im not hostile with everyone but to those that are trying to fool the community yea i am hostile and you are the best example for that, plus you kept avoiding the questions about your past and old aliases, this is not the first time we have caught a lying cunt trying to make a fresh start after a few months or years of being inactive(lying cunts that used to cheat ,stats pad, death evading) then suddenly the lying cunt makes a fresh start being so talktative, friendly etc towards the community then gaining power and influence on vcmp.

does anyone remember the TLK.Belial/Slingshot case from some years ago? this seems like pretty much the same, oldies like charley, morphine and a few others might remember it

I just told my mind to how to save VC-MP on my first comment as you can see. and you started talking irrelevant. if you want to know who is a liar, let me tell you. a guy didnt even speak to me once and hostile to me directly. you didn't even ask me who i am. and also, i am not after gaining strength in this game. I'm just playing on my free time to have to have fun. unlike you 
if you have a idea which it contains to revive VC-MP, share your idea here, but you're here for a fight obviously. we can argue elsewhere

why are you lying again about that i didnt ask you? seems like you cant stop lying, you are acting so kind here but ingame when i asked you a few times(on EAD to be more exact) about your past you replied with " fuck off, i dont need to tell u, show proof, cry" i even used to invite you to join CTF thru pm a few times till i asked you about your past then you went mad because i was asking you what were your past nicknames and dude that is for something, it bothers you and you obviously dont like someone trying to discover your past aliases, but if you didnt have nothing to hide you wouldnt mind about it and tell the truth but that is not the case.

quit lying napoleon.

and as for the topic about how to revive VC:MP the first time i heard about VC:MP dying was back in 2010 when Windlord(cola_sky's brother) announced that the mod could be dying that year, well here we are at 2020 and yea we have had a few illuminated ppl that kept saying vcmp would die sooner or late during all these years but here we are again at 2020 with EAD server on 33/100 players the oldest and "old fashioned" gamemode we used back in the day to make Clan wars, so revive what?

VC:MP isnt dead and it wont die anytime soon, because many of us could be playing CS:GO, COD, PUBg, GTA V, Valorant and a larger list of games and say just fuck this old laggy mod from 2005-2006 but we are all here because we love VC:MP and meanwhile that love towards VC:MP remains around it wont die and of course we have amazing ppl like stormeus,cutton, adtec, morphine, krys, newk, gangstaras and many others that will keep this mod alive with their ideas, work and all of that for all of us.

But i can assure you all that VC:MP wont die anytime soon i have been hearing the same story over and over again all these years i left for 2-3 years rejoined left again for 2 years rejoined but here we are yet and yea there will be one that it will become true and VC:MP will die but thats like everything.

I would also like to give the entire VU clan the credits they deserve for having all of us in touch on their forum, which is pretty much the other "VC:MP" forum apart from the real one which lacks a lot of things you can find around here, also the VU clan deserves some credit for keeping VC:MP pretty much alive at times with events such as VW and VCDC, the VU clan may not be the best in events when it comes to win and shit but fuck winning they are collaborating on a +50% to keep this mod alive in my opinion, they have done a lot for the mod and they will surely keep working to keep it alive, so there is my little wink to you VU clan.

[WiLsOn]

/saveloc vcmp

/Nogoto on

/Gotoloc vcmp

[morphine]

post 1


Charley:

There is apparently a dwindling playercount in the mod.

it is not apparent, it is factual. we are at an all-time low at present time.

Take a look at the official VC:MP forum. This is the first point of contact for anyone new to the mod. It is a graveyard. It's a boring, semi-forgotten wasteland of half-literate randomers. I put it to you that this is the main problem.

VC-MP's front page is nasty to say the least, I agree. this can easily be taken care of if we decide to do more than just talk about the same shit over and over this time around.

My assumption is that the devs hoped to be impartial towards the community, to give the community a game to play, but prevent any individuals or groups from monopolizing or regulating access to that game. That is a laudible, but incomplete approach.

agreed.

it would have been a complete approach if there would have been at least minimal feedback/communication from the VC-MP dev team, and honestly nobody would have minded it that way under that circumstance.

Create a community management team.

sounds good on paper, as it has for the past couple of years.

I actually remember discussing exactly this with krystianoo a while ago and boom - here we are at it all of a sudden.







Niko:

I'm up with you, VC:MP needs more propaganda for start to seen the community growing up like old times

promotion is essential anywhere and everywhere. I have been a strong supporter of promoting VC:MP for a very long time and I've talked to lots of people about it. the only question I personally have in this regard is "where?".



Sean:

I'll put in an example. [EAF]Han (and several other Argonath RPG players) create youtube videos of fun VCMP gameplays,

In short, what I believe is we need a marketting strategy. Make proper fun entertaining videos of major events be it VCDC or EAD Championships.

1) the way the current marketing strategy stands is that we're literally advertising VC-MP to one another. there is barely any (if any) external reach.

2) the videos Han and the rest of you shoot are great, but they are not suitable for mass marketing. why? at the very core - it's inside humor. it's not descriptive or introductory, and can even push people away from wanting to try what looks like a cage packed with psychopaths. marketing material needs to be neutral and properly aesthetic at the very least.



ripmemes:

he must recruit other developers to work on it.

about the only reasonable thing you came up with today.


krystianoo:

Where do you even download VCMP 0.4 as a new player? From moddb? From maxorator's topic in the VCMP forum? How are you going to find it?

access to the client/server files needs to be centralized, agreed.

The only newbie friendly servers is littlewhiteys, because it does everything to prevent the player from using glitches.

You see the most populated server (in the past) - RTV - you join it, you get killed by a guy crouching with molotovs or sliding on your screen. How? How on Earth do you do that?

we could probably introduce something like a training ground / tutorial server for the newbies.

VCMP has no maintenance.

which is why the idea of a council has been in discussion for quite a while now.

Separation

Finally, you have servers that promote separatism. You have Chinese-only servers that you can't play at because of lag, being unable to download files or just not understanding anything. I've seen some Hungarian-only servers. I've seen a Turkish-only server, but that one was filled with bots. You have groups that promote belonging to a certain nationality, all of those mentioned condone sitting in your own echo chamber without interacting with "different" people.

regionality is not something VC-MP as an entity could/should be responsible for, for now at least.