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.