Vice City: Multiplayer

Hi guys,

Quote from: Athanatos(^_^) on Feb 09, 2018, 01:56 PM

Quote from: Mack on Feb 09, 2018, 02:12 AM:)

Nice, I tought @Stormeus posted that vcmp is closing.

I didn't say anything like that, but even if I had, we'd be hard pressed to "close" VC:MP anyway. We don't run the servers, we don't have a kill switch in the client and the browser is designed in such a way that even if our servers go down (as has regrettably happened here), the community is able to direct people to an alternate source.

As has been mentioned, I have grown disenchanted with VC:MP development, partially because it's a lot of work for very little appreciation, but also because I'm a full-time student, and when I'm not in school I work full-time. When you're asleep for 8 hours a day, working another 8 hours a day and spending the rest of your time trying to have a social life, there's very little time to devote to the project.

I don't want VC:MP to die considering there's still an active community surrounding it. I honestly don't know what to do though -- the few community members I figured were knowledgeable enough in C++ and good ambassadors of the community don't seem to be active anymore either, and I've been away for so long that I don't even know if there's anyone I can recruit as a developer. As many have also noticed and taken advantage of, the anti-cheat infrastructure isn't robust, so completely open sourcing VC:MP is also out of the question since I have no doubt that any positive contributions by the community would be immediately outweighed by people changing the code to cheat. I'm open to hearing what the community thinks about the situation.

In the meantime I'll see if the server itself is still up, and if not I'll update the ModDB download we have to point to Thijn's server.

@Stormeus , making everyone happy won't happen in any case.
But I believe there is still a big chance for VC:MP Comunity to give the needed feedback.
Also, implementing some new specified features will make players keep eyes opened, because they will get more in their gameplay.
(I have some ideas)

PS: Good to see you ! o/

like this post if u want to

#makeslcdeveloper

runs

Quote from: vitogta on Jun 02, 2018, 09:43 AM

Quote from: Xmair on Jun 02, 2018, 09:17 AMlike this post if u want to

#makeslcdeveloper

runs

he is also inactive.

No. Being inactive on only forum does NOT mean he's inactive from everywhere.

Quote from: vitogta on Jun 02, 2018, 09:43 AMhe is also inactive.
all people who good in coding also having a job... very unexpected fact.

I am not inactive. I've simply moved to a different community. One where you can actually have a coherent discussion and not just `wAnt scriPTs and CMd. GIvE!!!`. Which has been the case when the developers stopped visiting the forum. We all thought the project was abandoned and there was nothing to be done about.

Yes I do have a job. And while I have that I still fiddle with code whenever I'm home because I simply enjoy it. And it's actually a way for me to release some stress.

I've been asked about the dev thing on Discord. And the answer was yes. But not like old days. More like casual maintenance. Even that would be better than nothing.

Anyway, I guess what I'm trying to say is that I was not inactive but that there was simply nothing to be active about anymore.

Quote from: . on Jun 02, 2018, 10:06 AMI still fiddle with code whenever I'm home because I simply enjoy it. And it's actually a way for me to release some stress.

@Stormeus we need this guy.
I'm not just dropping this phrase in this post. I do believe he worths the most to be a developer, because he gives his best when about coding.
As he said, he wasn't active anymore because there was nothing worthing anymore; but he is here now.

Quote from: Xmair on Jun 02, 2018, 09:17 AMlike this post if u want to

#makeslcdeveloper

runs

^^^^^ you all should like his post.

SLC is a good candidate, it has been obvious ever since he stepped into VCMP, we know he is capable with what he does, he has been dedicated as well, he helped many of the people here to advance to another level of thinking and approaching in code. Although hiring him should've been done long ago, and heck knows how things would've gone then but yeah whatever.

tl;dr Just take him while you still can, we are not sure if we'll get any more people who are dedicated enough like him so atleast don't let this one slip away as well. Thijn is doing his best but he shouldn't be dragging this alone. Assign forum moderators, you don't necessarily have to be a beta tester to be a moderator, take good and active people like you guys did with wiki contributors, and this forum will be a better place.

I think that VC:MP desperately needs a team restructure. There's only a few dedicated people left who actually know what they're doing in this game, not just begging for scripts left right and center. You could promote some of the forum casuals to beta-testers (people like @Doom_Kill3R , @vitogta , @Sebastian to name a few) and set up a builds section on github/bitbucket (wherever VC:MP code is hosted) and give them access (even if there are nightly builds).

For the developers part, that's a bit more problematic. Despite the lack of talented C++ programmers (aside of @. , I don't know many others), recruiting a wave of developers who aren't really experienced is not beneficial either because it would ruin the quality of the client/server. I'm all for @. but I would also try to consider some backup plans, as you've said yourself, the community should not die because a few people are inactive due to jobs/university.

One thing that I am completely for is making a proper website for VC:MP where you have the official links for the client, the latest server (with a bullet list of other versions) and the plugins repositories linked, and if you can't do that, let someone do the revamp of the official website as it is and he'll offer the SHA hashes of the executables to ensure that no tampering was done with the binaries. I think this would have a beneficial outcome on the ease of playing the game, you visit one site, download and you're ready to go.

Quote from: Shadow on Jun 02, 2018, 12:19 PMYou could promote some of the forum casuals to beta-testers (people like @Doom_Kill3R , @vitogta , @Sebastian to name a few) and set up a builds section on github/bitbucket (wherever VC:MP code is hosted) and give them access (even if there are nightly builds).

Why do we even need official statuses for beta tester? I noticed social status (like admin) is used in vc-mp to suppress people (for example admin insults player and if player insults back admin - admin banning him). This is a reason why I not playing some servers anymore. Egalitarianism would be more positive for community than those ranks, promotes, respected people and so on. Needs testers - invite them privately without giving "ranks" or just share beta verstion to public to collect feedback. Try to avoid bureaucracy and rankism as possible because it's brings corruption, it's a problem of vc-mp. When social status appreciated more than factual contribution people stopping their contribution and we seeing stagnation. Sorry if it looks like offtop but it's from my personal experience and this thing is really demotivates me.

@vitogta don't confuse server admins with forum admins. when you do that next time, realize that the server admin is just a another player (like you) that gave himself (themselves?) that "privilege".

Quote from: . on Jun 02, 2018, 04:12 PM@vitogta don't confuse server admins with forum admins. when you do that next time, realize that the server admin is just a another player (like you) that gave himself (themselves?) that "privilege".

It's same story with this forum or any powership as generic. In official servers that powership starts from ex-developers for example. I guess my point is simple - if you need a tester - invite him but not 'reward' him by powership in forums or masterlist. I don't confusing anything, 'official status' is using for personal benefits here too, and it's demotivates some people like me. If you don't see any problem here, then ok.

Simple example how it works, SLC: I not motivated to promote masterlist where I can be banned (I were few weeks ago) for disrespecting some admin's ego. Or my server could banned there for same reason. A place where bans are based on social connections instead rules can't motivate people to contribute.

@Stormeus Is there an new VC:MP browser planned, or there will be an update of it?

Hey @Stormeus , nice to have you back.

I'd like to suggest someone for the developer rank which in my opinion is right now the most knowledgeable person for the job. I'm talking about @Murdock . He has the necessary knowledge about reverse engineering and C++ development to make significant progress, and most important, we already know he can be trusted as he's already part of the beta team. I'v known him for the past 10 years ever since I started playing VCMP and I fully believe he can make a difference here.  For those who are "new" here and have not heard of murdock before, back in 0.3 he developed a "module" called VCA( Vice City Addons) (http://viceunderdogs.com/index.php?topic=3498.0) which added alot of features to VCMP that were missing, like NPCs and tons of other stuff.

Now as you said, I'm not sure that he's active or interested, I talked with him a few days ago on discord and I know he's still always on IRC, but I'd be interested to hear his opinion on this. Maybe both murdock and SLC working together could be a viable solution for now, if both are willing of course.

We "all" have jobs and free time is hard to come by, no doubt about that, I definitely know the feeling as I'm in the same position myself, but if we could get a nice number of people involved in development, even if all of them had limited time that would atleast ensure future updates, even if at a slower pace.

Btw what's @maxorator 's stance on this? Have you been able to contact him or is he still MIA?

Quote from: Stormeus on Jun 02, 2018, 06:11 AMHi guys,

Quote from: Athanatos(^_^) on Feb 09, 2018, 01:56 PM

Quote from: Mack on Feb 09, 2018, 02:12 AM:)

Nice, I tought @Stormeus posted that vcmp is closing.

I didn't say anything like that, but even if I had, we'd be hard pressed to "close" VC:MP anyway. We don't run the servers, we don't have a kill switch in the client and the browser is designed in such a way that even if our servers go down (as has regrettably happened here), the community is able to direct people to an alternate source.

As has been mentioned, I have grown disenchanted with VC:MP development, partially because it's a lot of work for very little appreciation, but also because I'm a full-time student, and when I'm not in school I work full-time. When you're asleep for 8 hours a day, working another 8 hours a day and spending the rest of your time trying to have a social life, there's very little time to devote to the project.

I don't want VC:MP to die considering there's still an active community surrounding it. I honestly don't know what to do though -- the few community members I figured were knowledgeable enough in C++ and good ambassadors of the community don't seem to be active anymore either, and I've been away for so long that I don't even know if there's anyone I can recruit as a developer. As many have also noticed and taken advantage of, the anti-cheat infrastructure isn't robust, so completely open sourcing VC:MP is also out of the question since I have no doubt that any positive contributions by the community would be immediately outweighed by people changing the code to cheat. I'm open to hearing what the community thinks about the situation.

In the meantime I'll see if the server itself is still up, and if not I'll update the ModDB download we have to point to Thijn's server.

Maybe release the source code without the makefiles/Visual Studio files. Then the script kiddies won't be helped by Youtube tutorials.

Quote from: EK.IceFlake on Jun 02, 2018, 06:16 PMMaybe release the source code without the makefiles/Visual Studio files. Then the script kiddies won't be helped by Youtube tutorials.

I don't think that's an option because there would still be pseudo-VC:MPs and trust me, you don't want to be fooled into running an executable that's not safe ::) (then the blame would fall on stormeus).

I think the solution still is a team of developers with enough C++ skills to make beneficial contributions. Remember that you need to be good at reverse engineering, object-oriented programming and networking (plus be familiar with squirrel). I would be glad to help whenever I have the spare time to do so, but I am approaching a stressful period of time. Hopefully we get to see this mod revived in the near future.

I also have something to say here. Everyone believes that the community of VCMP is dying but this is not the end. The developers of VCMP left the project thinking about abandoning it, do they know the feelings of other community members? you guys are wrong that VCMP is dying just a few members left it and many will spring out in the next 2 months(due to vacations). If any developer of VCMP gives time to the project, I am sure that the community will be back again.

I am playing VCMP for the last 4 years, came to the forum previous year and found that no developer is interested in it. To save VCMP, you guys need to hire new developers even if they aren't skilled enough but will make the project green again. Many players are leaving it due to the birth of latest hacks in VCMP. Once removed, the players will show their real skills. VCMP project needs to be improved and I am sure will grab a lot of attraction. @Stormeus believe me, you are the one who can revive VCMP. While you were away, Thijn played an important part in the community but it's the time that you should come back. A sack of new developers means new ideas in scripting it. If you have 8 hours free, then just reserve 1 hour for the project. I think you will be just monitoring the project, rest will be in hands of the developers. If you manage the project and advertise it before closing 0.4 that 0.5 is being launched, I am sure that the community members will increase a lot in the starting month to see the latest version. Hope that you understand what I am trying to say. Many players who are working in the community will be happy to work with you.

As NewK said, both Murdock and SLC are most suitable for the job and both working together can bring back life to this community.

It's been almost a year since I left, and I actually want to get back. I hope this gets to something otherwise this will all be over forever.

I'm not even sure if Stormeus has time to give to SLC and Murdock the developer role. All this hope might be just a loss of time.

Stormeus, and in extension whoever else makes up the dev team, I think you need an outside perspective.

Now I'm no coder but I started getting real serious about custom 3D model design (building something from scratch) recently along with utilizing my graphic design skill set as it would regards to GUI and map development. My aspiration is to finish my project of building from scratch an entirely new city, new world, new sandbox to play on. Hell the next Vice War in December is a spin-off project of this main one. The drive is there for me to give back to the community to be able to can push this kind of material for themselves, to know what to do as we can all agree this part of the 0.4 update has been half-wasted potential. Not much 3D designers around.

Now I mention this to point out as an outsider coming in with a passion, when I speak to Shadow, SLC, Seby, vito, Doom_Kill3R, Drake and NewK for advice around this, you can sense the level of resentment they have to the dev team. I look at the myriad of contributions SLC made here, idk the history but I was absolutely astonished to find out that he is not apart of the development team, absolutely shocked. The dev body has its reasons I'm sure, always multiple sides to a story but as far as my eyes can see, speaking bluntly here, someone made a stupid decision, straight up. And the worse part is it's like for some reason he's not being heard, he's giving so much and the higher body doesn't care much for it, just challenge and dismiss him to a discouraging degree in my opinion. It is so bizarre to me. Did he do something? I don't know but the community praises his efforts here; his work speaks for itself. Kudos to him for being around so long, for putting up with all that wall action against him.

Then, I look at some projects Shadow has tried and even some advice he's given me and I could pick it up early that Shadow is one of those persons that aspired (if not still aspire) to create some useful mods to VC, things missing in the original game like a GPS system out of the map world. I can't recall if that was a project for him but he seems like the kind of person that would try that kinda thing, add to the capability of VC:MP in some useful and interesting ways and you know what I noticed? He just gets shut down and that's the end of that. The dev team killed his horse and he can't revive it. Doom_Kill3R it's the same thing but from a different angle (I was speaking to him about GUI related stuff), and to this day I haven't seen him say a single thing good about the direction the GUI code opted to take.

Again, multiple sides to a story so I don't want to be closed-minded to hold the wrong conclusion but what I'm picking up here is that in this section of VC:MP, we have passionate creative people having their dreams destroyed because more often that not, the dev team issued a blind eye and deaf ear to the community. So whoever steps up and wants to continue development for VC:MP, forget about busy lives and time constraints, think about the union and relationships we have as a community first.

Whatever happened before shouldn't matter. Start on a clean slate where the developers are hearing the needs of the creators and the creators are appreciating the efforts of the developers. Whatever system you had that threatens this now, get rid of it. The community will get a lot farther than it is right now if we all strive for good relations.

Quote from: Stormeus...
so completely open sourcing VC:MP is also out of the question since I have no doubt that any positive contributions by the community would be immediately outweighed by people changing the code to cheat....

yes, even if it became open source the contributions that i expect is for scripting side, no core will be touched as lack of professionals

Quote from: SLCI am not inactive. I've simply moved to a different community. One where you can actually have a coherent discussion and not just `wAnt scriPTs and CMd. GIvE!!!`. Which has been the case when the developers stopped visiting the forum. We all thought the project was abandoned and there was nothing to be done about....

Not all speaks english well, most of who asked these questions arent English-Native speakers or even learnt it, if this project is global then we should have multi-lingual boards for them, also there are moderators who have to handle these not devs.

@Zurix That was an exaggeration. I don't care about broken text (up to a point). I meant that they just come and request. And then we have to deal with their issues because they can't read documentation either.

Quote from: Zurix on Jun 04, 2018, 07:30 AMNot all speaks english well, most of who asked these questions arent English-Native speakers or even learnt it, if this project is global then we should have multi-lingual boards for them, also there are moderators who have to handle these not devs.

Well, to be honest, English is not the native language for more than 80-90% (myself included) of this forum, and that's not an excuse in today's society anymore. But we are slowly drifting away from the topic, I guess all we are waiting for right now is an official reply from the developers. Please keep the discussion on topic.

Quote from: . on Jun 04, 2018, 09:48 AM@Zurix That was an exaggeration. I don't care about broken text (up to a point). I meant that they just come and request. And then we have to deal with their issues because they can't read documentation either.

well yes they questions arent understandable and hmm the replies to it seems  useless but they may dont understand that wiki, or just new to concept of scripting. but a guy from his country/language region can easily deal with him and lead him, also one of things that made me hate the community is mocking/disleading these people for not having the language expereince.

Quote from: Shadow on Jun 04, 2018, 10:39 AM

Quote from: Zurix on Jun 04, 2018, 07:30 AMNot all speaks english well, most of who asked these questions arent English-Native speakers or even learnt it, if this project is global then we should have multi-lingual boards for them, also there are moderators who have to handle these not devs.

Well, to be honest, English is not the native language for more than 80-90% (myself included) of this forum, and that's not an excuse in today's society anymore. But we are slowly drifting away from the topic, I guess all we are waiting for right now is an official reply from the developers. Please keep the discussion on topic.

yep, but ofcourse there are some people who just know the basics and as i said to SLC, ok no problem in being on topic.

I'm looking forward to a new future for my favorite old game.

Quote from: Rest on Jun 05, 2018, 11:24 AMI'm looking forward to a new future for my favorite old game.

Everyone does., but I don't think we will be ever able to see it.

SLC is best option currently there is no one in vcmp who deserve this spot.
A suggestion: Remove begging scripts board and take a Moderator for forum not betatester just for managing forums since its quite spammy right now i had'nt opened this forum from months nor posted anything cause forum owned by retards and spamming everywhere

Will be good if new member staff will be also just active player (available in game), not only good scripter somewhere. Mostly what this mod need are active people, close to regular players.

Quote from: Piterus on Jun 07, 2018, 08:55 AMWill be good if new member staff will be also just active player (available in game), not only good scripter somewhere. Mostly what this mod need are active people, close to regular players.

I completly agree with ya.

I'm still talking with the other developers about next steps. In the meantime, we're getting our infrastructure back up.

The official update server is http://u04.vc-mp.org
The download server is http://v04.vc-mp.org

All old URLs from maxorator.com will work when using these domains instead.

Quote from: vitogta on Jun 10, 2018, 03:05 PM...For example will be official squirrel plugin be supported or SLC will move us to his one? ...

You just assumed I will be a developer on the VC:MP mod. You guys should really not assume these things.

The plugin should not be changed since we all are used to official plugin and to its functions

Quote from: vitogta on Jun 10, 2018, 04:57 PMIt's a bit unfair when beta-testers knows what planned in future and people who coding does not know what to wait. VCMP needs to be more opened in this aspect.

Not really. The concept of limited beta testing has more or less fallen by the wayside since the devs could make changes, test them internally, push them to the public, and then immediately push bugfixes if we failed to catch something. We could definitely make use of an active beta testing team to better polish our releases though.

Even then there hasn't been anything terribly exciting to report. The past week has been spent upgrading our web servers' operating systems, the forum software, the wiki, etc. and making sure that we can still SSH into them. This is why some people might've noticed the forum, update server, masterlist and such intermittently going offline.

As far as transparency goes:

• We have a bug tracker (http://bugs.vc-mp.org/) that I've been using for tracking issues for releases.
• I have a crude server plugin for writing scripts in .NET (so C#, VB.NET, etc.) on my Bitbucket profile (https://bitbucket.org/stormeus/vc.net/src) that I've been making very small incremental changes to. It's extremely incomplete right now; I originally started writing it a long time ago for Argonath but got stuck on a server crash that would regularly occur, which got fixed only very recently.

Quote from: Stormeus on Jun 10, 2018, 06:25 PMWe could definitely make use of an active beta testing team to better polish our releases though.

It would be nice if the beta testers had something to test though. :P

Quote from: Shadow on Jun 10, 2018, 06:31 PM

Quote from: Stormeus on Jun 10, 2018, 06:25 PMWe could definitely make use of an active beta testing team to better polish our releases though.

It would be nice if the beta testers had something to test though. :P

Indeed. Also we did the job while 0.4 was being developed.

The problem nowadays is that some rats are focusing on destroying this game with many ways like a dynamic ban evader, and some other stuff like aimlock or yeah i think you already know about it.

I do not know scripting but i still think that the VC:MP developers team can set some scripts to block  the edition of game memory by some softwares. It's really sad to see a 10 years game getting without support or new scripts.

I know developers have all of them his own life , but i don't think that they are busy 24h and never getting a free time.

One option is to get a license of easy Anti-Cheat. But, they probably won't license it as it's a unofficial mod to the game.

:'( :'( :'( Nobody knows me...
(The forum doesn't support emoji. I want to use this (https://emojipedia.org/face-with-tears-of-joy/).)

Quote from: ysc3839 on Jun 23, 2018, 04:31 PM:'( :'( :'( Nobody knows me...
(The forum doesn't support emoji. I want to use this (https://emojipedia.org/face-with-tears-of-joy/).)

Just copy-paste an image.

Quote from: Athanatos(^_^) on Jun 23, 2018, 05:28 PM

Quote from: ysc3839 on Jun 23, 2018, 04:31 PM:'( :'( :'( Nobody knows me...
(The forum doesn't support emoji. I want to use this (https://emojipedia.org/face-with-tears-of-joy/).)

Just copy-paste an image.

You will get a very big one. (https://emojipedia-us.s3.amazonaws.com/thumbs/160/apple/129/face-with-tears-of-joy_1f602.png)

Quote from: vitogta on Jul 01, 2018, 12:06 AM

Quote from: Stormeus on Jun 10, 2018, 06:25 PM

• We have a bug tracker (http://bugs.vc-mp.org/) that I've been using for tracking issues for releases.

some links like

https://bugs.vc-mp.org/browse/VCMP-140
[VCMP-140] As a scripter, I want to create client-side map markers, spheres, checkpoints, etc. - Vice City: Multiplayer JIRA

are not available for non-users anymore.

Yeah, the database has been reverted to a version from about a week ago so some recently created issues have disappeared.

The new reference for that issue is http://bugs.vc-mp.org/browse/VCMP-139.

I'll say it again - VC-MP needs some sort of promo.

Quote from: BeckzyBoi on Jul 01, 2018, 04:35 AMI'll say it again - VC-MP needs some sort of promo.

Pfft. Players still prefer sa-mp and mta.

Quote from: Athanatos on Jul 01, 2018, 09:37 AMPfft. Players still prefer sa-mp and mta.

Give players good playground, and they will play no matter what.