[wizardfeet]

Hi everyone,

I'm writing an article for the PC gaming website Rock Paper Shotgun about San Andreas multiplayer (covering both SA-MP and Multi Theft Auto). It's kind of a "here's why people still play GTA:SA and what makes the multiplayer mods special" — similar to this article I wrote on the Age of Empires 2 modders who kept that game alive, this piece I did on Civ 5 AI-only games, and this piece on Tomb Raider level editing.

To help me make sure I've got a good grip on what makes this community tic, I have a few questions:

1) If you're a player, what is it you like about playing San Andreas online? What are your favourite servers and game modes? And why do you play this rather than GTA 4 or 5 or something else?

2) If you're a scripter or server owner/admin, what do you like about it? Why do you stick around?

3) And for everyone: What do you think makes SA-MP special?

I'll include any answers I get before this time tomorrow in the article.

[JasperM]

1) I play SA:MP mainly because I started doing so a long, long time ago because my PC was too bad for GTA 4 and 5. As soon as I got a new PC, I bought GTA 5, but although it was fun in Single Player, the Online gameplay was kinda annoying for me, since higher ranked players have a real advantage and if your friends don't play it aswell, you're kinda lonely. In GTA:SA, as you mentioned, there are mods for private servers, which makes it a whole lot more fun. SA:MP is kind-of the more-attached-to-the-original-game mod where-as MTA has more possibilities and therefore doesn't feel like the original GTA:SA anymore (custom GUI's, automatically downloaded skin mods).
Besides, the GTA:SA online community is a lot more friendly and less toxic than GTA:Online where people randomly hunt you down for no reason.

2) Not an Administrator nor a scripter at the moment.

3) SA:MP is so close to the original GTA:SA game, and with the private servers it doesn't get repetitive, which GTA:Online does get after some time.

[Kimble]

1) I played all of the GTA's but the only one i keep getting back to is GTA SA and it's because of SA-MP ofc. Why?
a) A wide variety of servers (even though RP is the most popular one you can find plenty of others).
b) I can try them out really fast (no annoying downloads like on Garry's Mod) (waiting for an hour just to be disappointed).
c) The community seems closer. People play on the same server for a while and become friends, unlike GTA Online where they play on a different server everyday (same game, different server, different people). It seems that community triumphs over nice graphics.

2) I was a player once and while i was just a player a lot of times i thought "wow it would be cool if they addded X" but for whatever reason that didn't happen so finally after i learned how to script i added those things and opened up my server. Ran it for a while then gave it away when i didn't have time anymore. Time was probably the reason why they never added the things that i wanted when i was a player.

3) It was a sandbox game to begin with -- the multiplayer aspect just opened up a thousand more possibilities for it.

Off Topic: Nice of you to promote SA-MP.

[rootcause]

1) I don't have a favourite server but I always liked Cops and Robbers(CnR).

Why do I prefer SA-MP? Because it doesn't need a high-end computer to run and has lots of modding opportunities. I also own a copy of GTA V but online was extremely annoying to play since it had cheaters that can freeze your character, remove your weapons, teleport you to themselves, explode your car etc. That was never the case with SA-MP since a client can't do the stuff I listed and most of the servers have an anticheat running/have online staff members so cheaters aren't that much of a problem. (yet, cleos are improving)

2) I like scripting because I can see my code in action such as taking a huge building and moving it around like it's just a plane.

3) It's a multiplayer mod for GTA SA, best GTA of them all.

[SickAttack]

1) If you're a player, what is it you like about playing SA-MP? What are your favourite servers and game modes? And why do you play this rather than GTA 4 or 5 or something else? I like it because of the fast (removing the fact that some servers use the default running style) gameplay and the personality it has to it.

I don't like the fact that there are sports trying to administrate servers and fail in the process of doing it properly (or the bad behavior they possess while "administrating").

I like Cops and Robbers gamemodes and DM gamemodes that have sense in playing it, if you know what I mean. I hate Roleplay, pfft. I don't know, it just seems so childish.

2) If you're a scripter or server owner/admin, what do you like about it? Why do you stick around? I like the fact that there are so many possibilities that can be done and what a SA-MP server can have. That's the joy of being a scripter of a server, you can form the gameplay how your community exactly would like to see it.

On the other hand, as a Server Owner I would like to turn around what I said earlier ("I don't like the fact that there are sports trying to administrate servers and fail in the process of doing it properly (or the bad behavior they possess while "administrating")."), it doesn't seem far from impossible.

3) And for everyone: What do you think makes SA-MP special? The freedom that's given to you.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

San Andreas Online? San Andreas Multiplayer, please... I get that you're trying to create a general article of both known mods, but I hate the other one. Consider creating separate articles.

[PrO.GameR]

1) As a player obviously what has kept this mod alive is the choices it gives a player, wanna chill? There is a TDM server around, wanna do some heists? there are cops n robbers servers, wanna just hang out with buddies doing god knows what? freeroam servers are there for you.
But one thing that really sticks out between others is the roleplay servers, roleplay in sa-mp is as close as you can get to reallife, that being said if you find a good roleplay server, there are alot of servers floating around, offering nothing but deathmatch and actual GTA gameplay in the name of roleplay.

GTA 4 doesn't really have a good and active multiplayer mod like GTA:SA, this community has active players more than most steam top10 games, GTA 5 on the other hand doesn't really offer much in terms of different gamemodes, it's basically a bunch of minigames with friends, and also the maturity of that community is so low you can't find a decent person before meeting with 10 cheaters or immature kids.

2) As a scripter I really love having tons and tons of tools to work with, alot of people usually say "it's not possible in sa-mp" if they haven't seen that in at least 50 servers, but I like the challenge of trying to code something new, and I usually succeed in doing so. Sa-mp is the land of possibilities and the only limitations are the server scripter's imaginations.
3) I don't think it needs repeating, but the variety of choices, the possibilities and last but not least, roleplay servers which keep you interested for hours.

[magnitude]

I read all three of your articles and I must say you make things sound far more interesting than they actually are.

[Freaksken]

Quote:

Originally Posted by wizardfeet I'll include any answers I get before this time tomorrow in the article.

Hope I'm still on time :/. If not, well here's my story anyway.

1) If you're a player, what is it you like about playing San Andreas online? What are your favourite servers and game modes? And why do you play this rather than GTA 4 or 5 or something else?
So in 2009 my friend introduced me to mods in GTA. I had no understanding of pc gaming that much back in those days and just played the games I could get my hands on via lending them with friends. So I searched around for some GTA SA mods and came across SA-MP and MTA. I started playing on some servers with my brother and boy did we play for hours and hours at a time on the same server. I started to think of my own ideas or how I could improve existing ones and I found some tutorial on the Dutch GTA Forums on how to create your very own SA-MP server. So that's when I started coding. I asked a few questions on that forum in the early days (I have to admit about things that were way out of my coding abilities at the time) and got my very own server running on my local network. Very excited I started to improve my skills by reading the wiki and just experience in general. I also registered on this forum (woaw that's 7 years for me already!) around that time. Never really posted anything except for some small (and pretty poor) scripts. Anyway, after all those years my skills have matured enough to the point that I rewrote my whole gamemode.
I have tried GTA 4 online, but I didn't really like it. Got shot once in the head on a DM server and died immediately ... This is also possible to script in SA-MP, but needless to say, the first impressions I got were not that great. I find that I can customize more things in SA-MP.

2) If you're a scripter or server owner/admin, what do you like about it? Why do you stick around?
I don't really know actually why I keep coming back to script. Sometimes I need a break from SA-MP, but after some time (could be 6 months) I get the urge to go back, because the ideas start flowing again. Maybe it's an addication . I never was really active in any forum or internet community up untill SA-MP, maybe I keep returning because of the nostalgia I had playing on awesome servers, or because I feel that I have spent so much time on something that it's hard for me to leave that behind.

3) And for everyone: What do you think makes SA-MP special?
SA-MP brings the single player experience online, which is what I always wanted in a GTA game. I have stuck around because I was satisfied with how SA-MP delivers it. I know there are other games that give a similare experience, but it just so happend that SA-MP was the perfect fit for me. Other than that I think it is awesome that you can create nearly anything with the default San Andreas models (maps, scripts, gamemodes, ...). You are only limited by your imagination or creativity.

EDIT:
When you've written the article, would you mind linking it in this thread, so we get notified and can have a read?

[wizardfeet]

Sorry everyone for not replying sooner — I actually started writing a thank you note the day after this but got distracted and forgot to come back.

So thanks to all the people who answered my questions. I believe the article will be up soon. I don't know when, as I'm just a freelancer for the site, but I'll post a link in this thread as soon as I know it's online.

[HeLiOn_PrImE]

Please paste the article here if they refuse to publish it.