23.06.2017, 15:02
So today Im happy to say that im around here for exactly 10 years (registered 23/06/2007).
Quite a long time, I was 16 when I joined, and I think I owe samp a lot. Samp scripting might be the trigger that made me program useful stuff. I already knew several programming languages back then, but just made stuff for myself or some very specific applications, not even barely comparable to releasing scripts to a huge community like this. Im pretty sure that without samp I wouldnt be who and where I am today, so I guess I should say thanks.
Thanks to samp, to kalcor, the developers and the whole team, to the players and fellow scripters. It has been a nice ride so far, and even though Ive not scripted a single pawn line or joined a single server for ages, and Im just barely active here, Im curious where samp is going in the next time.
My samp story in short
I came to samp because it was fun to play on a local server with my brothers, using the lvdm mode. I quickly added some basic commands and stuff to make things easier for us (vehicle spawns, teleports, etc). After a while, I came up with a basic version of the bomber fs, that worked by spawning tons of flowerpot vehicles under planes. Realizing that this wont sync properly, I generated a SQLite DB containing the height of SA, this was an automated process, but took about 20 hours in total to get whole SA (kind of the predecessor of MapAndreas, which followed just a short while after my release). The result was an actually working bomber FS. I really enjoyed combining theoretical concepts and the ingame world, so other stuff followed, like the artillery FS. At that point I was damn active on the forums, but already mostly to help others, not to ask for help myself. I never really liked asking for help, I rather learned all the stuff myself, documentation was more than enough even at that early time.
I also played around with early NPCs, using the CNPC plugin, but this was outdated soon, because it relied on memory hacking.
After a while I wanted to take stuff to the next level, created my own hit detection, long before people even thought of something like OnPlayerGiveDamage (codenamed MFEX, Ill release the code once ive cleaned it up) and reverse-engineered the .REC format for Samps NPCs to create the RNPC plugin. This was my most technical phase in samp, and I guess I learned a lot during that time.
During the years I also worked on several gamemode ideas, the biggest ones being SutD and Van Andreas, but Ive got no idea if Ill ever finish them, they were more about the fun creating them, not about the fun running them on a finished server.
In the last 2 or 3 years I barely scripted a thing, had too many other things to care about. Still checking the forums every now and then. Maybe if i run low on work and feel bored Ill start again with scripting stuff, or maybe I wont. Only time will tell
Bonus
As a special gift I thought it would be funny to browse through my old scripts, and create a small collection of stuff that is cool in some way, but never made it to the release. Not all of them are still working, some require includes that I cant release with them, some are outdated, and some are just shit, but its a nice little view on my early days with samp.
Every script comes with a little header explaining what it does and when I wrote it, the rest is untouched, so dont blame today's me for that mess
http://www.mauzen.org/samp/oldstuff/
Feel free to use them however you like, maybe drop me a message if you somehow set them up on a server, I havent seen them in action for years
Quite a long time, I was 16 when I joined, and I think I owe samp a lot. Samp scripting might be the trigger that made me program useful stuff. I already knew several programming languages back then, but just made stuff for myself or some very specific applications, not even barely comparable to releasing scripts to a huge community like this. Im pretty sure that without samp I wouldnt be who and where I am today, so I guess I should say thanks.
Thanks to samp, to kalcor, the developers and the whole team, to the players and fellow scripters. It has been a nice ride so far, and even though Ive not scripted a single pawn line or joined a single server for ages, and Im just barely active here, Im curious where samp is going in the next time.
My samp story in short
I came to samp because it was fun to play on a local server with my brothers, using the lvdm mode. I quickly added some basic commands and stuff to make things easier for us (vehicle spawns, teleports, etc). After a while, I came up with a basic version of the bomber fs, that worked by spawning tons of flowerpot vehicles under planes. Realizing that this wont sync properly, I generated a SQLite DB containing the height of SA, this was an automated process, but took about 20 hours in total to get whole SA (kind of the predecessor of MapAndreas, which followed just a short while after my release). The result was an actually working bomber FS. I really enjoyed combining theoretical concepts and the ingame world, so other stuff followed, like the artillery FS. At that point I was damn active on the forums, but already mostly to help others, not to ask for help myself. I never really liked asking for help, I rather learned all the stuff myself, documentation was more than enough even at that early time.
I also played around with early NPCs, using the CNPC plugin, but this was outdated soon, because it relied on memory hacking.
After a while I wanted to take stuff to the next level, created my own hit detection, long before people even thought of something like OnPlayerGiveDamage (codenamed MFEX, Ill release the code once ive cleaned it up) and reverse-engineered the .REC format for Samps NPCs to create the RNPC plugin. This was my most technical phase in samp, and I guess I learned a lot during that time.
During the years I also worked on several gamemode ideas, the biggest ones being SutD and Van Andreas, but Ive got no idea if Ill ever finish them, they were more about the fun creating them, not about the fun running them on a finished server.
In the last 2 or 3 years I barely scripted a thing, had too many other things to care about. Still checking the forums every now and then. Maybe if i run low on work and feel bored Ill start again with scripting stuff, or maybe I wont. Only time will tell
Bonus
As a special gift I thought it would be funny to browse through my old scripts, and create a small collection of stuff that is cool in some way, but never made it to the release. Not all of them are still working, some require includes that I cant release with them, some are outdated, and some are just shit, but its a nice little view on my early days with samp.
Every script comes with a little header explaining what it does and when I wrote it, the rest is untouched, so dont blame today's me for that mess
http://www.mauzen.org/samp/oldstuff/
Feel free to use them however you like, maybe drop me a message if you somehow set them up on a server, I havent seen them in action for years