[Janichar35]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kalen Yeah, the game is a legend. I played sa:mp for a long. I met friends and communities. I had fun. But that's gone, unfortunately. All friends of mine I gradually lose contact with don't play it anymore, that's probably why I don't find sa:mp fun anymore. We all gotta face the truth though. There's nothing to update besides tiny fixes. This is why servers cannot update their gamemodes and release new features. All of it's just getting old. And I'm not one of those bubbling everywhere that GTA:V and some ragemp is the future. The second is most likely not and not going to be. At least I played it once and it wasn't as fun as I expected it to be. sa:mp has its own atmosphere, which doesn't exist in gta:v multiplayers.

Yeah bruh u are right, I played GTA V: Online , I played GTA IV: Online but none of these games gave me same fun and atmosphere that SAMP did despite they had higher graphics and they were new generation games. I met with a lot of people from SAMP, however none of my friends continue to play it aswell if u ask me I don't also play SAMP much nowadays but I am keeping it on my desktop and I mostly do modellings&mappings for SAMP rather than playing the game.


Yeah gamemodes and such are pretty same but trust me, there are still good things to be added for SAMP. I just wish Kalcor bringt those qualities to SAMP before officially leaving. These features are , custom animations, custom weapons, custom cars, animated objects, peds walking around streets and such, there can be still more features for SAMP but what we can say

.

[SwisherSweet]

Patience.

[jackisthe1]

SAMP is still an awesome mod. Alright its old... like a grandma. But GTA San Andreas and SAMP is the perfect combination of simplicity, realism and fun. Im still glad that I dont fall through the windshield hitting a tree with full speed. I tried GTA V Multiplayer also... its cool. But it isnt the same.

The people love roleplay servers, I used to, too... for a really long time. My first years I played on a roleplay-called server, which was more likely to be a cops and robbers server with some jobs and realism, but just some.
My second adventure went through a heavy roleplay server, which was fun acting a character and having actions with IC communication and stuff.

There are so many heavy rp servers around here. I'd like to have more action playing samp. Some deathmatch, some roleplay, some (economic) realism, some copchase, some ganglife...

Yeah so I began scripting a script for a 13 years old game, which is mostly declared as dead, bringing my ideas in. But you know what? I really love the work. Its a lot of work but if its fun, it is worth it. To many people seek a ready to play gamemode which is mostly the copy of 1000s of servers in the last 10 years, just to have a server running. I continue putting efford to SAMP because its the best Multiplayer modification and its worth playing / scripting.

So, are there any motivated people keeping SAMP alive out there?

Please excuse me, my English might not be the best right now but around here its 1:30am and Im sitting at night shift zzz

Cheers friends!

[IllidanS4]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jackisthe1 So, are there any motivated people keeping SAMP alive out there?

Of course there are! Most server owners still care for their communities and are doing quite a nice job at keeping players entertained. I too still have the motivation to develop my own sandbox gamemode for almost ten years.


Things are also turning for the better when it comes to Pawn. Now that async dialogs and queries are possible, there can't be a better time to start developing than now.

[IAmNick]

Could you release the SA-MP source code if it's done then?

[Kalcor]

Well, let me tell you a story. Draw your own conclusions.


In 2003, after a week on MTA's IRC channel, I was invited to join MTA:VC development. After a few months, I was promoted to MTA's lead developer.


Here's a screenshot of me and Si|ent trying to get boat sync working in MTA:VC dated 31/12/2003.




I was one of a few developers working on MTA:Blue, a new version of MTA for Vice City. Basically everyone but me was busy with real life. I developed the player context switching sync system, and added the RakNet library. The same systems which are used by SA-MP and MTA:SA today.


So I get frustrated in this environment. Weeks go by and I'm the only person contributing code, but there are MTA "developers" on the forum talking about how everything was going to work.


I quit MTA development. While I'm gone, another guy "eAi" joins the project and starts poking around in my code trying to figure it out. At least someone was doing something? His method is to start reaching out to people. So he is contacting me on ICQ. He is finding R* developer's emails and contacting them.


I had no interest in GTA multiplayer at this point. I had a band, and was contributing to ipodlinux etc. But eAi seemed keen to make something happen with MTA:Blue. I rejoined the project for a few months.


This was the public promo page for MTA:Blue in late 2004: https://web.archive.org/web/20050307....mtablue.info/


This is what lead to rift between me and the other MTA devs: I wanted to do a server-side system like you see with VC-MP's ini and SA-MP's server-side pawn scripting. The MTA devs wanted client-side addons, as described on that page.


By early 2005, I've quit MTA again. This is the period where R* North have released GTA:SA on the ps2 and are working on the PC version. eAi has been in contact with R*'s technical director and brags to me over ICQ that he obtained many of the source code headers for GTA:SA. I note that it looks like MTA are going to abandon MTA:Blue for Vice City and switch over to GTA:SA.


So lacking faith in MTA's design and ability to deliver, I start my own multiplayer mid-2005. I release VC-MP based on player context switching and RakNet.


Then I developed SA-MP with jax, spookie and a few others. It became much bigger than any previous mod. We're loosely affliated with GTANet/GTAForums which is the largest unofficial GTA fan site. So we're getting a lot of exposure.


By 2008, SA-MP has 10-20 times the number of players as MTA. MTA doesn't feel like they can compete in this environment, so they release their source. MTA never asked me or any other previous developer whether they could open source their code. They claimed everything had been rewritten. But that wasn't competely true. There are still parts of my code in MTA:SA to this day. I haven't bothered to attack them because they seem so nub, but I'm guessing most here demanding SA-MP open source are inspired by MTA when they probably shouldn't be.


Now here's the fucked up thing that happens. The "game" layer I designed for MTA, and source code that R* gave them, get imported in to mod_so-beit, a popular hack tool for SA-MP.


Do you know what that means? THE LARGEST USE OF THE SOURCE CODE R* GAVE TO MTA WAS TO HACK SA-MP!


What started out as a small group of developers on MTA, who were fairly professional, became extremely dirty over time. The people wanting to take down SA-MP are not concerned about breaking the law in order to do so!


It seems just as likely that any source code given out would be used to attack SA-MP, as it would to provide useful updates.


The decision to release SA-MP's source code comes down to whether we're still in this hostile environment where people are attacking me and wanting to attack SA-MP, or whether we've moved beyond it. I would say it comes down to the size of the mod and the demand for hacking tools. Being closed source has allowed me to shuffle all the internal structures and obsolete many of the hacking tools with each release. Many of the "security" updates for SA-MP have just been me shuffling around data to throw off hacking tools.


SA-MP will eventually reach a point where everyone is nice and respectful and hacks and cheating are rare. But the number of players will be very small, so most of us won't be here.

[Romzes24]

Kalcor,


Why don't you want to improve the code and make it so that there are fewer cheats? Many, including me, still have their own servers in SA-MP where many players play, we want the game to be fair and want new updates.

[OstGot]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kalcor SA-MP will eventually reach a point where everyone is nice and respectful and hacks and cheating are rare. But the number of players will be very small, so most of us won't be here.

And yet many of us think this could be achieved by your updates and not by withering of SA-MP with the passage of time. I personally developing serverside anticheat and know a lot of things that could be implemented in client & server by default preventing many today's hack tools and other shit. But updating samp just shuffling around data is obviously not enough, so that's why people still annoy you with similar requests and questions.

[Locky_]

could have an updater on the client that every new version was notified to the client and already download the version. Also when connecting to a server, even before opening GTA, a warning appears if it is different versions.
I think version 0.3.dl would be a big hit if it was a finalized version. with all features working well. unfortunately it is a version that only adds skins and objects, which in turn are amazing features.
but it should be beyond. I know these SA-MP features added for years and so there is experience by kye. but vehicles, weapons, among other suggestions already given, would make the version even more amazing.

[Kalcor]

Quote:

Originally Posted by d3Pedro Instead of releasing and opening source could you not get a few more people to be involved in the development so perhaps they can continue further even if you retire?

You need GTA:SA modding experience to work on samp. That's a rare thing in 2019.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gforcez I know a lot of people are asking this, but I don't think we ever got an "official" answer. What's going to happen with the DL branch of SA:MP? Are there any plans to include that functionality in the main line of SA:MP versions or is it going to be a seperate thing for the time being? I would love to see the security update(s) that could become 0.3.9 be mixed with the DL version of SA:MP.

I don't think there's enough interest in modeling to push DL out as the main branch. There have been no updates to the blender scripts, no tools developed.

[Romzes24]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kalcor I don't think there's enough interest in modeling to push DL out as the main branch. There have been no updates to the blender scripts, no tools developed.

There is interest, it even exists in many large servers. Sometimes there is not enough elementary opportunity to add a missing skin for a character or a sprite for textdraw.

[Gforcez]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kalcor I don't think there's enough interest in modeling to push DL out as the main branch. There have been no updates to the blender scripts, no tools developed.

Could it be that the interest is lacking because it's not an official SA:MP version? Most people hold out to upgrade to a 'in development' version (the SA:MP DL version is still 'advertised' as an in development version). There's already a lot of cool things that are done with the DL version. There might not be too much development in term of tools or blender scripts, but I'm sure that if the DL features hit the main branch, that a lot more servers and developers will embrace it and do even cooler stuff with the features.

[4D1L]

A security update for 0.3.DL to deter cheaters would be epic too. The cluster of English servers have not been able to fully hide from cheats. We often find other communities attacking each other which is pretty sad.

I think there is interest in modeling amongst serious servers, but, not every server owner/developer knows how to 3d model which is why most modelling work gets given to people who have already mastered the tools out there who, in almost all cases, provide very good work. The now extinct Biohazard Roleplay project is an example of the above.

[IllidanS4]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kalcor 0.3.7 server owners report in if you see this. Are you happy with a 0.3.7 update (0.3.9) which just updates packet IDs and memory addresses?

0.3.7 sandbox server owner reporting in. Since cheating tools are not prohibited on my server, and I quite heavily rely on the usage of YSF, this kind of an update would just require me to do a lot of work with no gained advantage. Perhaps I would even stay at 0.3.7 if that amount of work were too big.

I would welcome an update if at least something got added. These things are currently what I request:

• Make "lights" in SetVehicleParamsEx work like "engine". 1 - permanently turned on, 0 - permanently turned off, -1 - depending on the environment (night, tunnels). Without having to use ManualVehicleEngineAndLights at all.
• Increasing the object count to 2000 like it is in DL. Custom models or not, mapping is still popular and 1000 is too little. Since the code is already in DL, shouldn't be such an issue.
• Make UsePlayerPedAnims per-player and changeable for anyone in the middle of the game.
• DisableRemoteVehicleCollisions on a per-vehicle basis, and working on unoccupied vehicles as well. DisableObjectCollision would also come in handy.
• An ability to revert the effect of a particular RemoveBuildingForPlayer (or all of them), and increasing the amount of these calls from 1000 (and without crashing the client). If the client reconnects, there should be a way of reverting these automatically, since when 501 buildings are removed and the client reconnects once, their game crashes.
• "materialindex" in SetObjectMaterial and SetObjectMaterialText increased from 15, as there are objects with more than 16 material surfaces.
  

Believe it or not, I would have a use for all of these, regardless of potential desyncs. Then and only then would be the work I will need to do updating YSF justified.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kalcor You need GTA:SA modding experience to work on samp. That's a rare thing in 2019.

Only on the client. I believe there are other experts like you that perhaps could be found, and people can learn how these things work. Memory addresses, opcodes, and stuff, many people have experimented with those.

The server is a completely different thing. I have even argued that only open-sourcing the server would be nice, as there are some security issues, long-living bugs, and missing natives and features, that can be implemented without touching the client (that's why YSF is here in the first place).

There are still many competent and dedicated programmers left here. I have even contributed to SA-MP once if you remember (0.3d skins).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kalcor I don't think there's enough interest in modeling to push DL out as the main branch. There have been no updates to the blender scripts, no tools developed.

I have seen enough interest in modeling before the introduction of DL and even after it. People were importing maps, creating fully featured skins; I have even seen a semi-working horse script. The lack of interest has been created not because people simply don't want these features, but by fracturing the community this way.

Speaking as the owner of a sandbox server, I would accept any player with 0.3.7 or 0.3.DL at the same time, and since I use virtual worlds, I can make DL-only virtual worlds for those players. Such a feature is not something you choose to have or not to have, it's a feature you should be able to use if the player accepts it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kalcor Now here's the fucked up thing that happens. The "game" layer I designed for MTA, and source code that R* gave them, get imported in to mod_so-beit, a popular hack tool for SA-MP. Do you know what that means? THE LARGEST USE OF THE SOURCE CODE R* GAVE TO MTA WAS TO HACK SA-MP! What started out as a small group of developers on MTA, who were fairly professional, became extremely dirty over time. The people wanting to take down SA-MP are not concerned about breaking the law in order to do so!

Given enough time, people would reverse-engineer this stuff anyway. Perhaps it would take them more time, but here in 2019 I don't think anything would be too different if this hadn't happened. I am not denying them taking part in this, but that is a thing of the past.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kalcor It seems just as likely that any source code given out would be used to attack SA-MP, as it would to provide useful updates. The decision to release SA-MP's source code comes down to whether we're still in this hostile environment where people are attacking me and wanting to attack SA-MP, or whether we've moved beyond it. I would say it comes down to the size of the mod and the demand for hacking tools. Being closed source has allowed me to shuffle all the internal structures and obsolete many of the hacking tools with each release. Many of the "security" updates for SA-MP have just been me shuffling around data to throw off hacking tools.

I am sorry for partially contributing to the "hate" that had transpired, but I think myself and many other people have done things out of desperation seeing that SA-MP is not updated. Are we still in this environment? No, I don't think we are, just evident from the posts in this thread. Some people plead for updates, some understand you and your right to lose passion for development; of course there is the fair share of trolls, but comparing this to many occasions in the past, this is an honest discussion me and many other people wanted, driven by reason and not by emotions.

Recompiling the code just to change memory addresses does prevent cheats for a while, but you are a single person, while the hackers are many. Now there are server-side and even client-side anticheats, and even limited open-sourcing (or better API than the AMX plugin API) would be helpful to the developers of those and not much to the hackers (as they have already reversed engineered it all).

[niCe]

Releasing 0.3.7 as 0.3.9 with changed addresses has no point in my opinion. Current hacks will become obsolete, but it's matter of week until new hacks appear. Currently, server-side anticheats can detect reliably 95% of all hacks, the only issues are with "client-side" hacks such as aimbots, wall hacks, locate hacks, but those will always be difficult or impossible to detect.

If however 0.3.DL was released as an official release 0.3.9 with changed addresses, then I would definitely switch to 0.3.9, because the DL feature can hook a lot of players and servers to SA-MP. Unless there are some security issues with the DL version, then I assume there is no reason to not use it.

The only downside I noticed with 0.3.DL is that the most server owners do not use HTTP downloads, making the downloading extremely slow, which could annoy some players. If it is easy to implement, I would add filtering to SA-MP client "No Downloads" (for example under "No Password"), in case some players would like to find servers without downloadable models for some reason.

[Kalcor]

The lack of source code doesn't stop people updating. The entire mod is based on that principle.

Quote:

Originally Posted by IllidanS4 Given enough time, people would reverse-engineer this stuff anyway. Perhaps it would take them more time, but here in 2019 I don't think anything would be too different if this hadn't happened.

You didn't see all the time that was spent fending off attacks. All of the source leaks were designed to hurt this mod.

[LocMax]

Honestly, DL version hasn't gotten much attention simply because people are afraid of losing their playerbase considering how 'troublesome' it is for some to find out about a new update, then to install it and so on. I've had servers since 2014 and every version update would result in a big playerbase drop until people gradually figured out there's a new version, and surprisingly a big chunk of people has issues making a simple installation on their computer either due to lack of basic computer knowledge or struggling understanding English.

Because DL version isn't official and the downloads are not really "easily visible" on SAMP website, a lot of communities, including the popular ones like LS-RP or RC-RP struggled with their player base, TommyB explained his story here. So if it affected such famous communities, the lesser known communities would suffer much harsher consequences of moving to DL.

I would be switching to DL version without doubts, but the only thing pulling me back is that DL isn't recognized well throughout SA-MP as it's not an official version and there should be more attention brought to it on the main website so people can have easier time finding it for download.

There features DL version brought are doubtlessly amazing and literally game changing, the downside however is that it's not recognized well enough, and communities do not want to gamble with their playerbase as it's already not easy enough to grow a big playerbase.

[zowzow]

You don't start it from 2019 but you will start it from 2020

[IllidanS4]

Quote:

Originally Posted by niCe If however 0.3.DL was released as an official release 0.3.9 with changed addresses, then I would definitely switch to 0.3.9, because the DL feature can hook a lot of players and servers to SA-MP. Unless there are some security issues with DL version, then I assume there is no reason to not use it.

I 100 % agree. Maybe the "No Downloads" option in the client should be provided to the server without hiding the server in the listing, because as I said, I can accept players who don't want custom models, and I would be worried that if I used custom models, players could filter out my server, even if custom models aren't actually required to play on it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kalcor You didn't see all the time that was spent fending off attacks. All of the source leaks were designed to hurt this mod.

Sorry but this is too strong to assert. I used them to understand the code better, to help add new functions and features that aren't normally possible in SA-MP. Things like SetPlayerGravity, HideObjectForPlayer, TogglePlayerWidescreen, all these things were made possible by inspection of the existing code to understand what different memory addresses mean, which functions there are etc.


I believe people with malicious intent will be fueled by it to overcome the obstacles that are set more than people who just want to help. Without the (very old but still helpful) leak, it would take me considerably more time to reverse-engineer the server to understand what needs to be modified, perhaps to the point of me giving up, especially since there is no money in it for me, just the desire to help the community. This cannot be said for hackers, who usually work for money or for fame.


I think this proves my point - people who want to help could be deterred by these obstacles, while people dedicated to causing harm will find their way anyway. So nope, not all leaked code was and could be used by wrong-doers. I know that first-hand.


Perhaps sometimes risks should be taken if it's for the greater good. Take MEGA, torrent, proxies, Tor, and other services for example. Can they be used to cause harm or bring "evil"? Of course, but they are also immensely helpful for bringing security and anonymity to people in oppressed countries, to people who have no other choice. And that's what matters.


I am optimistic and maybe I am naïve, but if (not necessarily total) open-sourcing SA-MP will help it being updated, then I am in it. Because as is my answer to the title of this thread, yes, it is worth it.

[Kalcor]

Quote:

Originally Posted by niCe Releasing 0.3.7 as 0.3.9 with changed addresses has no point in my opinion. Current hacks will become obsolete, but it's matter of week until new hacks appear. Currently, server-side anticheats can detect reliably 95% of all hacks

I tend to think it would help for a while. It would get the mod through the holiday period, at least.