[IllidanS4]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kalcor It's up in the air, but it seems like people are excited by the idea of DL, but once they get used to the new content, it doesn't really provide them a reason to stick around.

You said it in one of your first posts in this thread. Players go where other players go. If the server cannot provide singleplayer entertainment, it could be 0.3z or perhaps even another modification and the players will go elsewhere anyway, regardless of model downloading.

Without significant incentive to change version, no server owner would automatically do so. There are many factors at play:

1. It's new.
2. It has useful features.
3. It is heavily promoted.
4. It is expected to be used by others.
5. It is simple to switch to.
6. It has the majority of players.

If 0.3.8 was released, 1.-4. would be all generally true and thus 0.3.8 would be probably accepted and played by the majority of players. 5. may be difficult if some features are obsoleted, or if servers use plugins like YSF/SKY relying on memory addresses or structures, which of course need updating before being usable by the newest version. This is also amplified by the fact that there was no major server version for 2 years before 0.3.8, so these plugins could be developed relying more tightly on the specific server version. 6. is never true for a new version.

Generally, the pros outweight the cons for a new primary version, at least 4:2. Thus more and more servers adopt it, and after a while, 6. is also true. For any past version, upgrading to 0.3.7 would rule 5:1.

But now consider DL. DL started as a development version and still is a development version. Semi-official, alternate version. Two years ago, it was new, had useful features, but wasn't heavily promoted and relied on server owners to spread the word. It was the complete opposite: 2:4 - while it was new and useful, its future was unclear.

Even 0.3.7, while not new and without useful features when compared to DL, is still 4:2, while DL is now at 1:5, not being new anymore.

It's not that players don't want model downloading. It's just math. Had 0.3.8 been released, it would have been adopted as any new SA-MP version.

For comparison, 0.3.9 is currently for me at 3:3 (new, relatively promoted and probably expected to be used, but no significant features, not simple to switch to and of course no players).