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* squints myopically at the screen * * adjusts the spectacles * * pokes the screen with his cane * 20 years? Has it really been 20 years? Holy crap... This thing is older than my son! I don't even know who might recall me from those high rolling days of MTA, but back then, I was [VCA] Loendal... I suppose I still am, in a way. I've also been [RTB]RAW and eventually [NoV]Pops before dropping out of the scene. Perhaps one of those might ring a bell? No? Shotgun, Tec9 and a hockey mask? Heh, those were the days! Happy Birthday to MTA; I haven't played for years at this point, but it's amazing to see this project is still around and kicking. It says up there that there are currently 19,000 people playing.. Those are numbers even long running MMO's can't hold a candle to. Congratulations, and a toast to your continued success! I also offer this as both a proof of who I am, and also a glimpse into the world of MTA back in the beginning... I think this was MTA .3 or something like that.. Yes, the music may be crap to most ears, but it was 16 years ago, dammit! ;)

Hello there, Today I am presentin you with my latest Old School map named "Fontaine." The unique atmosphere and storyline of this region has inspired me from the GI. I had initially promised to create a "Griddle of the Sands" map which is the second desert area in Sumeru, but Fontaine's vibes and atmosphere were too tempting for me to resist. Therefore, I decided to create it first before focusing on other regions such as "Griddle of the Sands", "Mondstadt", "Liyue", and "Dragonspine." Fontaine is the home nation of the Hydro Vision, and where justice reigns supreme. The punishing machine named "Oratrice" here hold zero tolerance for error. There is no mercy for those who defy the rules or do wrong in this region. Also, people have transformed their large opera house "Opera Epiclese" into a court, so that performances and trials can occur simultaneously. It's common to see those who are being punished act like they are part of a play. The crowds are free to watch like they're watching a show, just as they would watch a performance they paid for. It seems that the justice system here is one of entertainment rather than fairness. Enjoy the video! The map contains some mechanisms from the game; Water Bridges This structure you see is a kind of creation developed by Fontaine engineers that allows boats to pass over it. In this map, you'll get to experience this structure first-hand and witness its capabilities. The Diving The waters here are nothing to fear. In this map, you are free to dive into the depths and explore the wonderful underwater world. Keep your course and enjoy the refreshing atmosphere of the waters. During your journey, you will enter and exit the waters multiple times. So get used to it already. But that doesn't mean you can stay underwater for long periods of time hehe) Floating Hydro Cubes The Fontaine Research Institute of Kinetic Energy Engineering, often shortened to Fontaine Research Institute, is an organization in Fontaine. During your journey, you'll have to achieve this weird scenery. The pressure inside is quite density so you'll feel it yourself when you get in. Underwater life The underwater life here has covered the area with diverse and vibrant species and forms of life, including mosses-covered structures, underwater grasses, and a plethora of aquatic animals. Natlan? You may notice the volcanic build in the end of the map; which references the next map will be about Natlan but I am not following any kind of time period so, I may bring different maps before this region like as, Desert of Hadramaveth as I was promised in my previous map "Mausoleum of King Deshret" But I've added it in the end of the map because it will be the next upcoming region after the Fontaine in GI. Natlan is one of the seven regions of Teyvat and is renowned for its worship of Murata, the Pyro Archon and the Archon of War. The region is slated to be released in Version 5.0 and will bring with it an array of vibrant volcanic events, although we haven't seen much of it as of yet since it has not been released yet and remains a mystery. However, when that day finally arrives, we can be certain that exploration in such a unique region will bear unique rewards. And I'll make sure to create a new Old School map based on this region, which will serve as a continuation of my 'GI-Regions' series. The map is synchronized with the music, and scripts as in the Mausoleum of King Deshret, Sumeru and Inazuma from my previous maps. You will feel the harmony if you can play the map without fail. (The screen will shake, atmosphere will change etc.) Credits Video & Edit by VonKasty Detailed credits can be found in the video's description. You may subscribe to Nakvie's YouTube channel as the owner of the Channel) Beta Tester Now, for my upcoming map conversions, I wish to extend my gratitude to Shady & VonKasty for serving as the initial testers. You're both very insightful and have been exceptionally helpful throughout the map-making process. And to all you out there who wish to participate in the beta-testing phase of my upcoming old school projects, feel free to send me a direct message, and I'll be more than just happy to have you onboard as well! Something more to add: FDD Maps Update As for the lovers of FDD, I wish to announce that in the foreseeable future, I'll begin the process of converting my GI-Region-Series maps to the FDD gamemode. This specific series will include aspects of several regions, one such as Fontaine, Sumeru, and Inazuma. From the different point of view, those regions will their own areas as in the GI. For example Inazuma: The Grand Narukami Shrine, Inazuma: The Watatsumi Island, Inazuma: Seirai Island. Fontaine: Poisson, Fontaine: Merusea Village. Sumeru: Port Ormos, Sumeru: Ruins of Dahri, Sumeru: Chatrakham Cave, Sumeru: Vanarana, Sumeru: Mausoleum of King Deshret Now, in regards to my FDD conversions, I've set a condition for myself to only complete the ones that have already been released. In other words, Fontaine, Sumeru & Inazuma are already released, so I'll create FDD maps based around those regions. However, when it comes to regions that have yet to be released, such as Natlan, Liyue, Mondstadt, the likelihood of FDD variants not yet coming into fruition remains high. If everything goes smoothly, Antartica 3 is on the way & Deep N Deeper series will continue too.

* clears the dust off his old forum account * Happy birthday MTA! WOW, 20 years! Lots of memories here. I'm one of the few original contributors from the early days (~2003). I introduced novel techniques for injecting code into GTA (MTA:Blue) through my time experimenting with game hacking (yes, the kind where you see through walls, though as an educational exercise). I "studied" under some of the creators that made counterstrike OGC, namely a guy named PharLap, who was insanely smart. Also, some folks in the #winprog channel on EFNet. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine MTA would bring so much joy to so many. I was initially interested in MTA for selfish reasons: Not too long out of high school, I was drifting away from my friend who would play peer to peer GTA2 with me over dialup. When GTA3 came out, I was severely disappointed: No multiplayer support. I quickly realized keeping up a remote friendship by bonding over games wouldn't be possible. I searched around for "GTA multiplayer" on an early Google. Not much came back, except a couple early mods, one by our friend, IJs. Early MTA used to directly overwrite memory from an entirely outside process. Because of the way that worked, the outside process never had true knowledge of what the game was doing. Gameplay was choppy and crashed quite a bit. However, it was still mostly fun. Working with IJs, Cray, eAi, and others, we started development on a new foundation for the mod based on the premise of injecting code directly into GTA. That foundation was called MTA:Blue. It was actually modeled after some of the naming conventions and structures in Quake (the source was available by this point), except we had additions for hooking various subsystems. I'm sure I have some backup artifacts on old disks somewhere but I'm remote at the moment. I remember the fun problems. There were very hard problems for us to figure out how the game worked, and how internal memory structures worked with zero access to source code (I distinctly remember discussing this often with eAi). It's akin to feeling your way around a room when it's pitch black, using intuition and past knowledge to reason about what likely steps to take to make progress on our goals. Seeing players move around live in game--after contributions from folks like Cray who developed initial "net code" -- were super fun. We also had a prototype for in game voice communication around 2004 or so. Then came the editors, scripting, etc which added fuel to the fire and made MTA truly remarkable. Since MTA was basically GTA itself by this point, I remember needing a GUI. I prototyped CEGUI in, and others piled in to add additional elements. The in-game menu system was born. We added health bars, and all the fancy foundational stuff that made it feel less like a mod and more like just a solid game. Yes cray, I still remember your g4tv interview! Haha. It was cool. EDIT: Speaking of drama, I also remember when Rockstar added DRM to San Andreas that seemed to spell the end of the mod. I remember figuring out a bypass, and the subsequent demo we posted for the forum showing SA was ON. What an exhilarating experience. I remember the drama. A certain developer we had who ran off with our source and open sourced it as their own under a different name (early MTA was not open source). I remember seeing my name in the source files they produced and claimed as their own. Awkward! I'm still amazed that so many people play MTA. While I haven't been actively involved in ages (same as eAi--circa 2007), I actively watch progress and keep tabs. I also idle on discord, so say hi Lots of friends that I know in there. I would love to meet some folks in person at some point in my life over a beer. As others have said, MTA was really a bunch of dorks working remotely at their houses and communicating over IRC. As others have said, working on MTA has definitely impacted my life trajectory. I was hired into a (then) little known cybersecurity company named Rapid7 in 2005 (went public in 2015). I was CTO at another security company, and I currently run https://furl.ai with a bunch of super smart people.