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DO NOT ASK TO BETA TEST. I've had loads of PMs since I wrote this asking to beta test. Please read the forum rules. Our alpha testing stage is still very much feature development. As such, MTA:DM is not feature complete. We won't and never will release a buggy half complete version (intentionally, anyway!). We intend to make the beta testing more open - you've got a good chance that you'll be able to test it then. Currently we're building what we call internally a11 (alpha 11). Each alpha we release to our QA team has about 5 new features in it and of course a number of fixes. We tend to take about 2 - 3 weeks between each alpha. We've got a few more alphas to go before we'll be 'feature complete', one of the last of which contains the development of the MTA:DM map editor. Over the course of the MTA:DM development, we've actually changed the map format quite a few times. This has annoyed our QA team, because it breaks all existing maps, but imagine the impact this would have if we did this to our public community - tens of thousands of players rather than 20 or so. Currently the QA team has reached a point where they cannot really create new maps as the race map format (they were using the race editor for dm maps) is so different to the DM one. As such, we consider that getting the map editor done is vital for any release. We've thought about doing a release before the editor is ready - but as you will have seen from 'race', the editor has added a lot of value to the game-play, and so much of MTA:DM ties into maps. We are as frustrated as you by how long DM is taking. We'd love to release it tomorrow, but that just isn't possible. We'll be releasing some more information soon - probably when we start work on the editor. Of course anything I've discussed here can change - we frequently move things around in the road-map for our release. I know we've said this before - but once we release DM, we're going to think carefully about how we can produce more frequent releases. We'd love to release fortnightly or monthly with a few incremental features. This is why its vital we get our 'base' for DM right - we can't start doing incremental releases every two weeks that break all existing maps because we didn't plan the map format properly now. We won't be releasing a public alpha - just hang with us, we're doing the best we can. Watch the blog for some exciting new features in the next month or so. Ed

Looks good fun!

Our current anti-cheat cannot really prevent such hacks, sadly. We'll be improving it for DM and future releases of the race mod.

We've spent a long time thinking about and discussing this issue (its been brought up time and time again - use the search button). Theres no real point us investing time in something just because "many people don't understand how to do it". They certainly will learn how. Any ban system has to be rhobust. The thing we've come to every time we discuss this is that charging or otherwise attaching value to an account is the only reliable way to ban users. We could attach value in some other way, but often that value isn't really worth anything to cheaters. We cannot really charge for accounts ourselves, but I'm sure server admins could charge for accounts on their servers if they wish - this would probably improve people's games but would somewhat reduce the player count. Anyway, if anyone has any magic ideas, feel free to tell us!

We are not making MTA:Rape. Even R* wouldn't stoop that low.

Oh, it is. Online kissing is our #1 priority for our first release. We've spent the last 3 months working exclusively on that.

I haven't tried it, but I highly doubt it'll crash. I imagine both will just derail or stop.

Nah, I think we'll just sit on our hands for a few months then delete all the code and start again. Thanks for the suggestion though!

I played the Guild Wars beta, and we've discussed similar solutions as a team. We won't support such systems in the first release, but its certainly something we'd like to experiment with in the future.

We haven't finalized features yet. Its likely we'll include some sort of car modification. Watch the blog for more information.

Looks really cool! We'll be increasing the object limit in DM, should help with maps like this

Well, theres a good reason not to swear - you're wrong. Maps are never downloaded from game servers. You can download them from http://center.mtasa.com of course...

A vote wouldn't work. The point of a cinematic is to show how to play the map (for example). If the majority of players know the map (which is likely) and a new person joins (who would find the cinematic useful), they'll be annoyed when the majority (who know the map) cancel the cinematic...

Try another server.

Is that really a bad thing? It protects your map, if you wish and doesn't make people download new maps all the time...

They are entirely different, but there are a few glitches that could let you off your bike. Equally, its possible that there may be weapons left lying around because they're in the normal GTA map. It will not be perfectly synced. It'll look smooth as hell, but people will be in entirely the wrong place, they'll just move around smoothly. Anyway, all it is is a glitch - feel free to enjoy it if you want, just remember it isn't what it seems.

Well, actually we do really - but its still a time consuming process.

Um? What? We'll try to look at implementing unicode support and enabling the other characters sometime.

Yes, you can. We haven't finalized how thats defined in maps yet though. You'll be able to have whatever combination of carriages you wish.

Thats brilliant. A better quality version would be even better though Don't mind the music - seems to fit it to be honest.

We used to have a progress bar but we dropped it during the development of 0.5. Although it gave people something to talk about, its accuracy was so limited that it was meaningless. Reading the blog is the best way to get an idea of how we're doing.

The time DM takes frustrates us as much as it does our community, but the fact of life is that doing things takes time, and doing things well takes longer. We hope we're doing things well!

LCS for PC hasn't been announced, and I personally doubt we'll see it... We'll see. They might do a "bulk port" at some point and bundle all three 'stories' (assuming they do SAS) into a package (GTAS?). We'd consider doing a MTA version for them, but we've really got our work cut out with GTA:SA at the moment. Of course someone clever might port LCS to PC themselves, getting it to run on GTA:SA...

You like your locks don't you? For anyone else reading this with the same problem - its a script running on a server, something entirely out of the MTA Team's control. If you have similar issues, contact the admin for the server.

If you're getting accused of cheating, reinstall GTA:SA from scratch, then reinstall MTA:SA.