Causeless

Wouldn't an ASI loader change the layout of GTA SAs memory, or at least offset it? I'm not too knowledgeable about how MTA works on a low down level (or, indeed memory hacking and code injection in general), but it seems to me that alongside the obvious cheating potential that it could require the developers to start trying to add extra support for each loader, which could require a significant reworking of a large amount of the code base.

This is a multiplayer mod, not a physics or procedural animation mod

Err... Sorry, but am I the only one who thinks this is a terrible idea? Firstly, it'll take ages to achieve anything. Remember how well Fable 3's pause menu worked...? And not only would it need a giant host, I think a better question is: who will host it, and why? It costs money, and what happens when the host dies? We'd be locked out of playing MTA. Same if a server is on an older version of MTA, then if we downgraded to join the old one then we'd be locked out the bloody menu screen, And for what - so we can do the exact same things we can already do, without manually joining a server? It's not worth it, and it just makes it take longer to get to the server you want to. Instead of a nice GUI instantly, you need to wait for the game to load up and join to some random server for no point. On top of this, who decide the rules of the lobby? Who decides what you can and cannot do in the lobby, which 1. Holds thousands of players who by default join automatically, and 2. Is needed to join any other server? These problems are not easy. Why should one server be able to forge the rules that determine whether or not you can play MTA whatsoever? You've unknowingly implemented a global ban list. And yes, this would need a massively powerful host. Sure, you can make some players appear invisible to others, but you still need to download information from each player. That suggestion makes things easier for the clients, more than the server itself. And even if it could help, how do you choose who is, and isn't hidden? You'd need a vastly powerful computer in your host that would perform this algorithm that needs to: . Remember who is and isn't invisible to every player . Somehow manage a system for player driven cars, so that if somebody invisible to you steals a car the car doesn't disappear. . Make sure that weapons, explosives, etc don't effect any other "universes" than the one the player is in . Always ensure friends of each player are in the same universe, meaning the server itself needs to know who has what friends . Ensure no collision detection between invisible and visible players/cars etc That may help a teeny tiny bit on what the server needs to upload to players, but you'd need to upgrade the machines specs so much it wouldn't be worth it, or have 20 thousand servers instead and somehow dynamically connect and disconnect players from one and another when they add new friends etc.

Sorry if I sound dumb, but what exactly is Eir? I understand that it's a fork of the MTA code, but what are the plans and goals for it? Is it intended as an eventual MTA 1.4 that will replace the current codebase? Is it intended for large map-replacing mods?? Will MTA Blue and the Eir fork eventually be merged, or is it a large leap changing a lot in the way the release of Blue did and intended as separate? Does Eir just change the multiplayer aspect, or does it start hacking away somehow at single player R* ways of doing things to allow for a more stable, powerful and expandable game? Also, sorry about my flood of questions, but I must ask one more: What exactly does "Eir" mean? Despite my ignorance as to the plans and meaning of Eir, I'm very excited by what I think it does, regardless Edit: Oh wow, I watched the above video and my mind was blown from beginning to end. Then I saw that the default SA map was below it, and I was amazed. It helped a little in understanding, though my above questions are still valid (and seeing the video raises a few more). It's clear that you are definitely changing things on both the singleplayer side and multiplayer, and this is incredibly exciting as it looks as if it may push past the limits of the old SA engine and have the best of both worlds, from Vice Cities extendability and SA's improved features. Does this mean it's now possible to sync water heights? Also, I note you mentioned you replaced some of the default SA models - is it possible to now just go over and ahead of the SA limits are are we still currently ground in the reality of the hard brick wall once we want more objects or models loaded in? Also, is it possible to remove the old SA map completely? I very much agree with statements made in the video. The thinking that modifying others people code is bad, is a dangerous taboo that should be stopped. At this point in the development of MTA, there's no way people can just endlessly pile more code on top in a mess of edge cases and ugly messyness. At some point you need to rip out all the duplicated, buggy or limiting code and replace it with a better solution when you have the time to do what others needed to compromise on when getting earlier features working. Either way, I'm very very excited about what full map conversion could mean for MTA!

Because it's a far worse, incredibly limited and redundant solution...? Anyway, default MTA should leave that to the server mods, not have bloat like that in by default.

*shiver* I hate mass banning. Banning should be in the hands of server owners, nobody else IMO.