20 Years of the Multi Theft Auto Project

[Megadreams]

Congrats on 20 years MTA! I'm proud to have been part of this community for at least 13 of those years even if it was on a laptop that was only able to run the game at a whopping 7 fps.

Multi Theft Auto has been quite an important part of my life, in part due to the fact that I started playing when I was around 14 years old while I'm now 27 which means that it was there through some of the most defining years of my life. When I grew from being a kid to the adult that I am now. Being a part of this community helped me improve my English (it used to be absolutely horrendous as some who have known me since the UAG days may remember), form tons of amazing friendships and significantly improved my coding skills. While Lua itself isn't necessarily useful in my current job building projects and communities in MTA has taught me plenty of useful coding practices, helped me improved my web development skills due to the need for websites for my communities and forced me to learn how to properly build a server infrastructure. It also helped me become more mature, learning from any mistakes I have made in the past. A little known fact as well is that MTA has in part helped me go through a severe depression I went through around the age of 16-17.

Thank you for helping me grow both as a person and as a coder. I appreciate everyone who contributes positively to this project and look forward to the many years yet to come. You bet I'll be around for all of it.

 

[tinnetju]

Congratulations! MTA was a big part of my childhood (was active from 14-19 years old) and one of the main reasons I'm a software developer now. You guys have made programming so interesting and so much fun for me and many others around the globe. Thank you, and I am curious what the future will bring.

Edited February 9, 2023 by tinnetju

[NoxxeR]

Congrats I got a mail today about this, I was in your and Ransoms clan back then (VCP)Benji and then I moved onto other clans, on partyserver I use the nickname NoxxeR dunno where I got it from but I just chosed that name

20 years ago I was 11 years old, this was the first time I played GTA online with jhxp, madboy, ransom and some other people

I just have one question, why dont you guys renew the MTAVC client? VC-MP exist, so MTAVC should as well!? In which way we've come far in the GTA community.

[NoxxeR]

2 hours ago, HoboPie said:

1v1 stubbies at phil's

winner gets the cake

The stubby shotguns in MTA vice city? I just remember all the wars we had, I was very good at it, robbers spawn. If we two play today, I bet I would win.

Im not that good on mtasa or sa-mp, lol, thats why I rarely play now a days, with all this roleplaying :~. Freeroam is better I believe. And thanks to jhxp for this thread

Edited February 9, 2023 by NoxxeR

[ULK!Nick]

yea but back then most people had 56k, people with 1mb connections were gods

[epoxi]

Thank you for the years of fun.

MTA introduced so many groundbreaking features, it's hard to believe it's been 2 decades.

My favorite was the map designer in GTA:SA (way back when it was a race-only mod). I wouldn't be surprised if Rockstar games used it as direct inspiration for GTA Online.

[Jano_]

Happy birthday!
Those good old memories. Look at the names on the screenshots (I have a lot of old videos)!
I'll be 50 years old this year, but since GTA came out, I've still been playing. FMJ, UVA, Vces clan, etc. (on/with MTA of course)
We also play here in Hungary. Check out my YouTube channel, where I record, edit, and cut all the videos. Let's celebrate!

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GTA Jano channel. Alias [FMJ]Jano, Dopey, Sz@nci

[koragg]

I've spent the last 10 years playing MTA and have only good things to say. I've met very nice people throughout the years and had a lot of fun playing after high school every day, sometimes until 4 AM at night. I used to have Team Viewer on my phone so that I could see what's happening in the game or press some keys when needed to get away from AFK mode on MrGreen racing server in order to earn 100 coins for being online each hour instead of the 50 which AFK players earned 

Back in the summer of 2015 I started developing my own local racing server just for fun (huge thanks to MrGreen for making theirs open source on which I based my own) and slowly but surely got into programming and found it very interesting. Then a year later when the time came to go to university I didn't hesitate one bit to choose Informatics as my specialty. I am now finishing up my master's degree thesis (project already done) and am hopefully graduating (again) this year

Thanks to making my own server I also got to know and understand web development as I used Simple Machines Forums (SMF) to create a, well, "simple" website for my players. I learned how to create MTA web resources which in turn helped me learn JavaScript and how to embed them in my PHP site so that everything looked as seamless as possible. 

I am now working as a web developer since late 2019 (first job was intern for 3 months, second am a junior for an year and a half already).

I still have all of the files for my server and forum so maybe some day I'll get an actual host and put everything online

Thank you to everyone who I've spent a decade of my life with for all the great memories. You can see some of them on my YouTube channel here

Edited February 9, 2023 by koragg

[AlphaYellow]

Congratz to the whole MTA team, past, present and future contributors, players and helpers too! My story with MTA started in early 2011, I was in middle school back then and started to get interested in other GTA:SA mods (I was a mission designer in DYOM mod already), and had been playing San Andreas online for some years through another mod since 2008, and then someone in a forums somewhere (I don't remember where lol) told me about this mod.

I immediately decided to check it out, and was so impressed with the freedom and creativity the mod tools allowed server owners to mess with, having played in a lot of FR and RPG/RP servers. Then in 2013, decided to create my own, a zombie RPG/TDM server, that was midly successful, had a ton of fun with everyone around, and can never forget about great encounters I had with some people who guided me along the way. Definitely a fun ride I'll never be able to forget, thanks MTA for the amazing moments you've provided me.

Edited February 9, 2023 by AlphaYellow

[DiSaMe]

I played MTA SA in 2007 several times but because it was the non-scriptable, Race version, it didn't mean much to me. But things changed in 2008, when Deathmatch version was released. For the next several years, I spent lots of time scripting, because that was what I loved doing the most, and I don't regret it the least bit. I could perhaps have made better decisions regarding various details, but I would still have spent hours upon hours scripting either way.

Joining in 2007-2008 means MTA was already in the middle of action. I miss those days, and I'm not sure how I feel about "then vs now". On one hand, seeing lots of new members makes me happy that MTA is gaining popularity that it deserves. On the other hand, it often seems to me that few people from those days are still around, that things have changed and they will never be the same again. But seeing several people senior to me posting now in this topic contradicts my usual perceptions, which is very comforting . It's great that in addition to new members coming, MTA community still has active members from the old days.

I have some plans to get back into scripting, because there are things I was supposed to make many years ago, but didn't. Well, actually, I did try scripting a while ago, and it was as enjoyable as it had always been. That's when I remembered what I had been missing.

2 hours ago, NoxxeR said:

I just have one question, why dont you guys renew the MTAVC client? VC-MP exist, so MTAVC should as well!? In which way we've come far in the GTA community.

This evokes nostalgia, and I don't think I have even played MTA VC

[Mkl]

Happy birthday MTA !

I'm more than happy to share my little story. I think I've started playing MTA SA Race in 2007. I enjoyed a lot creating and playing Race maps and Destruction Derby maps. I played on several servers (like Betaflied DD if some of you remember). I remember the launch of MTA DM (where we played in loop Hay and Fallout ). Then and because of MTA Race, I kept playing principally Race mode on several servers.

During the last 4 years I tried out to develop my own scripts and it became a real hobby for me, the community forum and the discord server helped me a lot, I also started to enjoy helping others about script and modeling stuff.

I hope this game and his community will stand again for many years.

Edited February 9, 2023 by Mkl

[WuziMu03]

Happy Birthday MTA! 

Edited February 9, 2023 by WuziMu03

[CourtezBoi]

Congrats on 20 years, and thanks to everyone who made the last 20 years possible.

- Daniel Lett

[[KoG]Rouche]

Happy B-Day MTA

[MAD_BOY]

Wow, 20 years, unbelievable.

I remember coming across GTA3AM while lurking on a Dutch forum and having quite the challenge in getting it to work in the first place. Tried it a few times, both GTA3AM and GTA3:MTA 0.2, with a friend even though there wasn't much to it. When I found out about the MTA forum, I decided to join it and whine for the next release as the impatient 12 year old I was. Slowly but surely I started spending more and more time here om the forums and especially on IRC. To my surprise I got invited to the then called 'beta team' for MTA:VC. I enjoyed my time and tried my best to hunt down and report bugs all the way up to the MTA:SA Deathmatch beta's.

However, as much as I enjoyed MTA itself, the most important part for me was the community. I got lots of support that helped me through severe mental health issues. Even though I decided to step back from MTA when I was at my worst, I've always kept popping back in to IRC and later Discord. 

In no particular order, I'd like to thank IJs, Blokker, h0z, Rebel, Talidan, Ransom, JHXP, MrBump, MrBill, Black_Dragon, Wartech, Xerox, Robpol, Iggy, x86, Aeron, HAZJ, Boss, BB101, Johnline, eAi, AJH, Oli, Solide, Gamefreek and whomever I forgot to mention for helping me make great memories I'll never forget.

PS: VCP is still the only clan to win an official tournament, undefeated.

[DiSiNi]

Congratulations MTA ♥

SO excited to try MTA on the rest of the car thief editions,  My started with mta was in 2013

[kfumaster]

20 years.. damn thats awesome! I hope MTA will stay alive until 100 years, keep up the good job guys.

 

[Skully]

Thank you to every open source developer who has contributed to this project since its initial release and made the last two decades of MTA possible.

[[EFO]Kesha_F1]

Hello dear MTA Team! 

First. Congrats for 20 years! Thank you for your job!  Second. Special news about it from EFO (since 25.01.2004): https://efo-team.ru/modules.php?name=News&file=view&news_id=1619 . Third. Original arhive yours GTA3:AM 0.1a, GTA3:AM 0.2a and GTA3:MTA 0.3b: https://efo-team.ru/modules.php?name=Files&d_op=get_file_details&files_id=176 . And last. On second link you can find current interface in maximum quality.

 

Respect for all, guys! Cheers. 

 

[turret001]

brought tears to my eyes. happy bday MTA, you beautiful monstrosity! 

[iNawaF]

Happy Birthday! 

[Cobra]

Happy Birthday my first experience was at MTA VC. I will ever be a big fan of this project.

[HoLsTeN]

thank you for the past 20 years MTA team and players i was 13 years old when i start playing MTA now i'm 27 but not playing anymore, it was  good memoirs thank you again.

[SemiSun]

Happy Birthday! 

[Vampire]

Happy Birthday!