Interesting article about MTA

[orappa]

I've just found this article:

http://osdir.com/Article4775.phtml

It's an interview with Cray, Kent, eAi and slush that was conducted about a month ago and I found it interesting because they said a lot of things that they'd never said publicly before. This in particular interested me:

OSDir.com: Could the code you've been creating for Multi Theft Auto be recycled for use in another game?

Lyons: We've designed Blue so that we can port it to any game fairly easily. We've done this by keeping the game layer and the networking separate. This means that we can just change the game layer over without much work. Of course, this applies most easily to games in the GTA series, though we could apply it to any game, in theory.

In developing Blue, by far the largest amount of time has been spent on research. If it were to be ported to another game, more research would have to be done for that game, too.

Simon: The team has considered working on other games. The new core was designed in such a way that we could easily port it to other games. The question always comes back to how much demand there is, and how difficult it will be.

OSDir.com: Do you plan to release the source of MTA to the public in the future? Or at least parts of it that might be useful to other developers wanting to hack multi-player into other commercial games?

Simon: Unfortunately, making the game entirely open source is not an option.

In a normal multi-player game, the server is able to know exactly what is going on in the game world at all points in time. Without the source code from GTA, it makes it quite difficult to do these things server-side. Because of this, a lot of "trust" must be given to the client. With that in mind, it makes it much easier to write cheats for a game like MTA, and there's little we could do about them if the project were open source.

Lyons: We'll be releasing an extensive SDK which will allow anyone with some C/C++ experience to have a go at doing all sorts of things with the GTA engine, many of which aren't very practical or possible with the current tools. We'll be including the full source for a few sample modifications with this, most likely a racing modification and a team deathmatch modification.

As it stands, we aren't planning on open-sourcing the entire project, as we believe it would increase cheating online, and fragment the community (many different incompatible versions would exist).

We have thought about porting Blue to other games, and have developed with this in mind, so that only minimal changes would need to be made to change to another game. Even though we aren't planning to open source Blue, we'd be happy to hear from any developers who have an interest in developing Blue for another game.

Edit: Btw, Lyons = eAi, Simon = Kent

Edited April 26, 2005 by Guest

[Quig]

.........wow

that was a pretty cool article

[jhxp]

nice find, Jon

this means, that devs could implement 'blue' into other games like, for example: Mafia, by changing only a few parts of code?

[MAD_BOY]

well, if i understood that right, then the whole game-code had to be rewritten for it, though the netcode and stuff could be the same

[Vicer/Spitfire]

.........wow

that was a pretty cool article

Aye. Kent is getting famous

[happyrock]

That site is a little missleading to MTA for noobs with the srceen shots it has posted with no info about them

[Si|ent]

I don't really understand what you just said happyrock

[XcR]

i posted that link in irc some weeks ago =/

[DominionSpy]

That site is a little missleading to MTA for noobs with the srceen shots it has posted with no info about them

I found the screenshot misleading as it shows Blue gameplay, which is not available yet and the description fails to mention this or even imply it.

[Scorp]

Very cool article though, I would've missed it if it wasen't posted.

Stuff like this should go on the main page.

[Blokker_1999]

Well, the article is about Blue and the usage of open source software in it ...

[happyrock]

I mean the first pic is blue and nothing says it's blue, the second is the current core.

If I had came form that site I would expect to see boats in the current product. but most noobs expect boats in the current product. I would expect it even more coming from this site.

anyhow I'm just saying I feel it's misleading

[Si|ent]

Possibly, although the first images mentions the use of open-source tools and is watermarked Codename Blue so combined with the content of the interview itself it should be clear which is which.

Also it should be noted that is an article specifically about open source and anyone coming to the mta site from it would most likely be a coder not a 'noob'

[Bishop]

unless you were linked from here to there as a noob

[DominionSpy]

Also it should be noted that is an article specifically about open source and anyone coming to the mta site from it would most likely be a coder not a 'noob'

Even coders are 'noobs' when they are new to a game

[Si|ent]

I'd say they would be far less likely to be utterly clueless and helpless as most would define a 'noob'. So new, not noob.

[l2ebel]

for all those who want to discuss the meaning of n00b, n00blet, n00blar, newb, nub, nubens or whatever you call them over pages and pages.. there you go:

http://forum.mtavc.com/viewtopic.php?t=12173

id have to agree with Scorp, stuff like articles about mta should be posted at the news page, especially if it has info in it that has never been released on this forum, imo

[orappa]

Same here. That's why I posted it. I also think it's hardly the team's fault if there's an error in an MTA article on another site. Which translates as: don't bring it up again.

[Bishop]

Credibility I guess.

Like when someone said 2 weeks on the 0.5 patch 3 months ago.

Or my personal favourite ;

The software based on the 0.4 core will be a revolutionary release for MTA.

-slush & the Multi Theft Auto Team.

There is a picture of a boat, yet there are not boats in MTA.

That to me is symbolic to a lot of things around here.

In example Jon´s last sentence in his post.

How about a section called "game discussion" in the general section where you actually let people talk about playing MTA.

You leave them alone they leave you alone

I am all for open source don´t get me wrong, but maybe I am a little more result fixated, me being the customer.

[orappa]

There is a picture of a boat, yet there are not boats in MTA.

That to me is symbolic to a lot of things around here.

In example Jon´s last sentence in his post.

How about a section called "game discussion" in the general section where you actually let people talk about playing MTA.

You leave them alone they leave you alone

I am all for open source don´t get me wrong, but maybe I am a little more result fixated, me being the customer.

All I was saying is that you should be complaining to them about the error, not us. There are so many threads on this forum that have pages and pages of pointless repetition (the pausing thread in the Blue section for example); I don't want another one of those.

P.S. I do agree though - it gives a summary of the current version of MTA and shows that pic so it could be misleading.

[Si|ent]

The software based on the 0.4 core will be a revolutionary release for MTA

And so it will. Remember at that point the code name for the 0.4 core, Blue, was secret.

p.s. did you not notice the 'Codename Blue' watermark on that image of the boats? Or the discussion regarding it on page one of this thread?

p.p.s. as for 'You leave them alone they leave you alone', we wont ever be having an unregulated secton of the forums no, not as long as they represent us. You would have to go elsewhere to have something as potentially chaotic and illegal as that.

Edited April 28, 2005 by Guest

[Black Dragon]

Oh, a game discussion forum already exists, two of them actually, one for vc and one for gta3. It only seems that people use them more of a way to rant about how fucked mta is, and a place for people to post their problems in (ignoring the support section, because *gasp* YOU NEED TO CLICK TWO TIMES TO GET TO THE ACTUALL FORUM)

[Bishop]

I didn´t know 0.4 was blue no that is news to me.

And no, all I noticed was a picture from a non-exsistant version, if you´d call it that.

You usally lock topics where people get to talking about MTA.

Sometimes those threads are actually quite educational.

That is, if you consider the player´s view woth anything.

If you want to learn about MTA, those are the threads you seek out.

When people are pissed off they tend to be more honest you see.

[eAi]

Talking about MTA is fine, just stay on topic please. If you want to discuss somthing on another topic, create another topic... easy.

[orappa]

I didn´t know 0.4 was blue no that is news to me.

The software based on the 0.4 core will be a revolutionary release for MTA.

-slush & the Multi Theft Auto Team.

Current MTA runs on the 0.3 core.