Why did you leave?

[Nathan]

.

[Khm]

From the looks of this comment, I understood that you wanted to claim ownership of the community which would mean all the keys will be held by one person and we should have learned by now that this has always been our main issue the past years; all powers held by one person. The times we're in are hard, instead of butting heads over powers the community should be a community and help eachother find solutions to sort things out with the activity.

I literally said I wanted to step up and help the SA community not that I wanted to own the community. But yes, continue to spread lies and bullshit on anyone who tries to help.

You yourself spoke about toxicity on your vision on google doc yet  you're now spreading it, take a chill pill and drop your hate. I literally commented over what you said and spread, re-read it yourself from a different POV. How were you willing to help SA community though? You didn't share that here, you just spoke about sharing ideas and a vision.

[Mario_Rinna]

MTA:SA doesn't have English-speaking RP servers because there is no demand for them, and not because there's a magical niche waiting to be filled. It's not a niche, it's a grave.

There were English-speaking MTA:SA RP servers and they all shut down one after another, because they were unsustainable. Some of them didn't shut down, but rather left for FiveM with their players. Last one exited MTA:SA around spring 2020, if I am not wrong. Same reason. Everybody (server-hosting communities, players) who speaks English left for FiveM/RageMP NoPixel clones, where you can easily use voice to communicate, and thus there is longer a need for this outdated "/me does this and that" type of heavily text-based RP where people sit around in a circle and describe their actions like it's an AA meeting.

Even if you plug in some voice server into MTA, even if you make a completely custom map from scratch, replace all skins and cars and make own shaders, 3d models, etc. Saw that also fail so many times, you will just be stepping on the same old rake. There are already complete, finished RP(G) game-modes out there, free to download, just take and configure, whatever, nobody's going to play. The whole genre in your target language is dead, there are way less English-speaking role-players than on SA-MP.

Are the devs willing to work for a year and then have an empty server, because it will still look inferior in comparison to some half-assed GTA:V NoPixel clone? IDK. I'm not saying that you shouldn't migrate, I'm just saying that the grass on the other side isn't that much greener any more, and you should have realistic expectations.

You could try using AMX to run Argo's SA-MP on MTA, not sure if it's going to work though. Then there's UG:MP, which could be used to merge VC:MP and SA-MP (and also add some other maps), but I'm pretty sure that's not going to happen. New MTA:SA server? Sure, but you're gonna have to really commit, nolife and tryhard... and will probably just end up beating a dead horse like everybody else.

I'd shove everything into FiveM, give people their $$$ from other servers, some extra $$$ on top, build playerbase the easiest way, but, for some reason, Argonath never chooses the easiest way. The smart thing would be (if you can code and are interested in this) to read some books on gamedev, download Unreal Engine 5, and make some fucking money. But we're not here to be smart; we're here to enjoy our suffering, and the only thing more enjoyable than that is writing thicc paragraphs about it on forums. 

[Thom]

In sales, time kills most deals. Time is the most important factor right now. Taking another six months to make one decision is no longer appropriate. Doing things as they have always been done is no longer appropriate. HQ needs to step up and making decisions quickly and start making progress. It's been too damn long and everyone is sick and tired of it.

That we don't have the luxury to go by the book is true, has been true for a couple of years now, and is getting more real the more time no active movement is executed. Taking time to do something meaningful is fine, but it seems these 4 years of inactivity are definitely not put into good use, neither the last year or last 6 months or last month.

We're into a cul-de-sac for the simple reason that: the majority of veterans and leadership left may be well-meaning. But the leadership doesn't have the time to professionally evaluate the kind of well-meaning someone in a staff-HQ position should have and at the same time, are wise enough not wanting to take any rushed decisions either. In the other hand, players with motivation tendencies or potential are on standby or not, throwing efforts into the void cause the remaining players aren't going to be coordinated on their own without active leadership, possibly trying to understand the reasoning behind not rushing another failing HQ but inevitably feeling discouraged and drawn out by the long wait, caused by a natural event that the decision makers are adults with lifes, like many of us, and and don't have the time needed to properly address the matter. And by properly I mean time-wise and presence-wise. It's not a step back to admit and try somehow to adapt to the reality of not having the time needed, quite the contrary it's a step forward.

If I'm off about something about the time assumption it's only because as players we know so much, the message remains some kind of elasticity and adaption requires more time and presence, not just background brainstorming and discussion. Many of the practices that applied 10 years ago are relics of the past.

It's all in good faith, understanding between players and HQ is vital but only the start of the solution.

[TheGreasyChopper]

I just want to do a quick survey. All of us pretty much left, and I'm curious to know why. Don't overthink the questions, just answer it for what it is.

Stay on topic. Not the place for discussions, pick it up elsewhere.

[Brian]

...

Something new does not equal just running with what ever idea someone comes up with, this is the third time you were given a chance to step up, something you said you've been keen on doing. Yet you are unable to handle feedback, simple comments on ideas were ignored by you and you chose the stance of "If I don't get my way I'll be out" like you usually do.

You're correct in saying we are looking for something new, wanting someone to lead it is what you envisioned. You claim you spent hours working on your proposal, yet it was just a bunch of ideas you had that could potentially work out, they weren't thought out and you refused to discuss them any further. When you were given feedback by us you completely ignored what we said to you and posted your document publicly in the SAMP channel.



In your vision you claim you want to focus on working together yet you are unable to take in the smallest pieces of feedback, you take it as a personal attack and you fail to respond to others when it comes to discussing ideas. You were also unable to provide us with any information on how you actually wanted to reach these goals, how much time it'd take. Most of your vision was focused on adding new people to upper leadership rather than actually working on fixing the SA server.

Your claim of me not sharing things with staff is also incorrect, even if we were to forget the fact you shared the document publicly for everyone to be able to review. Several points of your vision that we did find interesting were discussed with staff to gather feedback, and some were then brought up again in the MTA:SA survey that was publicly posted on the forums and on Discord. I'm not going to bring up an unfinished idea with staff when there's active attempts in to discussions to refine them to an actually presentable state.

Late 2021 you were given a chance to work on things yourself. We not only took you in to the MTA:SA discussion and let you bring your ideas up then, you were also given the ability to develop the SAMP panel, you had a lot of ideas, yet you have done 0 work on the panel since you were given access to the code and a testing environment. I have also not gotten a single message from you in private since the 29th of December. You also only messaged us in our group chat at 29th of the last month!

Instead of actually working with us like you claim you wanted to, you yet again took your (misguided) anger out on people in the samp discord channel, adding to the toxicity you claim to be against in literally the first line of your vision


I gave feedback on the fact your vision shows "plans" for the entire community, and when I said that it'd probably be smarter to focus on SA and work on that first before you try to change the entire community, you got annoyed and started your blame game again.
Heck, it even sounded like you agreed with me when you said

Start with SA, try the experiment out, if it fails, great you proved me wrong.

You then said

I can’t do my ideas if you literally tell me that I have no power to execute them.

I also never said you wouldn't have power to execute them, that's something you made up yourself. All we did was provide feedback on your vision, something you requested yourself!

And that's the last I had heard from you until you send us your ultimatum.


You gave me 48 hours to respond (even though I told you a day before that one of my close family members is dying of terminal cancer and that I was taking a few days to myself) you left the group chat 2 hours after you sent your ultimatum, not even giving me the chance to respond, and you created this post 8 hours after. And the ultimatum was basically "Do it my way or I'm out".
I was intending to respond to you in private after you left the group discord to try and get you to understand our side of things but before I was able to you left most of the Discord servers and posted this topic on the forums.

You need to take a step back and look at the big picture sometimes. We put the ball in your ballpark and you kicked it on a roof on purpose and there is no one to blame for this but yourself.
We took a leap of faith and gave you an opportunity but that wasn't enough for you. You were unwilling to work with us and it seems to me you've not changed at all like you yourself claimed previously. You were the one that didn't want to work with us, not the other way around, we gave you chances, opportunities, we informed you how we'd like to see it, we asked for your input, just like we'd do with anyone that would show us interest. Stepping up isn't just coming with a list of ideas you come up with and then throwing a hiss fit when someone else gives their input  or alternative ideas.

In your ultimatum statement you shared you felt discouraged. How do you expect we feel when we have players like you that are overly negative about everything that happens(borderline toxic if I might add), and when you give them a chance they still play the victim and keep doing the exact thing they claim they're against. Imagine if we did give you the chance become a member of management on the server and something happened you didn't like and you'd just drop everything and leave all Discords. In the end it just seems like you repeat the same cycle over and over again.

[Badandy]

I can back up what is Brian is saying. I was there in the group chat we had to discuss. I admit, we butt heads on issues but I wanted to work through them. When Nathan posted his 48 hour notice, at that point I don't like being put into a corner so I felt like that the arrangement was no longer healthy. I'm all for talking with people and working with new people to see what is possible and who can step up. It doesn't always work though.

In other news, the MTA SA server will be proceeding as planned. We thank everyone for taking the time to respond to it and encourage more people to respond. These results, at least the multiple choice answers will be released eventually but the survey is still up so let your voices heard on the topic. We hope to do more surveys in the future. I personally like them since I believe everyone gets a chance to be heard in a civil and organized way.

Some people like Mario have stated that it may not be worth to do MTA SA due to issues like lack of English servers and possibly beating a dead horse. I take that feedback very seriously and thank you, Mario for bringing it to our attention. We still want to continue on with MTA SA since there is still interest in San Andreas from what the current survey results show and I personally believe it's worth to at least try. This is not a business decision, this isn't probably the best decision but I have a spot in my heart for San Andreas. Brian and I both love the idea of MTA SA with the possibilities even though they are more limiting than what you can find in FiveM. I believe we still can build a good and fun server. If it only lasts a month, well at least we tried and had fun along the way. We hope to share more soon.

[JayL]

Brian and I both love the idea of MTA SA with the possibilities even though they are more limiting than what you can find in FiveM.

I was going to sit this one out, but you caught my attention here. What makes you think that?

(I understand we're staying on-topic as long as we are discussing causes and solutions for the limbo in Argonath)

Brian edit cause I didn't want to make another post: I prefer this topic to be used but I can always split off comments from this post if there'll be a lot of them about MTA:SA

[Badandy]

Brian and I both love the idea of MTA SA with the possibilities even though they are more limiting than what you can find in FiveM.

I was going to sit this one out, but you caught my attention here. What makes you think that?

(I understand we're staying on-topic as long as we are discussing causes and solutions for the limbo in Argonath)

Brian edit cause I didn't want to make another post: I prefer this topic to be used but I can always split off comments from this post if there'll be a lot of them about MTA:SA

There are multiple factors. The Lua version is not up.to date, which itself isn't limiting but leads to some issues when you try to use newer features of the language. MTA SA and FiveM both support custom files which also includes CEF. I personally prefer FiveMs implementation of their CEF, browser system compared to MTA SA. Character customization is limited in MTA SA but custom skins could help with that. I think both mods are fantastic in their own rights and my statement might of not been 100% accurate. These are mostly critiques about what's possible but compared to SAMP, MTA SA is light-years ahead.

[Cutt3r]

As we are discussing (in part) of how to get the server back on its feet, I wanted to share a suggestion.

What do you think about a monthly meet. Fixed day, fixed time, scheduled for one or two hours only. All those who commit should be there, just like an important thing irl.

Over time, I see few things happening. First, we all catch up, remember good times and come back for it. Second, seeing server activity there will be new players. Just keep the rules simple and I am confident that this will be a fun monthly event which turns out to something more regular. It will take time though.

Inspiration for this was what i did irl, with a motorcycle group - 80% folks joined and did nothing.  Monthly events brought some more activity to the point where some (about 30% more) became more active.

What do you think?

[Sawyer]

that this will be a fun monthly event which turns out to something more regular.

Ι too have proposed something similar months ago but I have been hit with the "NoT EnoUGH RPinG iNVoLvED".
But yes, that's a decent proposal.

[Axison]

I left because of work and school. Haven't gamed much in the last 5-7 year. Currently in my final week and I hope to return after graduation, might even be able to lend a hand in the development side of things if the opportunity comes. Worked my ass off to get that degree, might as well put it to good use lol.

[Mario_Rinna]

Late 2021 you were given a chance to work on things yourself.

How does a guy unbanned in November 2021 get to participate in any HQ-related activities?

you were given access to the code and a testing environment.

You gave me 48 hours to respond (even though I told you a day before that one of my close family members is dying of terminal cancer and that I was taking a few days to myself)

I'm sorry to hear you're going through that, Brian.

Don't bother replying to this post if you don't feel like it, or don't have the time – it's ok.

In your ultimatum statement

Given how Nathan doesn't bring anything to the table, that's a 0 IQ move on his behalf. He doesn't have the game-mode, doesn't have the people, doesn't have the skills or experience. What are you offering of value, Nathan? I don't see it.

In the good old days, this probably would have been enough for a community ban. Have we gone too soft?

And the ultimatum was basically "Do it my way or I'm out".

What a lucrative offer – let's put Argonath's reverse King Midas in charge of a MTA:SA server, a platform in which he, btw, has 0 experience in. You haven't done your homework on MTA, Nathan, and it shows.

Brian edit cause I didn't want to make another post: I prefer this topic to be used but I can always split off comments from this post if there'll be a lot of them about MTA:SA

I'd suggest this board, at least because it doesn't seem to have moderator post approval enabled, which slows things down.

Some people like Mario have stated that it may not be worth to do MTA SA due to issues like lack of English servers and possibly beating a dead horse.

Yes, well, I just wanted to say that creating a game-mode is only a part of the challenge, and maybe not even the biggest one.

The Lua version is not up.to date, which itself isn't limiting but leads to some issues when you try to use newer features of the language.

If they update Lua, so many things will break that there won't be enough people to fix them. If I understand it correctly, scripts will break. MTA:SA itself will need some new code. Then there's that whole basket of bytecode/compiler/anti-cheat issues, so I don't think there will be any updates. Don't know, somehow the whole MTA:SA community manages to do fine without those things. FiveM also isn't using the latest version, 5.4 is already out.

CEF.

This showed up (in MTA) when we were already in the middle of making RP 2.0 back in the day, and (IIRC) we couldn't find a use for it. Not only did we already have a really good idea on paper of what we were making, using CEF only for the sake of using it seemed like a dumb idea.

PCs weren't as powerful and the potato PCs of that time were even less powerful. CEF caused incompatibility issues with PCs running win XP, win Vista. It also caused some problems on Win 7, where, for example, some Nvidia Optimus laptops had to have a specific version of Nvidia drivers; without them, some laptops would BSOD, and that was, of course, not desirable.

If your PC is capable of running V on high, the browser on top of your screen might not be eating (m)any FPS. But since SA has low system requirements, adding tons of custom content meant noticeable performance decrease for potato PC users, and we didn't want to do that. It may not be an issue today, but it was a concern back in the day. I've seen some great UIs that looked like they were CEF-powered, but actually weren't, and I've seen some bad UIs that were made using CEF also. If you have the skills, you can avoid using CEF for the UI. Also, JavaScript is some cringe shit, tbh, so this was a no-brainer.

Character customization is limited in MTA SA but custom skins could help with that.

It's not included by default, but not limited per se; you can create (and there are examples of that, you can google them fairly easily) GTA Online-like char. customization systems yourself, together with the body and facial feature morphing sliders. There's also CJ and all of his models from SP, which you can use, replace or edit. It's possible to implement, but will take a lot of time.

In a perfect world, I would have wanted to run an Argonath MTA:SA server, but, as we all know, Gandalf & Aragorn aren't here, and it's not really fun when the host is kil and nobody around can access it; moreover, I feel it's unethical (at least in my book) to use somebody else's host when they're not even around to participate in anything. Also, I'd like to see what 1.6.0 has to offer – we might see it arrive before the year ends, maybe.

Didn't expect to have so many SA-MP and MTA:SA servers still around. A decade ago we thought that we'd be playing GTA 8 right now. Even V feels dated right now despite being "rEmAsTeReD". 10 years since V came out next year? bruh.

Think twice before using Discord for anything serious, btw, it's spyware. None of "your" data is yours, random neckbeards Discord Staff can see everything, everywhere. They don't delete anything when people invoke GDPR, they just don't give a shit at all, lol.

[Badandy]

...

The owners don't really matter anymore in my opinion. Currently most servers are being hosted off of their hosting. SAMP was moved onto new hosting last year and the MTA SA will also be on the same host. I'm currently working on a plan for the MTA SA server so I'm hoping it goes well and if it doesn't, at least we tried. So Mario, what are you doing around again? Are you looking to stick around?

[Hammer_]

...

The owners don't really matter anymore in my opinion. Currently most servers are being hosted off of their hosting. SAMP was moved onto new hosting last year and the MTA SA will also be on the same host. I'm currently working on a plan for the MTA SA server so I'm hoping it goes well and if it doesn't, at least we tried. So Mario, what are you doing around again? Are you looking to stick around?

If you wanna bring the SA:MP server back alive, there is a loophole. Doing the exact same thing our opposition community did back in 2018, lure players in by offering multiple ranks, etc. certain things that individuals care about so much, in order for the playerbase to grow in the SA:MP client, you need players to attract players. It's like this saying "The rich gets richer", perhaps some shortcuts and such low tricks would work. The main thing that kicked away most players was the decreased drug prices in that year, and upon rebellious response from the community, our lead developer didn't give a fuck about it, and still went through with it. This is a game, as much as one cares about RP, people hold certain ranks close to them. If you bribe someone by making them the chief of the ARPD, or whatsoever, players are bound to come and give this a shot. It's not the scripts we care about, we wanna have fun, and enjoy the game for what it's supposed to be.