Discussion solely on the topic of how to bring back SA:MP server

[Kessu]

We listen to suggestions and based on those suggestions we're going for MTA:SA while taking in the feedback from people who know the platform better, for example JayL and Mario_Rinna. We also took in the feedback from the survey, badandy is working on the topic to make the data easy to read and to (from what I've understood) also provide some plans regarding what kind of server it will be. We also added Thom as a SA:MP moderator recently based on his abilities and possible future prospects that he will work on with the rest of the administration. This is far different approach from "what has been done before".

I'm sorry but Mario has been inactive and I can't even remember the last time I saw JayL online. Why not ask current players who will actually be using the product?

So because Mario has been inactive, he's not allowed to give feedback of the platform that is MTA:SA as a whole? How do you know he won't be using the product? You a seer now? Maybe you should start accepting people's feedback instead of dismissing it. And I never said those two were the only feedback we listen to. We read all your posts, all your ideas, we consider them, we talk about what's good and what's not. Then we let you guys know about it.

Overall, every time you (or a member of HQ) responds, it still paints the same old picture of doing things in a blackbox, operating WITHOUT transparency, and taking weeks to even say that some sort of action plan is in place. All we see from the outside is, "discussions are being held, data is being sifted through", etc, etc.

We're calling for radical transparency, instead, we're getting closed door meetings with a select few. Why are a select few deciding the greater good for all of us?

We told you the day it was decided to go for MTA:SA that it's going to happen. We didn't tell you of the initial testing because badandy was simply testing if it's even possible to do what was first thought of. And now you people know as much as we do. How is that not transparency? What is it that we're hiding from you?

Do you even know what transparent communication is?

Gaming community is not a business even remotely similar to Apple. We do not operate to gain profit. We operate in order to have a place where you can come in, relax and take some time off from the shitshow that is real life.

A lot of the concepts overlap. You have a product with users. You're making significant changes. If your users are unhappy, they will leave. Building a product that nobody wants means you're operating with your head in the sand.

The point of the Apple story is that without adequate leadership, things will fall apart, no matter if it's a community or a large business.

We do have a product, multiple ones. You want to close all of them. Even the ones who people are happy with. We're making changes because changes are necessary because past HQs fucked it up and we're trying to fix what was broken. What you people forget is that we weren't the HQ when this server went to shit. We had no power of any sort. I even remember some specific people, one who even showed up here and edited his comment about me talking how we shouldn't do anything related to SA:MP. Well we tried, we weren't allowed by owners (yes, in our attempt to stop the toxicity before SA:MP lost all it's players we tried to bypass it's leadership and contacted owners with entire rest of leadership of this community) and the result is we're still here trying to do what's right for the community. Where are the people who fucked it?

We're not a dead community, it's just dead based on imaginary standard you try to hold the community to. Yes, we do not have 100+ player server anymore. That means we're dead? No it does not. The community is not one server, it is the people. That's what you clearly don't understand and why you're out here complaining about shit you have no clue of and talk out of your ass just out of despite.

I like the efforts that Cutt3r is doing but it shouldn't be just him. Ever single member of the HQ and every single DL should be participating in the efforts.

Wrong. Who are you to tell people what they should be doing? This community is not what we get paid for. We do what we can with the time we invest in to the community. No more, no less.
You expect everyone else to put in their life in to the "product" as you like to call it, while all you do is run away from any responsibility of your own. We don't owe anyone jackshit. Our effort to fix what other people fucked is more than enough.

Kessu, we need to stop living in the past glory days and admit that the leadership fucked up completely and brought us to the current state. Revival will only happen when you have an exciting product with an active user base. Revival will only happen when we have active leadership who is accountable for their actions, a leadership that moves fast and makes changes quickly in days, not weeks/months. Right now, we have neither, just promises that "we're working on it".

Don't push away those who want to help. At some point, if you keep pushing them, they will just walkaway and never come back.

We are not living in the past glory. Have you been reading anything? We have not taken "months" to make decisions, we make them pretty quickly but y'all need to fucking stop with the unrealistic expectations. We can't conjure up a server from scratch with fully working script that's not a copypaste of some lame release on a forum god knows where. Do you want another RS5 fiasco, or do you want shit done properly? Take your pick. Actually don't, it doesn't matter. We're not going to release half assed shit that RS5 was.

Last time we hurried on development and releasing scripts, RS5 happened. Development projects go thourgh several phases, the first phase which is phase 0 (the one we're in now with Badandy and CLs collecting info and brainstorming for those that don't know) should be long enough so the development and testing phases take a shorter time. If this critical phase is rushed, terrible consequences will fall upon the project.

Yeah, that's not true. There was no hard timeline to release RS5 nor was there an issue with player count. RS5 caused majority of the issues with people being forced to start over. Then, further resets hurt everyone's want to continue being active.

No, there was no timeline to release RS5. Until owners decided it's time. Then they moved hosts, claimed loss of data of few months and forced the HQ at the time to release unfinished and buggy mess. Yes, even I know it was fucked up on release, I played a bit.

[Mario_Rinna]

I'm sorry but Mario has been inactive and I can't even remember the last time I saw JayL online. Why not ask current players who will actually be using the product?

"mArIo HaS bEeN iNaCtIvE"

As I have no official rank in Argonath, I have no obligation to post or log into forum. I was mentioned earlier — I showed up.

Outside of MTA:SA, I'm not "Mario_Rinna" and JayL isn't "JayL" — we have different nicknames in servers we're not admins in. My activity hasn't dropped since 2007; there isn't much left for me to do here on forum, is there? We have our own MTA:SA server we're working on in private, we didn't go on any breaks since MTA:SA shutdown (the whole "I have real-life problems and am AFK because of this" thing is a trait of people who don't have their shit together, which I don't believe applies to me, or JayL, or Patton), and out of respect for Argonath, this is the last time I mention it within Argonath (in this sentence).

There is no focus, no mission.

^{[citation needed]}

Don't believe me? I'll bring up a historical example: Apple

Yes, let's compare a for-profit corporation to volunteer-driven Argonath. This makes sense completely. Totally. There's nothing wrong with this logic. Also, ^{[citation needed]}.

History doesn't repeat but it certainly does rhyme, no matter the scale.

It's been, what, 10 years, and you're still the same you've always been. Consumerism. Brands. Shiny things. Quoting books rated for teens aged 12+. Still getting banned in 2021, haha! It's fascinating. History doesn't repeat? It does, look at you.

You want to set one leader in charge of everything, why? Everybody in HQ who voiced their opinion is against it; I suppose others share the same opinion. How will this "leader" lead?

This satisfaction you seek is not going to happen. I understand that reality does not match your ideals, and that is frustrating, but your ideals are unattainable. Happiness comes from within, not from refusing to accept reality in front of you. Even if a perfect server were here, with 500 people in it, you would find some other problem to become unsatisfied about.

Everything the devs wrote above is completely reasonable, and also very very patient, which is really admirable, TBH.

[Stefos]

Moderator Comment

If people continue to get on each other's throats and get out of context, their post will be removed to avoid any further conflicts and non-sense. If it proceeds to get out of hand, the topic will be locked.

[Brian]

I'm sorry but Mario has been inactive and I can't even remember the last time I saw JayL online. Why not ask current players who will actually be using the product?

Many of us have been inactive, that doesn't give us any less of a voice. We don't know who will be playing on the server in X amount of time, or who might come back, or how many people might play because we're not seers.
Mario and JayL gave us feedback we didn't think of before, it caused us to reach out and look in to the MTA:SA platform more which gave us valuable feedback from people outside of Argonath. It also helped us establish a relationship with some of the MTA:SA staff members, which could benefit us in the future. What Mario and JayL provided to us has literally been what we've been asking for, useful feedback without trying to stir up the pot or attacks towards other community members.

Overall, every time you (or a member of HQ) responds, it still paints the same old picture of doing things in a blackbox, operating WITHOUT transparency, and taking weeks to even say that some sort of action plan is in place. All we see from the outside is, "discussions are being held, data is being sifted through", etc, etc.

We're calling for radical transparency, instead, we're getting closed door meetings with a select few. Why are a select few deciding the greater good for all of us?

I am genuinely curious about what we are not being transparent about, what information would you like to be aware of that you do not have right now, what do you think we are hiding from you or the community?

A lot of the concepts overlap. You have a product with users. You're making significant changes. If your users are unhappy, they will leave. Building a product that nobody wants means you're operating with your head in the sand.

Comparing us to Apple, or any business for that matter makes no sense to me at all because we are not a business, we do not have employees, we do not have a "product". We don't exchange anything of value between each other other than our free time. We owe you nothing, you owe us nothing.
We are a non-profit gaming community open for anyone that wishes to abide by our rules.

I like the efforts that Cutt3r is doing but it shouldn't be just him. Ever single member of the HQ and every single DL should be participating in the efforts.

But we do? Advertising isn't my specialty, I don't enjoy it, I'm not good at it, so I don't do it. I'd rather spend my time somewhere where I'd actually have a use case. It's the reason we created an advertisement team in the first place back in the day.

Kessu, we need to stop living in the past glory days and admit that the leadership fucked up completely and brought us to the current state. Revival will only happen when you have an exciting product with an active user base. Revival will only happen when we have active leadership who is accountable for their actions, a leadership that moves fast and makes changes quickly in days, not weeks/months. Right now, we have neither, just promises that "we're working on it".

Don't push away those who want to help. At some point, if you keep pushing them, they will just walkaway and never come back.

Please elaborate for me on how the current members of HQ got us to where we are now, please use details and factual information as I am very curious.
How many hours do you think of when you use the term "active" and please explain what actions HQ should be accountable for.
What kind of changes do you expect to be done in days, do you want dev work done in days, change from SA:MP to MTA:SA in days? Write up a future vision for the SA server in days?

I am also curious about when did we push away those that want to help, please remind yourself that you are the one that decided you didn't want to help out anymore. Is having a discussion with someone pushing them away? Is having a disagreement with someone that? Difference of opinion? Sharing ideas or plans? Because I have never told anyone they were not allowed to help or be part of something.

You keep accusing "leadership" or "HQ" of things, yet I've not seen you elaborate on or provide evidence on what we actually did to screw things up so badly as you seem to claim. Like Mac said, we've had periods of inactivity and we are far from perfect but most of the current HQ members are the ones that have put in a lot of work trying to get things to work and to keep things running, even with limited resources and all the issues around that and ensuring the players have somewhere to play at would they wish to do so.

When you try to insult me personally, you automatically lost the debate.

You say this yourself yet you keep attacking  the current HQ and leadership, you keep trying to paint them in to a bad picture with no evidence whatsoever just because we don't agree with every point you make or every idea you have. You think that our discussions are personal attacks and you let your personal feelings affect your decision making. You create a false narrative in your head because you think you are in the right because you refuse to see what is in front of you, you ignore what people tell you and the actions of people happening around of you so that you can keep painting yourself as a victim which in turn makes you lash out at others.

Last time we hurried on development and releasing scripts, RS5 happened. Development projects go thourgh several phases, the first phase which is phase 0 (the one we're in now with Badandy and CLs collecting info and brainstorming for those that don't know) should be long enough so the development and testing phases take a shorter time. If this critical phase is rushed, terrible consequences will fall upon the project.

Yeah, that's not true. There was no hard timeline to release RS5 nor was there an issue with player count. RS5 caused majority of the issues with people being forced to start over. Then, further resets hurt everyone's want to continue being active.

Yes it is true, RS5 did have a hard release date set by the owners that's why on my first day on the server I found and reported 30+ bugs and a lot of core features were missing.
Server resets are also healthy for RP game servers, it changes up the dynamic, gives others the chance to actually get on top of things and rewards those that are currently active on the server/ in the community rather than those that hoarded things in the past (Which seems to be something you appear to be supporting from our previous discussions and chats.)
We're not an triple A game, our economy will eventually reach a point of no return, our scripts will change, we will want to offer new features and options which are often hard to do without an economy reset (because if you add something new the rich will instantly be able to buy it, even if its supposed to be an end game item, which in turn bores people because there's nothing to work towards)

I'd also like to inform you of the Survey results on this which shows to me the people who voted for this disagree with you.

I literally was there and really active in Argonath between fall 2012 to summer 2014. I remember it clearly because it was right before I moved out and started to work full-time in real life. Secondly, HQ said that it was impossible to convert data from flat files to DB but in reality, if the effort was put in, it could have happened. I remember the days before RS4 as well when player's client would crash every 15 minutes or so. Anyway, rehashing that whole bundle isn't worth the effort, but it does single to the same point - inadequate leadership decisions being made.

This was a decision made by the owners, ten years ago, when none of us were leaders...

[Huntsman]

I mean.. I prefer MTA:SA over SA:MP, but I feel it would just be more of the same.
I don't think it's going to change anything at all.

I agree with Nathan one hunded percent. We can no longer afford to keep the community fragmented through several, inactive servers. Times have changed, Argo has changed, we have to chose one thing and stick with it.

Argonath could afford to keep several servers back in the day because we had the playerbase to cover them. Now? What we have now is IV:MP, SA:MP, VC:MP, RageMP. Four currently operational servers, and not including the smaller projects like minecraft. And guess what: all are inactive.

Are you guys really that naive that you think opening yet another server for the MTA:SA, which is a different client for the same, antiquated game, going to resolve anything? How exactly do you see it happening? Has the previous experiment with MTA:SA not shown that not that many people are really interested in MTA, and that MTA:SA community does not seem to bring any new players to the server?

Granted, I did disagree with a lot of things on how JayL saw MTA:SA, and probably some of them were the reason why the server did not gain traction, but there was little to no interest from an already small MTA:SA community in yet another server. So the server.. died.

I already told the III:MP folks what I think: while I simply LOVE the idea of roleplaying in GTA III's Liberty City, as it's my favourite rendition of the map, as well as love the LC's atmosphere, and as much as I'd love to see it take off - it's destined to flop. We can't populate the newer, more popular games, and to expect that people are going to actually flock to play GTA III is even more ridiculous. Sorry, my feelings about GTA III are exceptionally warm, but I prefer to remain realistic.

The Argonath as we know it, as we have learned to know it, the one that we all played in 2007-2015 is ALREADY gone. One of the unique aspects of the old Argonath was that it had servers in all GTA games, all with unique playerbases, and their own flavours. SAMP was always geared towards a more serious RP, VC:MP was always more relaxed, and more about banter and competition, IV:MP was somewhere in between. But now? How exactly do you see this happening? The two active players on each server playing them? Do you not think it would be better if everyone from all games just went to one single server and played there?

I mean, as long as Argo insists on staying the "multi-game" community it once could afford to be, any talk about reviving the community is just pointless. Face the facts.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


@Kessu, as much as I respect you for what you do, VC:MP has been inactive for the past three months and no-one from the VCMP management has done anything about it. Your stance has been "We are not going to force people to play". Not to mention there has not been much initiative or encouragement from your side either. Even you yourself cannot be arsed to get yourself in the old game whose top manager you are. Don't you think your statements seem ironic in that light?

[Mario_Rinna]

probably some of them were the reason why the server did not gain traction, but there was little to no interest from an already small MTA:SA community in yet another server. So the server.. died.

The "server" didn't "die", the infrastructure powering it did.

When Argonath-owned MTA:SA host went down to the point that we could not restart it, we decided not to host it on our own server like everybody else; instead, we packed our things and left, continuing to use our skills and experience outside of Argonath. If the owners were around to press a couple buttons, and not absent for huge chucks of time as usual, that wouldn't have happened.

In retrospect, I am extremely grateful that everything happened the way it did.

[Mac Taylor]

....

I understand why you guys ask for a single server focus, but let's think of this from another bigger view. What will happen after the community force a shutdown for all servers and focus on only one for example the V:MP as you guys say?

V:MP will have more developers? Well, why are you guys so sure that other developers have the required knowledge or interest for V:MP development? Or are we going to force them?

V:MP will have more players? Well, when the new server is up, everyone's free to play on the server they have interest in. We don't want to force anyone and we don't want players to play a specific server while they are forced to. People who have real interest and passion to play a server are only the ones who will succeed with it.


As I said before if anyone from the community has the knowledge and the interest to help in development can go ahead and speak up with Doyle. But forcing everyone to focus on a single player will not do anything. Instead, people who are not interested with this server will just prefer to leave the entire community and go search for something they have interests in. Did we gain anything?


This topic is made for those people who are still interested in SA:MP, let it be for them only, they can discuss on things they have a common in between.

If you think the entire community will only revive by X server, go ahead and help in reviving it with logical solutions and opinions. If that's your opinion then go for it. You guys don't see that San Andreas has any future anymore as it's an old game, sure that's your opinion, say it if you were asked (as in the survey for example) and let it be. Let SAMP HQ decide to shut the server down, move to MTA, or do whatever they see good for THEIR players (those who have interest in SAMP as a regular gameplay for them).


TLDR; Pick your favorite server and work to revive it with logical solutions. There's no need to force others to follow your opinion by shutting down their servers, just focus on your favorite one, the one you are ready to play on it by regular.

[Kessu]

@Kessu, as much as I respect you for what you do, VC:MP has been inactive for the past three months and no-one from the VCMP management has done anything about it. Your stance has been "We are not going to force people to play". Not to mention there has not been much initiative or encouragement from your side either. Even you yourself cannot be arsed to get yourself in the old game whose top manager you are. Don't you think your statements seem ironic in that light?

Read what I've said in this topic and stop talking out of your ass.

We're literally working on a new script from scratch, but I guess that's doing nothing. Can't please you no matter what we do.

[Huntsman]

@Kessu, as much as I respect you for what you do, VC:MP has been inactive for the past three months and no-one from the VCMP management has done anything about it. Your stance has been "We are not going to force people to play". Not to mention there has not been much initiative or encouragement from your side either. Even you yourself cannot be arsed to get yourself in the old game whose top manager you are. Don't you think your statements seem ironic in that light?

Read what I've said in this topic and stop talking out of your ass.

We're literally working on a new script from scratch, but I guess that's doing nothing. Can't please you no matter what we do.

The new server has been worked on for ages now, hasn't it? I do not see how is it a valid argument to put up with general server inactivity to the point where key server related matters are just being neglected. The new script won't do much good if there will be no-one left to play it, no?

I already said I respect you for what you do, but it seems like some of the stuff you guys say here seems to completely conflict with what you do at times. Do not think I don't appreciate it because I do.

....

I understand why you guys ask for a single server focus, but let's think of this from another bigger view. What will happen after the community force a shutdown for all servers and focus on only one for example the V:MP as you guys say?

V:MP will have more developers? Well, why are you guys so sure that other developers have the required knowledge or interest for V:MP development? Or are we going to force them?

V:MP will have more players? Well, when the new server is up, everyone's free to play on the server they have interest in. We don't want to force anyone and we don't want players to play a specific server while they are forced to. People who have real interest and passion to play a server are only the ones who will succeed with it.


As I said before if anyone from the community has the knowledge and the interest to help in development can go ahead and speak up with Doyle. But forcing everyone to focus on a single player will not do anything. Instead, people who are not interested with this server will just prefer to leave the entire community and go search for something they have interests in. Did we gain anything?


This topic is made for those people who are still interested in SA:MP, let it be for them only, they can discuss on things they have a common in between.

If you think the entire community will only revive by X server, go ahead and help in reviving it with logical solutions and opinions. If that's your opinion then go for it. You guys don't see that San Andreas has any future anymore as it's an old game, sure that's your opinion, say it if you were asked (as in the survey for example) and let it be. Let SAMP HQ decide to shut the server down, move to MTA, or do whatever they see good for THEIR players (those who have interest in SAMP as a regular gameplay for them).


TLDR; Pick your favorite server and work to revive it with logical solutions. There's no need to force others to follow your opinion by shutting down their servers, just focus on your favorite one, the one you are ready to play on it by regular.

I never said the servers should be shut down. Obviously Argonath has the resources to keep the running - let them run. What I rather meant is:
1) Players should focus on one server. The 5-10 active players on each individual server getting together to play on one, single server = an active server.
2) Creating any new servers (MTA:SA) at this point is just destined to fail.


People from other servers won't bring in new developers. They will bring in new ideas, new groups. Groups in particular was what was really missing from the legacy server of V:MP. 

[Kessu]

@Kessu, as much as I respect you for what you do, VC:MP has been inactive for the past three months and no-one from the VCMP management has done anything about it. Your stance has been "We are not going to force people to play". Not to mention there has not been much initiative or encouragement from your side either. Even you yourself cannot be arsed to get yourself in the old game whose top manager you are. Don't you think your statements seem ironic in that light?

Read what I've said in this topic and stop talking out of your ass.

We're literally working on a new script from scratch, but I guess that's doing nothing. Can't please you no matter what we do.

The new server has been worked on for ages now, hasn't it? I do not see how is it a valid argument to put up with general server inactivity to the point where key server related matters are just being neglected. The new script won't do much good if there will be no-one left to play it, no?

I already said I respect you for what you do, but it seems like some of the stuff you guys say here seems to completely conflict with what you do at times. Do not think I don't appreciate it because I do.

Wrong. It's very recent that we changed developers.

[Klaus]

The new server has been worked on for ages now, hasn't it?

It's been worked on for around 3 months. Hunts, please stop talking about matters you don't know about. The progress may be slow but we rely on volunteers who code for fun and in their own time. We are not, for (a well used) example, Apple Inc.
 

I never said the servers should be shut down. Obviously Argonath has the resources to keep the running - let them run. What I rather meant is:
1) Players should focus on one server. The 5-10 active players on each individual server getting together to play on one, single server = an active server.

No I won't play any other game. You can't force people to play where they don't want to. Try to keep this topic about SA:MP, because not all other servers & their players are interested. Cheers buddy !

[Darxez]

Regardless of the outcome; I will come and pay a visit to see how stuff goes, but also to come and see some people.

I respect the current projects that are ongoing, and do hope they will go well .

[Sawyer]

Regardless of the outcome; I will come and pay a visit to see how stuff goes, but also to come and see some people.

I respect the current projects that are ongoing, and do hope they will go well .

Baguette! Hope to see you soon!

[JoshThePenguin]

Regardless of the outcome; I will come and pay a visit to see how stuff goes, but also to come and see some people.

I respect the current projects that are ongoing, and do hope they will go well .

hi

[Hammer_]

I wanna suggest something. First thing is first, remove all of those inactive group topics that are of no use, and move 'em to archive, specially the toxic ones that think they're all it. We can progress after that :P