MultiTheftAuto Mod For GTA3 Released

Ryan M. Pamplin writes "There's an announcement on the MultiTheftAuto website that the MTA v0.3b multiplayer mod is out for the PC version of Grand Theft Auto 3, a milestone for the community. Servers are popping up everywhere - we can finally play a little GTA against our pals in 3D!" We ran a story on this a little while back, but there's now a downloadable version to tinker with.

Comments

Just what we need...

[Anonymous Coward]

a beowulf cluster of carjackers.

Re:Just what we need...

[Guppy06]

The big question is, if everybody is a car thief, who gets their cars stolen?

Anyone tried this yet?

[hessler]

I wonder how the net code is..?

Re:Anyone tried this yet?

[randomdef]

It was all written by rockstar (they removed it just shy of release) so the code should work pretty well. I've heard positive things previously.

Re:Anyone tried this yet?

[moonbender]

Um, no. It was not all written by Rockstar. There are some traces of multiplayer gaming in the original code, but this basically is a huge (and neat) hack, working only because the game tracks a list of cars the players used previously. Players joining the game then get to control those cars. And the netcode is allegedly sluggish even on a 100 Mbit LAN.

Unless they changed the mod dramatically in the previous versions, that is. This is the way it worked originally - maybe they found some wonderful other way to do it. I doubt it.

Re:Anyone tried this yet?

[dave1212]

port it to Mac and I'll let you know how it plays over Gigabit Ethernet..

Any word on Vice City?

[MoOsEb0y]

Is there any word on how easy it would be to make a mod like this for Vice City? I think the idea of having helicopters, motorcycles, and Michael Jackson singing in the background is great :).

Re:Any word on Vice City?

[Zuph]

Vice City is based on the GTA3 engine...shouldn't be too hard... Vice city just hasn't been out long enough.

GTA 3

[sebi]

Maybe someone should note that the mod is for GTA3. The original Grand Theft Auto had multiplayer right out of the box. I can't remember if it was LAN only or if internet play was possible as well. But then that was a PC only game, right.

I wonder if precious features such as multiplayer will get rarer, now that many hit titles are ported from various consoles to proper computers. In this case the game was released with the unfinished multiplayer code and some dedicated people are getting it to work. Why did the original programmers give up at what appears to be more than half way through?

Re:GTA 3

[Surye]

I wonder if precious features such as multiplayer will get rarer, now that many hit titles are ported from various consoles to proper computers.

I think that if that was going to happen, it would have already happened, and be declining with the rise of multiplayer consoles. I think that we will see quite an interesting new array of multiplayer ports from consoles.

Re:GTA 3

[EvilOpie]

The original GTA, GTA2, and GTA London all had multiplayer out of the box. And you could play it over the internet even. I remember this because my friends and I used to spend many hours fragging each other in the game. :-)

The only drawback was that there were no centralized GTA game servers. So you'd have to arrange a game yourself over ICQ or IRC or whatever, and have people connect to the server at the same time. But that was the only drawback to it.

Ugh

[Anonymous Coward]

From MTA's forum:

Before we let u enter our forums. There are some rules u need to know.

Do not ask for release date : it is done when it is done

Keep it in English

If we need beta testers we will let u know

Use the search function instead off imidiatly starting a new topic

If u have agreed to the above, click here, otherwise, click the back button in ur browser!

I'm no English usage nazi, and I know English isn't a first language to some people, but the "u" and "ur" usage, and general typos doesn't inspire the greatest confidence in the authors of this mod, and seems pretty immature to boot (unless you're using SMS/text messaging where it's actually hard to "type" fast, so shortening your message is acceptable).

Re:Ugh

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm no English usage nazi

Sounds like that's exactly what you are. You are prejudging the quality of the software by their use of english language/slang.

Re:Ugh

[jaxle]

ur right, the authors should be ashamed for not paying attention to their forum rules and instead concentrating on development. /end sarcasm

ps. you are a grammar nazi and who the fuck cares

Re:Ugh tsarkon reports: flight control systems

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm very, very certain that in a Boeing flight control computer, the source code doesn't say:

/* this chunk of code below is the fucking pussy shit for ur aileron. this is fuckin brain damaged shit and some fucker needs to fix it. Someone needs to fix this imidiatly [sic]. And to the PHB boss, im not telling you shit, fag, itz done when its done. */

Being professional, clean, well documented, writing things that are easier to read and idiomatic if it serves no purpose not to be is far more important that you might think it is [see FreeBSD sources, not Linux, for an example of this in the public domain].

Also, if you ever tried their software it is unusable. The fact they would release it in such a state is ridiculous. The fact that it ends up on Slashdot is sad.

Screen Shots? Real World Experiences?

[Jubii]

Can we get some real in-game screens? How about your experiences with the mod? I know you guys are out there and are playing. Share some info!

I'd really like to hear how it's working out for others before I reinstall my GTA3 and download this mod. I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Early adopters, speak up!

Re:Ugh tsarkon reports: flight control systems

[Anonymous Coward]

What you say!!

I are good pogrommars!!!

Get it!

[Anonymous Coward]

Its worth the download, but scrap playing online (over the internet) Its still an alpha, and while it works, there are lots of issues still being tackled. LAN play works great, enjoi!

Crossover mayhem

[Enrico Pulatzo]

Combine with the Sims online and watch the chaos ensue.

But it's not Win98 compatible!

[AnglerG]

From their message boards, they're not supporting Win98 (only XP). Get on the ball guys - I'm not upgrading to M$pyware just to play your mod. :(

Re:But it's not Win98 compatible!

[MImeKillEr]

From their message boards, they're not supporting Win98 (only XP). Get on the ball guys - I'm not upgrading to M$pyware just to play your mod. :(

Typical MS-bashing FUD.

There are several documented ways to disable XPs ability to "call home".

Feel free to stay with an OEM-unsupported OS, as well as a vendor-unsupported OS.

Not to mention, 98's protocol stack can be pushed around by all the old script-kiddie tools (bitchslap, satan, portfsck, etc).

GTA3 already had MP implemented

[The Moving Shadow]

The mod was made possible due to the fact that the guys at Rockstar had already implemented a multiplayer code into the game. But since they couldn't finish it due to time and coding complications they disabled it. The dev teams that made the two multiplayer mods that are available today just enabled the old mp code and wrote a whole shell around it while fixing the code fragments that Rockstar didn't finish.

I don't know if Vice City was built upon the GTA3 engine or that the original engine was completely rebuild. In the former case we can expect there to be a multiplayer mod soon.

One word of warning with the multiplayer mod. I have played it and it's really buggy. Lots of syncing problems and you have to do strange things to get the games synced on all machine on beforehand. But nonetheless i expect a complete groundbreaking multiplayer experience when the mods have matured.

Re:GTA3 already had MP implemented

[Zuph]

Vice City is based on GTA3. The problem may be, though, that when they remade the engine for Vice City, they completely scrapped the multiplayer code, which may or may not make such a mod for Vice City extremely difficult, if not impossible. Myself, I would enjoy a Multiplayer Vice City more. I don't think it will happen, though, at least until this mod matures.

Re:Screen Shots? Real World Experiences?

[zero_offset]

RTFA

Ok, they're not great screenshots, but...

Liberty City Surviver

[Xibby]

It will only be a matter of time until Liberty City's favorite Reality TV probram becomes a reality now.

Re:Ugh tsarkon reports: flight control systems

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree completely; I'm not about to use a piece of software written by a person who cannot spell the word "you" in thier code, on their website, or in the manual for the software.

GTA 1/2 on PS1

[raventh1]

Grand Theft Auto 1 and 2 did come out for the PS1.
Link on a german site to buy it.

re mta

[Anonymous Coward]

Im xerox, i help run the forums on mta.

The reason the game is so buggy is due to the millions of kiddies who were moaning for the game to be released. The team did not want to release the game in this state, but i guess their hand was forced.

Yes its buggy, yes it has problems... but its only hacked-in gta, give it some time, and a few more versions before you start passing judgement.