MultiTheftAuto Development Continues

MultiTheftAuto Team writes "Today, MultiTheftAuto have released the first information about their new core technology that will be deployed in future versions of MultiTheftAuto. The new core technology, codenamed 'blue', offers many of the features that have been requested by the software's users over the last year and a half, these include: Support for boats, support for firing from vehicles, support for drive-bys, and support for planes. As well as supporting all these features, the new core will introduce a revolutionary new way of writing modifications for Vice City, combining the existing methods with a fully integrated C++ add-on system, giving anyone who wishes to the ability to create complex and exciting mods, far beyond the possibilities of 'traditional' methods."

Comments

Development would move faster

[Anonymous Coward]

But 7 of the developers have been shot and killed, 4 more are in the hospital recovering, 12 are in jail, and 3 are missing.

Re:Development would move faster

[Lord_Dweomer]

Well, one of those three was just spotted racing down the intersate on a crotch rocket being chased by 10 police cruisers, a helicopter, a tank, swat vans, and a really flashy sports car containing two rejects from the Disco.

Sweet

[Lord Kano]

I guess all we're missing now is GameSpy support.

LK

Re:Sweet

[PhrostyMcByte]

MTA uses the ASE protocol, so The All Seeing Eye supports it just fine. Much better than GameSpy anyway (imho).

Re:Sweet

[Lord Kano]

I can play on GameSpy for free. The All Seeing Eye makes you pay if you want to play for longer than 3 weeks.

LK

Re:Sweet

[88NoSoup4U88]

" I can play on GameSpy for free. The All Seeing Eye makes you pay if you want to play for longer than 3 weeks."

Browsing games on Gamespy 'for free' ; That is, if you can endure the 10 second banners that you HAVE to watch every X minutes on Gamespy.

On your point of ASE not being free : it -is- , you are never forced to buy the software, but it sometimes gives you slack about 'not having enough resources' which most of the time is quickly fixed by refreshing the gamelist again.

GReeaaaaaat game!

[FiReaNGeL]

GTA:Vice City was one of the best game I ever played (the 80`s soundtrack is amazing :) What`s better than cruising in an old car, uzi in hand on the beat of Michael Jackson?) and I appreciate efforts that aim at extending his life.

But with GTA:San Andreas around the corner, is it worth it?

Re:GReeaaaaaat game!

[Smile005]

I haven't been keeping up to date with SA but is it going to have multiplayer support? And anyway, each games' style is completely different and I think I'd find myself playing Vice City even when SA is out because I like it so much. As you said, the soundtrack is great and one of the best elements of the game.

Re:GReeaaaaaat game!

[Espectr0]

But with GTA:San Andreas around the corner, is it worth it?

Of course, since SA won't be released on the PC until may

/me re-reads the snippet again

[Matey-O]

and goes 'wha?'

Is this a floor wax? A Dessert topping?

Re:/me re-reads the snippet again

[KL1NK]

MultiTheft Auto adds multiplayer to GTA3 and GTA: Vice City

Re:/me re-reads the snippet again

[drinkypoo]

It's pretty sad that the submission is ostensibly from the team themselves and yet they couldn't bother to explain themselves in said story submission. Makes you think they don't know their ass from... hey, what's that in the ground over there?

Re:/me re-reads the snippet again

[d34thm0nk3y]

hehehe.... I thought was a fancy anti-auto-theft system. Like those systems that can shoot flamethrowers out the side of your car....

I read:
Support for boats, support for firing from vehicles, support for drive-bys, and support for planes.
And was like "sweet, I can put it on my boat now!"

Re:/me re-reads the snippet again

[nacturation]

Bah, you tricked me. I fell in the hole and went ass over tea kettle.

Awesome!

[t_allardyce]

its engines like this that are the way forward - Flashpoint, GTA, 1942 etc that allow massive worlds, vehicles and lots of freedom and interaction with objects. Also some decent maps or realistic cities help (the getaway was crap to be honest), stick all that together and you can create pretty amazing games easily!

I know this story...

[Anonymous Coward]

After sometime those who are funding this will deploy their resources elsewhere and then one of the developers will come out with this thing called UniTheftAuto. This will soon become very popular but will be closed source. Then someone will write its clone and release it under an open source license and the new game will be called LinTheftAuto and will challenge Microsofts flagship games and the X-Box. Yeah, trust me. Thats exactly what happened to Multics

Almost excited

[agent dero]

I was reading through the blurb and thinking "alright schweet, they're open sourcing it!"

Guess not, but, I guess i'll be the one to say it, is this not a little excessive? I mean, we seem to going more and more to the direction of Rome and gladiators with the amount of outright violence that is considered entertainment.

When did we cross the threshhold to where beating a hooker was not enough? ;)

Re:Almost excited

[Erik Hollensbe]

I just don't get the "violent games are bad" argument.

Is anyone getting hurt? Perhaps they are hurting themselves buying better and faster computers and internet connections, but that's about it. I'd rather have my friends and family play violent video games than go to war anytime. I don't think I've seen anyone physically hurt playing violent video games, but I have seen people hurt gambling - yet that's more popular than video games by a large margin.

Please spare me the "0.001% of all video gamers dress in black trenchcoats and assualt high schools" argument, thanks.

PC Ports!

[Anonymous Coward]

I loved GTA3 and I loved GTA:VC. And I really do understand the many, many reasons to release the next one, San Andreas, on the PS2. But it should be released on the PC.

And this article is why.

Multi-theft Auto basically takes the GTA franchise "all the way." I wouldn't dare suggest that GTA:VC wasn't worth the purchase price, and the developers reasons for not finishing the multiplayer portions (they didn't think they could do it to their own satisfaction, or that of other gamers) are totally understandable.

But that's what mod communities and dedicated fan-bases are for. I loved GTA:VC and having that experience multiplayer is just exciting. I'm confident San Andreas will be fantastic, but it will never be the game GTA3 or GTA:VC have become, because there won't be a "rename the cars to their real names" mod, or a mod that adds new and interesting vehicles, or a mod that creates a multiplayer, or text files where the physics engine can be toyed with...

Yeah, I know, their target audience doesn't give two shakes for neat-o physics engines. But I am sure ten years from now, those things will allow GTA:VC to stand out as a classic while San Andreas stands as another "merely good" game.

Unless we get a PC port...!

Get a free computer. No joke.

Re:PC Ports!

[TomHandy]

I don't get it, are you making some sort of assumption that a PC version of San Andreas isn't coming out? Because I'm almost positive that Rockstar already said it will be (I believe something like May 2005, with the Xbox version do in March 2005). The only reason I can possibly understand your post would be if there was some reason to believe that a PC version was NEVER coming out.

Re:Questions

[crackshoe]

their site isn't slashdotted, and if you're not willing to spend tim ereading the blurb,why spend it writing questions (i know why, but hey, in a perfect world...) Multitheft auto lets you play GTA:3 and Vice city with multiplayer, so you have a server (which i think can run on linux) and clients. i believe you still need a full copy of whichever flavor of GTA you're using, though.

The GTA team is sleeping

[Anonymous Coward]

The Crips have been offering support for drive-bys for ages.

Dammit - I didn't know this was for a game!

[spineboy]

I started reading this thinking it was some sort of car anti-theft system, like Lo-Jack. When I got to the part about supporting firing from cars, I was kinda like uhhh, cool!? This is some kind of anti car-jacking device too. When I got to the part about "supports drive by shootings" I started thinking "All right, this manufacturer has gone a little overboard, and is gonna get sued or something"

And then reality kicked in.....Phew!

Re:Dammit - I didn't know this was for a game!

[Jerf]

There are car defense systems that support "firing from cars", though it isn't quite the same thing:

Flamethrower now an option on S. African cars (December 11, 1998):

Crime-obsessed South Africans have a powerful new weapon with which to stop likely criminals: the car flamethrower....

The Blaster squirts liquefied gas from a bottle in the automobile's trunk through two nozzles, located under the front doors. The gas is then ignited by an electric spark, with fiery consequences.

Note the source, CNN. This is not a joke. Apparently, at least as of 1998, neither was the crime level in South Africa. Lots of corrobation, including an IgNobel Peace Prize Award (truly an honor!).

Re:Calling in from Compton - YEAH!

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft Word to my mother?! Not on your life buddy!!! GNU software to you, your mother and everyone else on your block!

awsome. open sores for everyone.

Re:Questions

[Lord_Dweomer]

A)MultiTheftAuto is software that lets you play multiplayer GTA3 and GTAVC.

B)See A.

C)Not unless you saw it posted on a news site that covered the game...oh wait....

D)Its not down, and what makes you think they purchased a slashvertisement? This is a VERY grassroots project that unlocked the multiplayer code from the original games and turned them into something that EVERYBODY who played them wanted.

Stop being so negative in your comments when you don't really know anything about what your posting on.

Re:How 'bout those features!

[gl4ss]

those being all features that exist in vice city anyways it's not so shocking.

Re:c++ add ons

[paganizer]

Does anyone else who was alive from the Gerald Ford years or earlier see this as a really, really weird post?

What about just plain old *driving*?!

[timothy]

I don't want to assault any prostitutes. I don't want to run down taxi drivers. I'd prefer drugs be legal than remain so expensive by dint of law that people *kill* other people to get them (and the money they produce). If it weren't already true, it would seem a ludicrous contrivance ...

However, I enjoy driving. So could someone please make a mod which is just fun, even if dangerous in real life, driving about? :)

Oh, and make it run on Linux, too.

timothy

Re:What about just plain old *driving*?!

[JNighthawk]

Actually. There is a mod for Battlefield 1942 called Interstate 1982 (I believe). Guess what it is? That's right, just driving... mostly. You still have idiots that like to shoot each other, but it's all about the cars and driving.

Re:Why do we care?

[CodeMaster]

Because I have just noticed it (and have been playing GTA:VC for quite a while now...) and it really rocks!

Why can't we say kudos to something that is not completely OS and shareable and hackable etc... These guys did a great job, the game is rock solid, and the gameplay really rocks.

Kudos.

get a free ipod! This really works... Only 2 more GMail invites left!...

Re:How 'bout those features!

[burns210]

Features like planes, air vehicles in general, boats, 2-wheeled autos(motorcycles) and simlar features just make GTA the 'One True Engine'.

Wether you want to kill people, move up in the mob, or write a wholesome mod, these features make GTA's engine be able to scale from a third-person shooter, flight sim game, boat sim game, car race game..

GTA 4, or similar engine, will have the real world features that make it the most powerful engine out there. You will be limited by your imagination, not the game.

Now all we need is a game disk and map engine that can scale from 1 city, to an entire state... And have it be online based, where crossing county boarders is equal to crossing to another server... Fly a cesna from LA to NYC, if you want. Heck, make it use information off of mapquest, or similar, to stay updated if you want.

Re:why not an opensource game like that?

[imroy]

I know I would love to put together something like GTA:VC or MTA. I'm sure many others have as well. My problem is that I'm perhaps not as good a coder as I'd like to think, and I've never explored game programming before. But I have put a lot of thought into it the last year or two, and have come up with these resources:

• OGRE - an object-orientated graphics engine.
• Open Dynamics Engine - as used by the well-known stair and truck dismount games.
• DIE - a car game in the early stages of development. It uses the two previous libraries.
• Boost - C++ libraries. In particular, there is Boost.Python which allows good cooperation between C++ and Python. That could be useful for scripting the interactive behaviour of the various people, vehicles, weapons, and other devices.

As you say, the key would be in creating a flexible engine at the core. I imagine people adding new vehicles, tools, missions, and venues. I'm not sure what the "aim" of the game would be, but I'm sure people would create things to do. Here's my wishlist of improvements and other ideas:

• Climbing ability. I see lots of ladders around GTA:VC, but can't climb them. The ability to hang onto ledges like Tomb Raider would be useful as well.
• More detailed buildings. Most of the buildings in GTA:VC are just boxes. I'd like the ability to walk inside, use the stairs or elevators, find a sniping position on the balcony or window, etc.
• Focus less on violence. GTA:VC has been heavily criticised for its violence and sometimes even I find it a little too much. I'd like to see more focus on stunts and tricks, mischief, puzzle solving and just simple exploration. Perhaps make the police more likely to catch you when you do something "wrong".
• Different character classes. Perhaps not as detailed as a full-on role-playing game, but do have different types of characters with slightly different abilities. You need variety when multiple people are playing online.
• More interactive elements like light switches, garage doors, elevators, etc. Perhaps the player could obtain a garage door remote control and go around opening peoples garages.
• For the ultimate geek thrill, simulate several thousand artificial people! Get rid of the annoying "background" element of the cars and pedestrians in GTA:VC. Everyone has a house, they travel to work every morning and travel home every evening. Police and police cars actually patrol and have to travel to you instead of just appearing. Likewise with the heavier SWAT vans, police helicopter, and army trucks and tanks. Tourists travel in on planes to the airport, stay at hotels, travel around by day seeing the sights, and leave again by plane. Oh boy, lots of computation and memory and bandwidth! Perhaps a little too far-fetched for now.

Re:When's the terrorist edition coming out?

[One Childish N00b]

This is probably going to roast my karma beyond belief, but I feel a rant coming on - Sickens you? why? was the Russian school massacre started because of a computer game? no, it was started by Al Queda encouraging Chechen forces already angry because of the brutally unfair treatment of their country by the Russian army. (for your information, far more Chechens have been killed in raids and bombings of towns and cities by the Russians than Chechens have killed in terrorist attacks - the Russians have no moral high ground in that conflict. The school massacre was organized by Al Queda using the name of Chechnya to further their murderous intent - if any Chechen leader was involved at all it will be Shamil Basayev, he has a history of violent attacks and seiges in the name of Chechnya which have more bearing on the desires of muslim extremists than the Chechen people).

So tell me, where do you get off comparing a violent video game which millions around the world have played with no significant increase in violent crime encouraged by it to the decade-long 'slaughter of innocents' on both sides of a drawn-out and brutal war? I'm sorry, it doesn't compare. You are following the media bullshit line of saying video games encourage violent behaviour, only now you're comparing it to terrorism, whereas I refuse to believe video games encourage violence at all - I have been playing violent games since I was 8 years old, I'm also a huge fan of Industrial Metal music and action/horror movies. If the world was the way the media portrays it, I would be a mass murderer by now, yet the most illegal thing I'm likely to do is download as song I shouldn't from a P2P network. I and the millions of other people that play games like GTA without as much as a spot on their real-life criminal record are living proof that the 'violent games cause real-life violence' argument is a lie. Suffering and oppression cause violence, not games - I doubt many Chechens have ever heard of Grand Theft Auto, let alone played it, and if Klebold and Harris hadn't been mercilessly bullied by their peers they wouldn't have shot anyone, reguardless of how much Doom they played. Blaming games is a hideous way to direct blame away from the real culprits, those being the problems that lie in real-life society and not on a disc you insert into your PC from time to time, but when you start comparing it to the suffering of hundreds of Russian families and the oppression of many thousands of Chechens... it just doesn't compare.

I'm yet to see proof that games encourage violence, if anything they provide a vent for inherent violent urges within a person - if I'm mad, what's better? Virtual violence or a build-up of real-life anger? From a psychological point of view violent games provide an outlet, not encouragement. Oppression and extremism encourages massacre, not the latest Rockstar release. Look for yourself and stop relying on media scapegoating and you'll see it too, but instead I expect with the little you now know about me you will sit smugly expecting me to turn up on the news having killed a few dozen chilren because I wear dark clothes and like GTA, when this is clearly not going to happen, but I'm a lone voice against the force of mass media, what can I do? I can't convince you - but please don't trivialise the Chechen conflict by using it to show how 'terrible' violent games are.