[Suggestion] Don't make open.mp a "custom engine that you can mod"

[iReal Worlds]

Okay, I have read what you want, but what I can't find in your post is why. Why add this limitations to developers??

Because this is San Andreas and not Unity/Unreal Engine.

It isn't indeed. But MTA (since everyone seems to compare open.mp to MTA, although I consider this an apples to oranges comparison, as each project has a different goal and starting point) is not Unity/Unreal either.

In my opinion, people stuck with SA:MP because it was the first and it achieved a kind of snowball efect

MTA was released in 2009, which is around 2 years before SA:MP's boom effect. Also MTA:Race and MTA:Deathmatch were available from 2006.

Yes, but when one is new to this and wants to play San Andreas with a friend, one will almost always search for San Andreas Multiplayer. :)

By the way, it's not a good idea to tell people to use another mod if they want more features. EA (as in the big company) did this too with one of their games. They said if you don't like the game, don't buy it. Needless to say, it didn't end up well, especially for the one who said it :)

They didn't. They said if people don't like their business model they shouldn't buy the game. Completely different, however, equally wrong and counter productive in my opinion.

My mistake here, it is actually worse the way you said it. I personally think the final product should be reviwed independently from the people who created it.

This is also a problem that open.mp is going to face.

Why don't you just go to MTA already? It already has all the?features?you want. Why are you waiting for another mod to re-invent the wheel?

Because everyone I know plays samp and not MTA, because MTA is a niche mod, because all of my work towards developing a server until now would've been in vain, because MTA is, in my opinion, mostly used for stunt servers and the like, and not for roleplay, and roleplay is pretty much the only game mode I like (and develop). This isn't to say I don't like SA:MP. In my opinion, focusing on the API and everything that has to do with making the mod run smoothly should be the top priority, before any cosmetic changes. This should also be true for open.mp. But, when it reaches a stable state, with all major bugs, performance issues and security vulnerabilities fixed, I strongly consider that the focus should be shifted to giving the developers the ability to do more with the mod. The first step I think should be the ability to do every single thing the single player game does. (for example the health bar size). But afterwards, the addition of new functionality should be pursued.

There will also be servers that look nothing like San Andreas, hopefully to the point where you would not even know it's San Andreas. But noone makes you play on these servers if you don't agree with this.?

If that was a good business model, people would make their games like that out of the box. But it's not. I'll take MTA for an example, but when a person enters a server and is faced with a new interface of different designs every time, they will eventually get overwhelmed and just bail the mod itself if they don't like first few servers that they join.



Look at Minecraft, it achieved a huge popularity while servers kept true to their cores. Yes, there were minigames, yes there were custom recipes and such. But every server had blocks and?every UI was the same. No custom terrains, no custom blocks, no custom sounds... Servers adapted to what's available, and Minecraft wouldn't be what it is today if it wasn't for those limitations.

Yes, this could impact the image of the mod. But this impact can be tackled. My solution would be to greet new players with a list of the most popular servers on open.mp, when they open the custom launcher (which should be matured before any work on any of these features should begin). If a server is popular, it is almost impossible for it to damage the mod's image, as it wouldn't be popular if it was bad. If they still choose to join a server other than the "featured" ones, they are bound to have watched a video of it or to have been brought by a friend. so they'll be knowing what they're getting into. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this would be sufficient to cancel any damage to the mod's image that this feature could bring.