“Due to some attacks on our services, we’re now scaling back our operations. We will no longer be running an official forum or IRC channel. SA-MP client and server updates will be announced on this news page as they are made available.
Please remember that we are a small team and we are not professional game developers. Our only interest and objective is to make GTA:SA have a multiplayer option.
The master servers will remain online (hopefully for years to come).”
We catch up with Rockstar North for a brief talk about animation in GTAIV.
The Rockstar Games Social Club is now open for pre-registration. This is a members-only destination for leaderboards, statistics, tournaments, ongoing special competitions, virtual events and more for Rockstar titles beginning with the launch of Grand Theft Auto IV on April 29th. Register your membership now to set up your profile and ensure that you will be able to check your stats and participate on day one of game release.
Make sure you enter your birthdate during signup since by default it puts your birth year as 2008 and you can’t change it later. It also blocks your IP address for privacy reasons if you are under a certain age.
If you sign up before the 2008-04-29, you are over 18 and live in the United States, Germany, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Switzerland or the United Kingdom then you will automatically be entered to win a special once-in-a-lifetime prize for true GTA fans: your portrait custom drawn by Rockstar Games in the signature style of Grand Theft Auto IV’s illustrations. I wonder why Australia is excluded.
Thanks to OPM and raidenraider2006’s gtaforums.com post, we now have the list of GTA IV radio stations.
Australian Zoo magazine includes pictures of GTA IV running on XBOX 360 and a Sony Bravia TV. The HUD includes a radar/GPS and the circle around the radar displays the players health.
Thanks to Amunication from GTAForums for posting the scans.
Rockstar Games today announced the creation of Social Club, a website which will track progress of players in Grand Theft Auto IV and many other titles. The website’s features for Grand Theft Auto IV include:
LCPD Police Blotter
A virtual map and tracker of single-player criminal activity logged in Liberty City from the aggregated data of millions of connected players – showing the most dangerous areas of town, most commonly used weapons and more.
The Story Gang
This special single-player leaderboard recognizes players who complete Niko Bellic’s main story arc of Grand Theft Auto IV. The leaderboard ranks players according to the total amount of playing time it’s taken to complete the story, as well as a historical rank by who has completed it first. Members of this club will receive special online widgets and merit badges marking all of their in-game accomplishments.
The 100% Club
Watch to see who will be the first to complete 100% of the game. The first ten people to be identified on the Social Club as reaching 100% will be sent an ultra-rare commemorative ‘key to the city’ to mark their accomplishment. In the future, the 100% Club will then carry a historical leaderboard showing rankings of who has completed 100% of a game in the shortest span of playing hours.
The Hall of Fame
This area will dynamically recognize those singularly elite players who have reached the top of the hill on various statistical leaderboards, and will also contain a personal awards display of special in-game landmarks and successes in Social Club competitions.
The Liberty City Marathon
A ranking of special physical milestones achieved in the game – from the amount of miles walked, driven, or swam – to the number of bullets fired and stunt-jumps jumped. There will be additional special marathon-based competitions in the future from this area as well.
The latest issue of OXM (Official Xbox Magazine) contains a seven-page preview of Grand Theft Auto IV’s multiplayer modes. The preview contains a lot of new screenshots, several new pieces of artwork, and some interesting information. Here’s a summary of the new points covered:
via: gtagaming.com and gtaforums
gtaworld.nl posted some screens of GTA IV multiplayer but they were removed shortly after. Fortunately, gtagaming.com managed to mirror them in time. The screenshots show the cover system, customized characters and different coloured names above players heads that indicate which team they are on.
Hands on With GTA Multiplayer: City of Chaos