December

2006-12-25 – Happy Holidays!

The MTA team have released a Christmas themed San Andreas movie (35MB WMV). It shows some MTA:SA multiplayer gameplay and some powerful script features, like moving objects with the mouse. Their San Andreas deathmatch mod is still being developed, no release yet.

Here’s a gift from the DON_FAMILY, a guide to mastering GTA2 multiplayer. It gives advice on gameplay and contains tips, tactics and some information on undocumented features/glitches. If you have been playing GTA2 multiplayer for many years then you may already know most of it but it’s worth a read anyway. You should have played multiplayer at least a few times and be familiar with GTA2 or it will be hard to understand.
How_to_master_GTA2_multiplayer_by_DON_FAMILY.zip – 100KB contains a PDF file.

2006-12-23 – GTA2 Game Hunter server
edit: It’s working again but just for the future, if there is a problem, try a different server.

The default GH server (193.28.153.209 frosties.de.eu.gtanet.com) is broken. If it was down, GH would automatically try another server but unfortunately, it’s still accepting connections, it just doesn’t respond to commands.

You will have to go to Tools > Settings > IRC Server and choose another server in the list. They are all linked, so you will get the same chat and people.

2006-12-13 – Realtime World’s receives $31 million from New Enterprise Associates
Realtime World’s was created by David Jones’s (one of the creators of GTA and Lemmings). The company has received $31 million in venture capital from NEA. They plan to use this investment on Crackdown and All Points Bulletin (expected in 2007) and to create new gaming experiences for Xbox 360 and online PC games.
via: businessweek.com

2006-12-03 – SA-MP v0.2 Progress
Some progress information and a preview video for SA-MP v0.2 (multiplayer mod for the PC version of San Andreas) has been posted on the SA-MP blog.

Some of the improvements and new features:

  • Sniper Rifle and Rocket Launcher now synched.
  • Improved aiming accuracy of M4/AK47/Country Rifle etc.
  • "Friendly fire" option – to prevent team-kills.

SA-MP.com

2006-12-02 – GTA2 Game Hunter v1.476

  • Finally fixed the XP SP1 crash bug
  • You can now see the hostname of users who quit IRC

Download from the GTA2 page . It should be compatible with 1.475 and 1.462.
Please contact me, if you find any bugs.

2006-12-02 – DON_FAMILY GTA2 movie
GTA2 in-game movie with members of the DON_FAMILY (youtube.com)
Music: Fonzerelli – moonlight party
Programs used: Fraps, windows movie maker 2 + Creativity Fun Pack and of course Grand Theft Auto 2

March

2006-03-31 – CheatDevice 1.0 for GTA:LCS PSP
Edison Carter has updated his impressive LCS enhancement utility with the following new optional features:

  • Hover cars
  • Gather spell
  • Full size video recorder
  • Load outside staunton safehouse
  • Drivable RC toys
  • Your car is indestructible also prevents visible damage
  • Gangs no longer attack you

2006-03-27 – Vice City Multiplayer 0.1e open beta
VC-MP 0.1e beta has been released. It’s a deathmatch mod for Vice City.
More info here: VC-MP 0.1e

2006-03-22 – SA:MP new screenshots and video

gtanet.com – screenshots and video
www.SA-MP.com – San Andreas multiplayer site

2006-03-19 – MTA:SA Race 1.1.1 client and server released
Download: light.mtavc.com

2006-03-16 – MTA:SA Race 1.1 client released
A new version of MTA:SA Race is out . It’s a multiplayer race mod for San Andreas. Most important new feature is the option to respawn at any time.

2006-03-15 – MTA:SA Race 1.1 server released
"We’ve just released the server for race 1.1. You will not be able to play Race 1.1 till we release the client, tomorrow. We release the server before the client to give server providers time to get ready for the release – otherwise when we release the client you won’t have any servers to play on!" – eAi

2006-03-08 – MTA:SA status update
"Race 1.1 is looking good, we’ve just got a few issues left to fix and we want to do some more work on the anti-cheat system (which I’m sure most of our players will be pleased about), but its almost done. We actually think that the anti-cheat has worked pretty well so far in Race 1.0, so it can only get better!

I’ve done some work today on deathmatch that I can’t really discuss right yet, but deathmatch is looking pretty good. Once we’ve got race 1.1 out the door we’ll be able to concentrate on deathmatch much more and hopefully have some media to show you soon." – eAi
www.mtasa.com/blog

2006-03-05 – SA:MP status update
"So, what has been happening the past month? We have been fixing crashes and bugs (about 40 in all).

I tried my best to port as many of the Single Player features to SA-MP as possible. They include Pay ‘n Sprays, Ammunations, gambling, vending machines, buying food, and car mod shops (Car mod shops will probably will make it into the final cake). Some of the aspects are not fully synced, such as the animation of the clerks handing you food, but that’s going to be worked on." – Cam
www.SA-MP.com/blog.php

February

2006-02-28 – GTA: Rumble status update
"I’m on my 6th core now, after getting bored of the last one i aimed to make one with the capability of supporting peds + traffic, to add some originality to Rumble… afterall, its not as fun working on something that wouldn’t be used much when its finished." – Jax
www.gtarumble.co.uk

2006-02-25 – PSP LCS CheatDevice v0.9
Edison Carter has released CheatDevice v0.9 for LCS on PSP. This version has a construction mode and PSP firmware 2.6 users can finally use 333Mhz mode.

2006-02-23 – GTA2 Insane Stunt Course multiplayer
I added 2-6 multiplayer support to Holy_Jack’s and OXMOX’s old GTA2 Insane Stunt Course map. Download: isc.zip 19KB

2006-02-22 – MTA: Race 1.1 Beta 1
MTA blog update :
"MTA: Race 1.1 Beta 1 got released to our QA team yesterday. It had a few weird bugs with the "respawning on last checkpoint" feature, but those were fixed today. The voting nomination also has a bug I need to fix. Other than that it seems to work well, meaning you can expect a new release of Race pretty soon."

2006-02-06
A video showing some SA:MP game modes has been released. Download the video from the SA:MP media page.

2006-01-23 The MTA:SA R1.0 client has been released. Read the PlanetGTA.com MTA review . The main MTA site appears to be overloaded right now. You can download the client from thegtaplace.com .

2006-01-22 The server for MTA:SA has been released and according to their site , the client will be released tomorrow.

2006-01-19 The fix in 1.459 that made the game removed from list message only appear once, actually stopped games hosted with routers from being removed. So here is 1.4592 to fix it. GTA2 Game Hunter v1.4592 beta 251KB

  • Hosted games can now be password protected
  • Sound alerts can now be played if your name is mentioned or you receive a private message
  • Previously you had to wait for a sound to end before you could type, now sounds are played asynchronously so there is no delay.
  • "game has been removed from the list" will only be displayed once instead of twice
  • The create game button in GH is now disabled when you join a game
  • Removed CRC code since it wasn’t actually used for anything
  • If GH pinged someone at the same time you were changing the ping value in the settings an error was displayed
  • Removed the extra slash from "You have more than 100 .mmp files in \\data folder"
  • If your name was in use and the name GTA2Guy was in use, sometimes GH could get stuck in a loop asking you for a new name. It no longer asks for a new name and just gives you a random name.
  • Games with a host address larger than 50 characters were previously unjoinable. One too many nulls was being written to "UseConnectiond" registry key. This prevented GTA2 network screen from appearing when trying to join those games. It was a rare event. One ISP that I noticed trigger this problem had a host address like this "CPE000c00000000-CM00000000a000.cpe.net.cable.rogers.com".

2006-01-17 GTAT SA 0.3c has been released. "Here again an important update to make server and of course the client much more stable. The net code has been modified to be faster and more secure now." "I put also a small script with carshop in, but we still need help with our big community script."

2006-01-10 If you have a Polish, Russian or any version of GTA2 that has different text on the GTA2 network screen, please tell me what the text says.

These are the ones that I know "Network GTA2, GTA2 en réseau, Netzwerk GTA2, GTA2 en red, Rete GTA2". gtaT 0.3b has been released. It’s a multiplayer mod for SA and this version has fully rewritten netcode and should be more stable. The server has been updated to v0.3b.2 and is now much faster.

2006-01-03 A short video of GTAMultiplayer’s San Andreas mod was released on New Years Day. It’s 14MB WMV and shows off a driveby feature.

December

2005-12-25

2005-12-24
gtaT 0.3a has been released. It’s a multiplayer mod for SA and this version claims to be smoother and less buggy than previous releases.

2005-12-20
The GTAMultiplayer.com site has been updated and they have released their first multiplayer video.

2005-12-02
Another San Andreas multiplayer project has been released called GTA: Rumble. You can download it from www.gtarumble.co.uk

November

2005-11-14
Cerbera’s GTA2 MultiSlayer map has been updated to 4.5 beta 18.

2005-11-08
Some screenshots of the "MTA: Blue" interface have been posted on the MTA blog .

2005-11-04
DracoBlue has released a test version of gtat 0.2 (San Andreas multiplayer mod) – Dracoblue news page .
Cerbera has released an update to his GTA2 map: MultiSlayer 4.5 beta 14 . It adds two more tanks. You can read about the rest of the changes on projectcerbera.com .

October

2005-10-31
Some new screenshots of MTASA have been released. It’s looking great.

2005-10-25
A short movie showing the LCS PSP multiplayer modes and some descriptions were released on the official LCS site. I created a LCS page with just multiplayer info.

2005-10-22
T-Low updated his GTA2 map: Industrial Island v1.21. He fixed a hole in the map.

2005-10-17
Download my GTA2 script: teamtinytown0.5.zip 5KB
4, 5 and 6 player didn’t work in v0.3 because players were spawning on the same location. I added some more parked cars. The onscreen counters are redrawn after every frag now since if there is a time limit, the clock will clear the counter from the screen.

2005-10-16
I made an experimental team deathmatch type script for GTA2: teamtinytown0.3.zip
Select Team Tiny Town on the multiplayer screen to play this script. Player 1, 3, 5 are on Red team. Player 2, 4, 6 are on Blue team. If you want the game to end when a team gets 10 frags then make it a points game 99999999. If a player on your team dies by any means (cops, team kill, suicide or killed by other team) then the other team gets a frag/point.

2005-10-15
T-Low released v1.2 of Industrial Island . He used GMP optimizer this time, so the file size is smaller than his previous release. A few more powerups were added, map cleaned up a bit and a hole was removed.

2005-10-10
New GTA2 multiplayer map – Industrial Island . Supports 1-5 players. Looks good but weapons seem a bit hard to get and I couldn’t find any rocket launcher in the short time I played it.
For anyone making GTA2 maps, I recommend shrinking your map from 6MB to less than 1MB by using GMP Optimizer .

GTA2 Game Hunter v1.458 beta 251KB

Bugs fixes:

  • If there was more than 64KB of chat then the end of URLs was not being detected correctly and caused an error if you clicked on a URL. Fixed.
  • If you changed your country using the location box, the change would not take effect until you restarted GH. Now it takes effect as soon as you sign in.
  • GH no longer tries to copy a file from the exe pack over your current gta2.exe every time you start it. Now it only happens when you select a version. This stops the message "Close GTA2 before trying to change version. Error copying file: Permission denied" from being displayed, if GTA2 was running before you start GH.

Cosmetic changes:

  • Added the word "when" to one of the captions on the settings screen
  • Changed "GTA2 ver." to "GTA2 version" and lined up version combo box with the other buttons
  • Changed "GTA2Guy’s 47624 is closed" to "GTA2Guy’s port 47624 is closed"
  • Chat history text is now closer to chat box

GTA2 Game Hunter screenshot

2005-10-09
Some new videos of MTA: San Andreas have been released in the last few days. Read more on the MTA:SA blog .

2005-10-03
GTA2 Game Hunter v1.457 beta 249KB

  • Probing message removed and now GH only displays a message if a port is closed
  • Really fixed a bug that didn’t remove your game from the list

GTA2 Game Hunter 1.45 screenshot

GTA2 Game Hunter v1.456

  • GH checks port 47624 and 2300 on hosted games and reports if they’re open or closed
  • Fixed a bug that didn’t remove your game from other people’s lists until you closed GTA2
  • Window state/size settings are saved/loaded correctly again (loaded from wrong registry section in 1.45)
  • "Sign In" button is now the default button
  • Changed quit message to "signed out"
  • The server message "ERROR: closing link" is not actually an error, so it will now be displayed as "Closing link"
  • You can clear all chat window text by typing /clear

2005-10-01
GTA: LCS for PSP will have 6 player Ad-hoc (wireless LAN) multiplayer! IGN and the official site have more info.
GTATOURNAMENT v0.1c has been released (multiplayer mod for San Andreas).

September

2005-09-14
Another multiplayer mod for San Andreas is out. It’s called Online Andreas Reloaded 2.0 . You can’t kill in this version.

2005-09-13
GTA2 Game Hunter v1.45 beta 247KB

  • Notification event sound is selectable
  • Channel topic is now displayed on join
  • GH can optionally reconnect if disconnected
  • GH can be restored from systray with single click and systray icon flashing works again
  • When someone changes their name, their hosted game name is updated to the same name
  • An error is displayed if a host can’t be resolved to an IP address
  • If you try to use a reserved name, you are asked for a new name instead of a password
  • Router detection is back again (forgot to uncomment one line)
  • Fixed a "file not found" bug that could happen on Windows ME if a "\" was at the end of the folder name
  • A more helpful error message is displayed if you don’t have write access to registry
  • GH now saves settings for current Windows user instead of local machine
  • "Type here to chat…" is only displayed the first time you run GH
  • Changed "has closed a game" to "game has been removed from the list"
  • The menu divider line is now always the same length as the window

2005-09-11
VC:MP 0.1d and Liberty City Multiplayer 0.1d were released today.

2005-09-10
VC:MP 0.1c source code was released a few days ago. It’s a multiplayer mod for Vice City.

2005-09-02
Small 5 lap race map by Malachi. Download Mal’s Race from his site.
Check out Yakuza’s gta2movie.wmv 42MB. It shows off GTA2 multiplayer action, very cool and funny too.

August

2005-08-31
SanAn Scram v2.8 is out. It’s a multiplayer GTA2 race to see who can get to the most checkpoints points first. Download it from Pyro’s GTA2 site
MultiSlayer 4.5 beta 11 has been released. It is a large GTA2 multiplayer map using GTA1 textures.
VC:MP 0.1b was released a few days ago. It’s a multiplayer mod for Vice City.

2005-08-29
GTA2 Game Hunter v1.44 beta 239KB

  • Fixed a major bug: If you had a firewall/router blocking port 113, the login process would not complete. No error was displayed, so it appeared that no one was online, even if there were people online. The login process will complete now.
  • The Windows accessibility feature "Sticky keys" should now be disabled every time you run GH
  • Your GTA2 version is displayed below the "Sign Out" button
  • The GTA2 folder text box is now always disabled while signed in
  • GTA2 username, location and folder are now made grey when disabled

2005-08-25
GTA2 Game Hunter v1.439 beta

  • The GTA2 option "Show player names" is no longer forced on
  • If GTA2 is open, all player join messages in GH display "(-)" instead of an incorrect ping value
  • Changed the shortcut key for launching GTA2 Manager from "control + m" to "F8" because "control + m" triggers the enter key
  • Changed the shortcut key for creating a game to "control + g" because "control + c" is used for copying text

SanAn Scram v2.7 is out. It’s a multiplayer GTA2 race to see who can get to the most checkpoints points first. Download it from Pyro’s GTA2 site

2005-08-21
Tiny Town no arrow 18KB
This is Tiny Town but with the player arrows removed. Extract to GTA2\data and run "no_arrow_install.bat". Select "Tiny Town no arrow" map to play.

GTA2 Game Hunter v1.438 beta

  • Fixed a bug that prevented GTA2 from being launched, if you tried to join a game hosted by a player that no longer had the same name
  • Browse for folder dialog box is now resizable

GTA2 Game Hunter v1.437 beta

  • Now you are only set away if GTA2 has been running for 30 seconds
  • The game list is no longer disabled to avoid a bug that sometimes left it disabled
  • If a user quit at the same time as you were joining (before the country list had been built), GH would display an error because it was unable to remove a country from the list that didn’t exist yet. The error was "processing error: Invalid procedure call or argument". To solve it, GH now displays "-" next to every name until it fetches the actual country.

GTA2 Game Hunter v1.436 beta

  • Changed the black line under the menu to standard 3D style
  • Fixed a problem that displayed an incorrect ping value next to join messages, if GTA2 was open
  • Removed some debug code that forced GH to detect everyone as having a router

2005-08-20
GTA2 Game Hunter v1.435 beta

  • Fixed more bugs relating to away and games being left in the list
  • Messages relating to games should all be the same dark yellow colour now
  • [away] is added to the start of your name when GTA2 is running and removed when GTA2 is closed
  • Put "…" browse button in a picture box so it’s not changed by XP themes
  • Removed grey blob
  • Nick change and kick messages are displayed in green
  • Made the About box wider so the title fits in more themes
  • Help is now opened in your default text editor, instead of notepad
  • Changed chat box font back to fixedsys, so it matches the received messages/history font (it’s also what mIRC does)

2005-08-19
Pyro fixed the crash bug in GTA2 SanAn Scramble. It’s a multiplayer race for GTA2, using the San Andreas map from GTA1.

2005-08-09
GTA2 Game Hunter v1.431 beta

2005-08-08
GTA2 Game Hunter v1.43 beta