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Details of the multiplayer capability and modes in GTA IV are starting to emerge. If you haven't
heard about it, I suggest reading the news at PlanetGTA.

It's now clear that the era of multiplayer mods for GTA is coming to a close. This will alter any
future development plans for SA-MP. Now is a great time for the team to assess where we're at and
where we are going.

We do still intend to release 0.2.5. Some screenshots, and perhaps a video, detailing the new
features will be released within the next week or so. However, 0.2.5 may be the last SA-MP release.

SA-MP managed to set several milestones during development. We were the first to get 100 players in
to an action/free-roam world during the SA-MP 0.1 beta testing. During the 0.2 beta testing, we
managed to double this limit to 200 players. The most popular SA-MP servers are usually full with
100-150 players every day. Each weekend, SA-MP peaks at just over 8000 concurrent players. We have
clocked over 6 million downloads. According to XFire, we have also helped to keep the PC version of
GTA: San Andreas close to, or within, the top 20 of all online PC games. Not to mention, we have
pulled this off without any assistance from the developers of the game.

There's no doubt in my mind that much of this success can be attributed to popularity of Grand
Theft Auto and the talented people of Rockstar Games.

We have designed a dedicated server system which gives the server owner unprecedented control over
the game-play. This is accomplished without having to supply any scripts to the client at runtime
or having the client download custom files. This turns out to be both convenient and secure. We
have proven that if you give the server owner enough control, and make it easy to design modes,
they will utilise these features. There are over 1000 scripts written for SA-MP - many of them
containing unique elements that haven't appeared in online games. Most of the approximately 2000
SA-MP dedicated servers that run every day have unique game modes designed specifically for that
server.

Assuming GTA IV does arrive for the PC, which we don't have any hint of yet, the multiplayer
experience will most likely be a lot different from what we've created. For instance, going by the
information provided so far: one of the players will be required to host the game, there will be a
maximum of 16 players, the hoster of the game will only have limited control of the game-play style.

In this case, I would like to ask the SA-MP community whether this project has grown beyond GTA:
San Andreas, and whether you'd like to see us continue this idea in another form. There are many
limitations to what we can do with San Andreas and, inevitably, the game itself will become
antiquated.

If you would like to express your thoughts on this, please do reply in this forum thread. Although
I'd ask that you express your own ideas only and not comment on other posts made.

I'll take this opportunity to express thanks to everyone who contributed to this project over the
past few years. I'd also like to thank the Multi Theft Auto team for proving it was technically
feasible to create a multiplayer modification using the information available within the GTA
modding community.

Thanks for reading.
Kye.
Lead developer/founder of SA-MP.

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