We found yet another set of critical bugs that affect all recent versions of Multi Theft Auto (using the new game-monitor.com protocol instead of the now defunct All-Seeing Eye), caused by a developer's poor practice of coding in our server browser.

One bug involves a severely incorrect parsing method of the server list. In the worst case, this means that for a lot of our players, no servers (or only a few) show up at all. This depends on the actual server count registered by the master server list.

The second bug involves invalid bit arithmetic on the IP-address, effectively causing a completely random number of servers not to show up on the list. In practice this means that probably a lot of servers don't show up correctly for our players.

This issue has been fixed and will be incorporated in the next public release. We are very unhappy with this problem as it prevents a lot of first-time users from playing. We apologize for any inconvenience and strongly recommend people to use Game-Monitor.com for a reliable list of servers for now.

As part of our server move from Dallas, Texas in the United States to our custom hardware in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, we have also completed the migration of our IRC server to a new location. Our IRC server is part of the GTAnet IRC network and provides a discussion place for anyone who's interested in Multi Theft Auto, Grand Theft Auto or related subjects.

The actual IRC server details have not changed, so feel free to visit us in #mta at irc.multitheftauto.com .

We would like to give you a little information on what we have been doing on our next version in the last few weeks.

First of all, some changes have been made that significantly affect the performance of several subsystems. For instance, our 2D GUI system, 3D DirectX drawing functions and some entity code (e.g. blips) have been optimized in order to speed up the scripts that use these things.

Apart from this, our internal network code has also been given an overhaul in the hope of increasing stability and performance for both the client and server.

Internally, our code repository was cleaned up a bit (and is still in the process of being cleaned). Needless to say, this doesn't really affect the end-user since all the compiled code remains the same either way.

Several synchronisation bugs and in-game glitches regarding peds and vehicles have been fixed.

Our serial/community user system is being revised so that it will be more stable, which is necessary because of the bugs introduced in our previous versions, which, as you may know, was partially caused by a failure of the (third-party) system that we relied on.

Apart from the mandatory fixes and tweaks, some new features have been implemented. To find out which things are new, I recommend you to take a look at our Client Scripting Functions and Server Scripting Functions pages on our wiki, which are updated with new specifications as we implement stuff. An example of things you will be able to find on there are functions for: DirectX drawing, GTA effects, garages, camera manipulation, and more.

On a sidenote: as some already know, we have registered a new domain "mtaiv.com", who knows for what to come.

Also, be sure to check out our community center from time to time (especially for people running or wanting to run servers), as it hosts all sorts of game-modes, maps and scripts, and is updated by third-party script developers on a regular basis.

It's been a while since we really provided a "real" progress update, so we're taking the opportunity to tell everyone about what's been happening under the hood.

The last public beta proved to be very useful, and this has resulted in many new changes and fixes.

As always, a number of crashes have been fixed which should make DM feel more stable.  Vehicle interpolation has been tweaked which should make it more efficient, resulting in an increase in FPS.  There have also been other changes to areas such as the streamer, which also impact the overall FPS positively.  We're hoping that issues of FPS should be reduced for the next public beta.

Occurrences of "sliding" (a form of desync) have also been further reduced, which should also be evident in the next test.  One very notable fix worth mentioning is that players can finally shoot players who are inside vehicles.  This is something that was supposed to make DP1 but was removed at the last minute.  This has finally made it and is worth testing for the next public beta.

I'll mention again that if you haven't already, join our email list by visiting beta.mtasa.com or join follow us on our twitter page to be told when and where the test is happening.

EDIT: The test is over. Again, thanks to all of those that participated.

We're going to have a public test tonight (GMT) of the upcoming DP3 release. We'll be testing the numerous fixes and improvements made over the last month or so. DP3 contains fixes for over 300 issues since DP2. We'll be particularily focusing on shooting sync accuracy, both on foot and for drivebys.

Estimated time of test start:

Sometime between 19:00 and 21:00 UK Time
Sometime between 20:00 and 22:00 Western Europe Time
Sometime between 14:00 and 16:00 East coast US Time

As with our previous tests, join our email list by visiting beta.mtasa.com or join follow us on our twitter page to be told when and where the test is happening.