Our next release, DP3 is almost ready! As this is a fairly large release we have decided to run a few public tests. We want you to help by participating in a mass test to determine how the sync and stability of DP3 holds up, as these are obviously critical areas for players. This public testing will be done with the "light" version of the client, which does not include the server, server module SDK, or the map editor.

For our initial test, we will ONLY test general gameplay, using a gamemode called "fmjdm". This gamemode was chosen for 3 reasons:
1) It has the same city-wide style of the most popular servers
2) It is the only gamemode of this style that is currently DP3 compatiable, due to scripting changes
3) Gamemodes of this type brought out some of the worst bugs in DP2.

The timeframe of this testing is not set in stone. The start and length of the testing depends on how quickly people show up and how well the testing goes.

The testing will be run on IRC at #mta-pubtest. See our section about IRC for information on how to use IRC.

Additionally, we have a mailing list to let you know when we are about to begin releasing files for testing on IRC. To join this list, sign up here: beta.mtasa.com . However, it will be required that you join #mta-pubtest during testing if you wish to participate.

If you use twitter you can also receieve updates on new beta tests, releases and witty insightful comments from our QA team by following our twitter page .

Edit by jhxp: The first test has ended! It's astonishing how fast our test channel started filling just after a few minutes since the publishing of this news post. We appreciate your willing to help us with testing, as we've managed to reproduce some issues which could occur on the server with bigger number of players only. While there were some other issues which we've had to deal with while the test, the opinions on this build were generally positive.

Edit 2 by Ransom: The second test has ended. This test occurred yesterday around the same time of the first test. The second test was identical to the first test explained above. We also tried out a few other scripts and gamemodes afterward just for fun. The response to this test was even greater than the first. We had around 75 players in the server at one point and around 115 people in IRC. We saw some nice progress since the last test with fixed crashes and other issues. Only a few major issues during general play arose again. Overall it was very acceptable game play - a massive sync improvement over DP2. There will be more test(s) to come. It is likely that one of these mass tests will be a precursor to the actual release. Thanks again for testing.

Note: When we are not testing, the IRC channel #mta-pubtest is closed with a join password activated. We will reopen it when we are ready for the next test. Once we are, we will announce it through the information channels mentioned above.

A small update for Multi Theft Auto: Deathmatch DP2 has been released that incorporates a new server browser provided by game-monitor.com and some minor tweaks to the account system and the installer. This upgrade has no other changes from DP2 except for these fixes. We strongly recommend all Deathmatch players download this update to restore the server browser to working order.

Server administrators do not need to update. This is a client-side only update, DP2.1 clients can connect to DP2 servers and vice versa.

Download Multi Theft Auto: Deathmatch DP2.1 here!

As always, please report any issue that were not in DP2 to us via the forum, IRC or the comments below.

In other news, DP3 is now having stress testing done on it, initial reports from our QA team are that the all-important 'sync' is further improved. DP3 also fixes 157 (and counting) bugs that have been reported to us. We've had a number of new developers join the team over the last couple of months that has provided a boost in our productivity. We've also finally got our new internal build system up and running that gives us a much better way of distributing builds for our QA team to test. We should have DP3 out pretty soon, baring any significant bugs being found in wider testing. 

Following the recent imminent shutdown of the All-Seeing Eye server browser, and the ongoing popularity of the Multi Theft Auto: San Andreas Race, we have decided to release an update to allow its players to continue playing, although we strongly recommend anyone to upgrade to the more recent Deathmatch releases due to their significantly extended functionality and active development.

The new release with version number v1.1.2 can be downloaded via the Race download page and contains the following notable changes:

• All-Seeing Eye server-browser has been removed in favour of a more reliable and faster replacement
• Removed redundant "MTA Center" references
• Removed support for built-in error reporter

We encourage people to provide us with any feedback or problems with the update (e.g. through our IRC channel).

The upcoming Developer Preview 3 release of Deathmatch will also include the server browser replacement among some other features and fixes and will be released shortly after.

Update: If you're having errors about missing d3dx9_33.dll, download it from here and extract it to your GTA directory. Alternatively, download the latest DirectX updates by using this installer.

As you may know, all our Multi Theft Auto versions up until now have relied on UDPSoft's All-Seeing Eye system to list game servers you can play on. UDPSoft were bought out by Yahoo! back in September 2004.

Today, the acquisition by Yahoo! has resulted in the unfortunate shutdown of the entire All-Seeing Eye network. As a result, the server browser functionality in all released Multi Theft Auto versions will no longer work.

We are currently working with Game-Monitor.com, a server listing website affiliated with Multi Theft Auto to integrate a new server browsing system. This will be incorporated into the next version of Multi Theft Auto: San Andreas which we will be releasing as soon as possible.

In the meantime, we would strongly recommend you to use the following link that lists the current servers queried by Game-Monitor.com:

http://www.game-monitor.com/search.php?game=mta

Hello, its been a while since the last update. You may have seen some of the bug fixes (a big thank you to those who reported them) or some small tidbits about dp3 by reading the forums. You may have also seen some of the changes and additions if you have been reading the wiki. Below, you can see a summary of what has been worked on for Developer Preview 3:

Most notable new scripting functions:
- Ped support
- Customizable handling for vehicles
- DirectX drawing
- Clientside money handling
- More pickup functions
- shutdown() function to close down the server
- More xml stuff (xmlNodeGetSubNodes and xmlNodeGetParent)

Most notable improvements and/or bug fixes:
- Heavy emphasis on fixing and improving shooting synchronization issues, as they have been revealed as a major issue by user-created resources. This includes a major change in the streamer.
- Carjacking issues leading to desync problems mentioned above.
- Sliding bugs directly linked to shooting sync mentioned above and sliding bugs that only affected animations.
- No shooting with uzis while crouched is fixed
- Scripting improvements on certain functions (most notably rewritten camera functions).
- Fixing issues discovered in MTAs default resources while using them with certain settings or under certain conditions.
- Continued work on the map editor resource is being done by its QA team developers. They hope to have it done for DP3.

Note: A daily changelog of developer work should resurface sometime after the release of DP3. This is a small list of some of the most major bug fixes for DP3. There are many more unmentioned fixes. The changelog is temporarily gone due to equipment upgrades on the machine that was used by developers to log build changes and automatically update the changelog on this site.

In order to ensure that releases are stable with a large amount of players, MTA is considering changing the mass testing policy from semi-public testing to public testing, in order to achieve the largest player counts possible. The QA team would ensure that the build has no major issues and conduct a public test, perhaps weekly. This action would lead to much more mass testing and more confidence in stability. In effect, it would pave the way for quicker releases. Watch for more news on this, coming soon.