Thanks to Au{R}oN's determination and to the MTA team's consensus, GTA-Series.com is happy to offer an exclusive interview of sixteen questions and answers about what the multiplayer mod of the MTA team is and what it will be.

This is an exclusive interview given to GTA-Series.com, therefore we ask you to avoid partial or complete copying but you can pubblish/write down the link to this page. Thanks.

After reading the interview don't forget to scroll down to the bottom of the page to see new screens of MTA:SA Deathmatch.

• Question: Multi Theft Auto has continued to amaze us over the years, giving us unexpected surprises during its development. What should we expect, in terms of power, from the future version, compared it to its predecessor MTA:SA:R?
• Answer: Our new release, although originally labeled as "Deathmatch", will be powerful than anything you have seen us releasing in the past. We have spent several years now on the platform you may remember as "Blue", on which our last and current releases are based. We've extended this platform in a way that allows any third party developer to script their own games within GTA combined with a very powerful resources system that allows easy transfer of any files (such as custom models, textures, xml files, etc.) to any player on the server.
  
  In other words, as third party developer you'll now be able to create and play with your own gamemodes (e.g. changing any aspect of the game), utility scripts (e.g. communicating with SQL servers), custom models or any combination of these.

• Q: MTA's anticheat has been put to test by numerous cheaters ever since its first version in MTA:VC. In this new release, will we finally have a cleaner and more controlled game? And will there be the possibility to refresh the autocheat without having to release new versions of the mod?
• A: Our last release included a feature to refresh the anti-cheat support without (re-)installing anything. We will probably make use of this again.
  
  However, our focus isn't currently at the anti-cheat support so there's not much we can tell you about it right now.

• Q: You told us in your last news that MTA:SA's map editor will be recreated from scratch. How should we expect it to be? More professional? Simpler to use? Both?
• A: The map editor will be an open-source scripted editor, using our GUI and object manipulation functions. This way, we are hoping to get more support from scripters in the community. As with most open-source projects, the idea is that any developer can add any cool new features or bug fixes to the editor. This way we can keep the editor "closer" to the community.

• Q: Automatic aiming is a subject that has caused much discussion in San Andreas multiplayer groups. For some it should be kept, since it is a characteristic already found in the game; for others it should be eliminated because it's not "fairplay". How does MTA intend to proceed? Will it keep or eliminate this feature? Or better, will you leave it up to the administrators to decide?
• A: Although it's ultimately up to the players itself, we think that automatic aiming is not really fair in a multiplayer game. If you look at other games (such as Half-Life), you will see that auto-aiming is disabled by default, for that reason.

• Q: While we're in the discussion, we noticed in some of your screens and videos that there will be 'free' driveby even for the driver. Instead, the direct driveby, the one with automatic fire and aim will be part of the mod, or has it been eliminated?
• A: Automatic drive-by mode has been disabled. However, the "free" drive-by part of the game is entirely scripted, so it's up to the (server) user to customize the drive-by resource if needed.

• Q: MTA has always had, both in Vice City and in MTA:SA:R, a maximum number of 32 players. Do you think there will be the possibility to increase this number in your next version?
• A: We are expecting the maximum number of players to be way higher than that. Our public beta tests will show us.

• Q: Up to now, what has been the hardest part to program during this long period of creation, that hasn't been finalized yet?
• A: Our map-editor has gone through several redesigns and reimplementations as we thought it wasn't going to work out the way(s) we did it.

• Q: Was there anything that at first you wanted to create, but then you had to give up?
• A: Voice broadcasting was once added, but unfortunately not finished. Perhaps it will be finished some day.

• Q: You have created the race modality and you are going to release the "Deathmatch" version which will be customizable. Are there any projects regarding a possible "co-op" version, in other words, game missions with more than one player?
• A: That's up to our community. Anything is possible. For example, RPG scripters are currently trying to create RPG scripts for our next release.

• Q: Let's talk about technical limits. We have known that GTA:SA has several limitations (since it doesn't have a public source code) among which there is the maximum number of 254 active vehicles. With MTA is it possible to avoid this, or the programmers at gamemodes will have to limit themselves? And as far as objects are concerned, has the limit present in MTA:SA:R been increased?
• A: There are some limits in GTA we can bypass, and some we cannot bypass.
  The limits that can't be bypassed may require some creative workaround from the scripters. I'm sure there'll be a solution to most of these limits. Testing the object limits is something for public beta testing.

• Q: In general, what advantages will the release of SDK (Software Development Kit) bring to programmers?
• A: There are a lot of functions inside MTA that haven't been exported to script functions. In other words, a lot of functionality we (as MTA developers) have, are not scriptable. With an SDK, we will have developers creating new C/C++ DLLs that plug into MTA the way we are currently doing it, which means that a lot more functions and data will be accessible for developers. However, the SDK release is currently not planned as we think our resource system is powerful enough right now.

• Q: Synchronization will probably be one of MTA's major focal points. Are the weapons and animation perfectly implemented?
• A: It's hard to implement "perfect" things, but our weapons and animations synchronization comes pretty close.

• Q: Recently we saw that it will be possible to download personal models and textures through the Resources. Will it also be possible to substitute, for example, the player's model, or will this be limited to vehicles and textures?
• A: We are currently just working on vehicle and object replacements. The next step would be replacing player models, weapons, etcetera. However, that's probably something for the future.

• Q: In the future is there any possibility to see Blue applied to Vice City (even if it will obviously lose power)?
• A: We're currently not focusing on older versions of GTA, and I'm not sure if we will in the future now that GTA4 is coming. Perhaps some day.

• Q: In what way did the community (that has thousands of supporters) influence the development of your game?
• A: We care about input from our community. It's the input we use to adjust and tweak our application so we can please as many people as possible.

• Q: What are your future plans?
• A: Currently we're just looking to test and release our application. After that we'll be implementing all the stuff that was left out of this release and added to the Todo list for our next release.

• Q: I would like to thank you once again for the interview you granted us and compliment you on the great work you have done without asking anything in exchange. Is there anything you would like to add before we finish this interview?
• A: I hope everyone will enjoy our next release as much as we have enjoyed making (and testing) it. Thanks!

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