Welcome to XPL V presentation.
Disclaimer: All information present here is bound to be changed until release. Everything is currently in active development.
Who am I?
The XPL V team currently consists of two people. I, myself am the lead developer. I have over 10 years of professional development experience, a lot of which on related subjects and have been in one way or another been working on this server for most of that time. How, you may ask? Well, it started in San Andreas Multiplayer, a similar concept which existed back then, for which I’ve had three small servers, with moderate success.
The third of which was a completely custom one and the experience of having each of these has allowed me to get an idea of what worked and what didn’t. While some of that is not applicable to FiveM, in development terms, most of the ‘gameplay’ is. What made gameplay fun, remains mostly the same, although a great deal of it was somewhat lost as time went on and Roleplay became popular. The initial constraints of FiveM were limiting and helped shape what became the FiveM RP ways. Some of what was learnt back then, got lost due to technical limitations, or what was initially made common due to the reuse of existing frameworks.
I ported the documents from what should have been iteration fourth of SA-MP and built upon it when FiveM came out. Slowly but surely it grew into a complete plan, mostly well documented and specified. And from there development started. Since my time is limited, it has been slow, and it took a little longer than I’d like to hit the more meaningful roadblocks, which required complete direction changes. I am in no hurry to release this, but I realize it’s not easy as a solo project, for two main reasons. Motivation and time.
Regardless, I will not quit and will keep working on it. And that’s all I can currently promise.
Why?
So many servers to pick from, why not just join one and leave this be? The answer is simple, they are insufficient. There are many creative, fun servers out there but when I join I realize the common issues are still the same ones that existed back then. To enumerate a few:
- Lack of stability.
- Staff subjectivity leading to unfair scenarios.
- Cheating.
- Long queues.
- Lack of uniform feature set(probably derived from mixing and matching resources).
- Boring after a while as long term goals are inconsistent.
- Unstable economy(particularly when VIPs come into play).
- Management of ‘Anti-RP’ behaviors.
The common approach to solving most of these has been replicated over and over, but it seems that the problems just aren’t addressed methodically at their root causes. As such the current approaches seem unsatisfactory to me.
So, why would this server be different? Common sense taught us people who make big promises fail to deliver.
It is very true, big promises reduce the chances of delivery. And I can’t promise a delivery. That doesn’t depend on me alone, it depends on the possible community contribution and that’s what this post is about.
I see dozens and dozens of opening servers every day, people looking for developers, staff, ‘department heads’(whatever that is). Most will for sure fail. And yet there is always someone misplacing a lot of energy into these failing servers. Well, one thing I can promise. This won’t be a failing server. It will only ever be open to public if the players demand it. If it doesn’t meet that standard, it may as well fade into oblivion.
That approach is, rationally, why this server is different. I am not skipping steps, not making false promises, and being absolutely upfront. Big words are not enough though. The world is full of great speeches that attempt to manipulate your subsconscious into producing strong feelings that cloud your judgement. That’s not my purpose, and that’s not why I’m trying to grab your attention. I am trying to do so, to invite you to becoming part of something that I guarantee won’t be a waste of time, and in doing so I’m attempting to give a purpose to all the time I’ve put into this. It’s a win-win situation.
On top of that what is surely enough is the level of technical experience behind the specification and the amount of detail that was put into it. It’s the work of someone who has consistently built systems that are in production today in large companies. Will I prove it to you by placing it in here? Absolutely not, it’s far too valuable to me, and if it ever becomes public it’s after release(or as a condition to release if mandated by CFX) and never before it. If I lost your interest right here, well so be it. But remember, the loss may be two-sided.
Who are we looking for?
We are looking for everyone. We want you to bring up your motivation and interest. We don’t want anyone to follow us blindly though, but if you are interested you’ll be asking the questions. Some we’ll be able to answer, some we will not. Some we’ll just refuse to answer. We will try to be our best selves, and we will always have you, the community as our priority.
Your voice will keep us in the right direction and you will have a front seat in whatever this ends up being.
We also are in dire need of software developers, with preference for software engineers or architects with a couple years of professional experience. If you are from Portugal, dev or not that’s a great plus in this starting phase!
Also, it’s important to note that this will be a closed community, and every single one of you who wishes to join will have to go through a small chat with one of our team members, so that is the perfect time to ask your questions, make sure the interests of this community align with yours, and make sure this is something you want to commit to.
Money
Currently, this is not one of our goals. We have no intention of having VIP status or any other form of ‘in app purchases’. We do this because we are more concerned with the experience than we are with making money. This is a place for people who have a deep passion for this. If you’re looking for personal gain, this is not for you.
I’ve experienced both sides of the coin, and buying VIP sucks as much for who does it and who doesn’t. It makes the game unbalanced and ruins the feeling of achievement. Huge games still struggle with balancing in-app purchases and I have yet to see a game where they make the game better.
If we end up accepting donations, there will be no rewards(donations are exactly that, otherwise it’s a transaction). and both the donation income and their usage will be public for everyone to see. Currently we have no plans for this though.
When should we expect this?
This will depend on:
- Community interest.
- Ability to find trustworthy developers/mappers/etc…
- CitizenFX authorization.
In other words, there is no date, but your interest will surely be a major player in that.
Why bother?
Only you can answer that question.
Some of the differences
- Multi-Server architecture.
- Closed economy.
- No super-roles(ex: admins)
- Self-repairing.
- Full persistence.
- Partially fault tolerant.
- Fully localized
FAQ
PLACE YOUR QUESTIONS BELOW AND THEY WILL MAKE IT INTO THIS FAQ
Discord: XPL V - Public