Mr. Green Gaming August 2023 - My review

[V4POR]

Introduction

Hi there!

It's been a long time since I've posted a topic on forums, especially about the state of MrGreen Gaming, but I think it's about time to write my opinions/suggestions again about several sections of this community (and share a bit of spotlight to the good ol' forums).

Sadly, Cena stopped making his ownership posts, as he's not the owner anymore, so I've decided to post this in a topic dedicated to my thoughts. 

Also, it's been 5 years since I've registrated on MrGreen (It's incredible how time flies), so that's my other (and smaller) reason to make this post. 

If you're not a fan of long texts and essays, then I have bad news for you again, because I've been writing this post for a few days, and it will be a long read.

Without any further ado, let's share my thoughts about the many aspects of the community.

 

Playerbase

Let's get through the unpleasant part, first. Green has been already suffering from losing playerbase since 2019. However, COVID-19 happened, and because the quarantines, players wandered back to the MTA servers, and the player count was increased drastically, and the servers felt like back in the old days. But as it was about to be over and COVID went more silent, players has been abandoned MTA again sadly, and Green's playerbase decreased back to 2019 state. Unfortunately, some Turkish players DDOS'd the servers in September 2021, and after that event, that's where I spotted a major dropdown at the already-not-so-big player count. There were only 3-5 players on each of MTA servers average on daily level.

This is not really the fault of MrGreen, as of since 2022, the whole playerbase of MTA has been decreasing as well, and even the MTA Racing Community (which includes players who play on other race servers) is barely active now.

However, since December 2022, the situation has became a bit better, as the online players count has increased. Not back to the 30-players-daily level, but it's still some nice achievement, especially after everyone thought Green is about to end. Even some old faces returned to the server, like sneezy, martin11, Brolius etc. So I can say that Mrgreen still holds up today, even if MTA is dying, but I will discuss the further details later.

As the players themselves. For exchange of player loss, I think the playerbase got actually better, since me and others don't have any issues with majority of the current active players. Yeah, there are some faces who cause troubles sometimes, but toxic players've been around since the birth of online gaming, and I think the percentage of them is low nowadays. The chat also seems friendlier now, I mean just compare it to some chat from 2018-2020. I'm also surprised that there're still active teams, even if the player count isn't the same as in old times. So at least I end this section with positive notes.

 

My old suggestions retrospective

https://forums.mrgreengaming.com/topic/21917-ownership-jan-2019-jun-2020/#comment-174080

Under Cena's post from back in 2020, I posted various suggestions about improving the servers.

Most of my suggestions weren't applied actually, I think they were too subjective (like custom emotes for example, also noone really misses music player except for me.)

But I still would happy if some of my points would be applied, such as extended top leaderboard of the map where you could have the ability to see ALL the toptimes from a map, not just the top30. Also, I would like to see all players on the Leaderboards (Race,NTS etc) who have 1 point at least.

I still agree that reroll item should be free, but as Nick_026 said, the economy system of Green is kinda broken already, so I can understand why it isn't.

But actually, my "stability/bug fixes" suggestion which was really important, has been applied at least, so this section also ends with a positive note.

 

Is Forums dead?

Well, the activity of forums weren't that high already back in 2018-2020, but at least there was something to read on a daily level. But as of 2023, the forums became inactive, and there are little to no new posts except Event posts, and a few reports (it's interesting that report section didn't migrate successfully to Discord).

The reason is not a mystery actually. The users are still active, just on another platform. MrGreen has a Discord server since 2016, and it's much more easy to use that for discussions. So people just use the Discord server if they want to communicate with other members from the community. Ofc, there are users who still visit the forums on a daily level, like Quad_Tube, but I find a bit sad that there isn't really anything new to read for them.

As  you noticed, the Chatbox has been removed for reasons I don't agree with. I can't deny that Discord has been much more relevant, but as I told, there're some users who still visit Forums, and don't use Discord. And chatbox was a nice feature for them to communicate, and overall it was part of the forums since 2006, the beginning of MrGreen.

Some new contents have been added to forums, like ranks and achievements. They make the forums more colourful and modern, but I haven't seen anyone talking about these features.

So what's the future of forums? 

I think it will be around still, but the activity won't increase as Discord has just replaced forums. It's still nice to have as an alternate and the homeplace of reports and long posts like I do (Discord has a character limit.)

 

HUD/Features

Some really good improvements here.

I think the new race rankboard HUD was already there when I commented under Cena's topic, but I still think that it looks awesome, and it's a HUGE improvement over the old one.

There was a period when timeout was a big issue, but thankfully it's also been fixed since then, and the connection is fine nowadays.

Also, you have 4 vote options for a while, another update I really appreciate.

Map costs has been lowered too, and I can't argue with that for obvious reasons.

However, maintaining a team is still expensive, so if you want to make a team, make sure it will have decent amount of members, and it will stay active. As there is a huge number of inactive teams. Talking about teams, I still think there should be more owners, because cases like the owner will become inactive or banned.

Stats board also shows if you play on keyboard, or on controller. And now, the whole server is controller supported as well! (You can vote with using controller for example.)

And a new leaderboard has also been implemented for events.

So thanks to Nick_026, the server still gets updates even in 2023, shoutout to him for making the server still playable in 2023 and for still adding updates/fixes.

 

Maps

The core element of the MTA servers.

As I always found the maps as important elements, I've decided to make a Map Manager application at the end of 2020, but Cena denied it sadly, because the map managers were already there, and staff thought there is no need for any.

From August 2021 to February 2023, the map management was simply non-existent. As the uploader itself stopped working, so admins couldn't upload new maps and couldn't remove any maps.

Thankfully, Nick_026 solved that issue as well, so a big amount of new maps have been added in 2023, thanks to the ability to upload the maps on Discord.

Hell, even me started to upload maps, but their reputation is varied, since kart isn't the most popular vehicle at all.

Back in 2020, majority of highly-disliked maps have been removed, and honestly, I still don't miss them, so it was definitely a good decision.

As for the final note, maps section is back and shining.

 

Discord

As I've mentioned, MrGreen has a Discord server for a while, and it features some nice contents.

One of the most useful features is that you can watch the live chat of both MTA, and even Minecraft servers. (And even send messages!)

Other than that, you can still chat with the community's active members, especially on the #offtopic chat. This channel is very active on a daily level, so if you haven't done it yet, I recommend you taking a visit at there.

There are also other MTA, Minecraft and Garry's Mod-related channels, and also channels about various games like Forza-franchise, Microsoft Flight Simulator,  Euro Truck Simulator etc, so you can just find what you like.

 

I think there should be more channels in the "Hydepark" section, about popular topics like Music, Cars, Computers, Movies etc, but as I can see, other Discord users don't have this issue.

Smaller notes, but there is also a channel dedicated to free games on Steam/GoG/Epic Games, and there are giveaways also, so the Discord server is definitely worth a visit.

 

Staff/Moderation system

Was a controversial section back then, will be a conversation section now.

After I've posted that suggestion about moderation/admin system under Cena's post, things didn't turn out great, as I've been in a constant disagreement with staff in various things, sometimes it even want as far as I felt I had to write a demote request.

I even got banned and muted a few times, because these conflicts. So it looked like my reputation towards the MrGreen Staff (and the whole server basically) is doomed. Probably that's the reason I haven't made a post about the state of MrGreen Gaming for a while.

After Cena's ownership post and the end of 2020, various staff members have became inactive, including Jack123, whose status is still being unknown today. But other admins&mods have stopped playing on the server as well while the player loss was happening. Between September 2021 and December 2022, there were barely any moderators and admins on the servers because of that. However, there was little need of them, as the chat looked empty most of the times, sadly.

But as of now, players like Mateoryt, Nick_026, Z3ITM4NN and koolaid are active on Race server usually, if there is any need. (however, it's pretty rare to mute and ban someone nowadays)

Mix server's population has been finally increased at the past few weeks, so Nick_026 decided to give moderator role for a few active members there.

Another change to mention is that because of the many sections of Green, certain members became Managers of different platforms/games. For example, ciken has been the Head of Minecraft for a while. So the whole Staff System seems more organized now.

The MTA reports on the forums are handled correctly, and the judgements overall are far more valid now than before.

There are no more exception-take with a few players, which was one of my main problems back then.

On Discord (especially on #offtopic), there's a small chaos (at least for me) about what's right and what's not in Staff's opinion, but this issue is much less significant than previous problems on MTA, and it doesn't really affect the mood of the chat most of the times. (Not to mention that offtopic has the same people for a while.)

 

Back to MTA. Another thing to mention is that even long-term controversial players get a new chance, and these players...have more-and-less success with that.

The 2020 me would be arguing now, but I think the moderation/administration got better overall.

 

Other servers

MrGreen isn't just known because MTA, this community is presenting themselves in other games, too.

 

After many years, the Minecraft server has been opened again back in November 2020.

In the beginning, lot of people have joined, and built stuff, sometimes activity even surpassed MTA, but sadly they have lost interest after a while.

Resetting the map helped to get some players back on track. This was going well, there were even some events, but unfortunately, they have lost interest again afterwhile. 

Even a modded Towny server has been opened, but it earned very little success, because it was only active on its first few days, despite being a server with lots of modifications

I don't know why these things have happened, but I think I have a guess. After you get every OP item on Minecraft and discovered every location around, you simply get bored of the game. As I can see today, Minecrafters are talking about tips to get the servers back on track, so the story is not over yet.

 

Garry's Mod Zombie Survival server is the part of MrGreen I'm the least familiar about. But it's sad to hear that the server is inactive, and it might be closed now, not sure about that. As I can see, Zombie Survival is an important piece of history of MrGreen as well.

 

I need to mention that a member called Sukkerpups opened a Valheim server back in 2021, but unfortunately, he closed the server after a few months for unknown reasons.

 

Z3ITM4NN and events

And I saved the best for last.

There were some events on MrGreen back then already (for example Double GC event), but they weren't really frequent.

 

Around 2022, Mateoryt decided to host an event called Polish Paradise Meeting. This tournament-like event is usually about playing 20 fun maps (NTS & CoreMarkers), and ofc the best 5 will get rewards. This event is only hosted once per 2-3 months, but for exchange, the player count is always high on these events (in one occasion, there were almost 60 players showing up!).

 

Moving forward to 2023. MrGreen doesn't have a Person of The Year award, but if there would be, Z3ITM4NN would definitely take that title.

His name is not unfamiliar for some, he already hosted events on other race servers before. Then he decided to return back to MTA, and host events on Green on a weekly(!) level.

The player count on these events varies, sadly there were only 14 players at the end of his recent one, but I really appreciate the effort he puts to the maps and his events. He literally makes like 5-20 maps for every event, which has been hosted every week(!) as I mentioned before, so huge shoutout to him. Hell, on the past weekend he hosted 2 events.

Hopefully more people will join his events in the future, because he definitely deserves it.

And he is a huge help to make MrGreen an active community in 2023.

 

Future of MrGreen?

Some people were already talking about this before, but as GTA 5 is still popular, I think a fiveM server would be very handy as a new server, because fiveM race servers...are kinda dull, so I think there is a demand for an unique race server like MrGreen.

However, it would take a lot of effort to develop and maintain a server like this, so this will only stay as an idea for a while.

 

Social media

I think there's been a search for a Social Media Manager in the past, but it seems like noone was interested. I actually think there needs to be one, because the YouTube channel and the Instagram page are inactive. I kinda like those compilations on YouTube, I would like someone to continue that series. Or maybe someone should upload Event Highlights etc., too.

 

Final Notes

I don't really know the fate of MTA, but after hearing rumours about SA:MP listing shutting down, I'm worrying a bit, but let's hope that MTA will stay for a long time, as it's still a good experience in 2023.

I actually think MTA is the game I've been playing for the longest time, and this server is a part of my entertainment since 2018, and it's great to have MrGreen even in 2023 as an active community. 

Let's see what the future holds.

 

Edited August 28, 2023 by Nick_026

[Z3ITM4NN]

My Weekly Events are only Possible thanks to Mateo introducing me and Nick working on every Minor thing i ask for or i have questions about so HUGE Shoutout to him making these possible aswell. Thanks for your Review.

[Nick_026]

Very interesting read! Thanks a lot for the shoutouts! 

As for a FiveM server, I did some research in the past and I'm still very interested in creating a FiveM server. However, unlike MTA the FiveM community is much more closed source if it comes to resources. So everything has to be made from scratch, literally everything. Any resources that are available are paid and are just badly programmed. I'm afraid I don't have the time or resources do develop that large of a project, especially since I'm starting work again in a few weeks. It is a real shame I agree, I wish it could've been different.

[J4cobLIVE]

54 minutes ago, Nick_026 said:

Very interesting read! Thanks a lot for the shoutouts! 

As for a FiveM server, I did some research in the past and I'm still very interested in creating a FiveM server. However, unlike MTA the FiveM community is much more closed source if it comes to resources. So everything has to be made from scratch, literally everything. Any resources that are available are paid and are just badly programmed. I'm afraid I don't have the time or resources do develop that large of a project, especially since I'm starting work again in a few weeks. It is a real shame I agree, I wish it could've been different.

Yup, but I think you need to think about that - MTA is old and its for almost any PC so players with lower-spec could still play it and enjoy time on the MTA server - while Five M you can't estimate the player base that will turn over eventually and if even so then players with medium-high spec at most.

Doing a RACE server on FiveM would be cool but idk if i would be able to join, just because i have GTA V copy on Epic Games so idk if FiveM works there actually - maybe it will be a success because some past MTA pros abandoned MTA for GTA V racing, so you could try that. However to have results you need to have interesting server concept there.

I'm also wondering if GTA Definitive Edition multiplayer that's appearantly coming up will be popular or not (talking about this one) 

Maybe you could port racing there and some players would play, but idk tbh - game's bugged and shit. But it seems there's some interest...

[Mateoryt]

Nice interview man but I cant agree on this in 100% :

 

''After Cena's ownership post and the end of 2020, various staff members have became inactive, including Jack123, whose status is still being unknown today. But other admins&mods have stopped playing on the server as well while the player loss was happening. Between September 2021 and December 2022, there were barely any moderators and admins on the servers because of that. However, there was little need of them, as the chat looked empty most of the times, sadly.''

 

I trying be on server when I had free time between this period ofc I had too small breaks from the game but when I saw low players on Mrgreen Race Server I came up with an idea on organize my first event here called now ''Polish Paradise Meeting'' and it was big success as you wrote in your review anyway thanks for accurate analysis what excatly happened by these years 

[F1MADKILLER]

If I recall Cena was the social media manager, but ye we do need one, I bring it to Lucker attention as it is a good idea to film the events like we did in past

[V4POR]

1 hour ago, Mateoryt said:

Nice interview man but I cant agree on this in 100% :

 

''After Cena's ownership post and the end of 2020, various staff members have became inactive, including Jack123, whose status is still being unknown today. But other admins&mods have stopped playing on the server as well while the player loss was happening. Between September 2021 and December 2022, there were barely any moderators and admins on the servers because of that. However, there was little need of them, as the chat looked empty most of the times, sadly.''

 

I trying be on server when I had free time between this period ofc I had too small breaks from the game but when I saw low players on Mrgreen Race Server I came up with an idea on organize my first event here called now ''Polish Paradise Meeting'' and it was big success as you wrote in your review anyway thanks for accurate analysis what excatly happened by these years 

I didn't deny that you were active back in 2022, because that's when you decided to start hosting Polish Paradise meeeting, if I'm right.

 

Edited August 28, 2023 by V4POR

[Nick_026]

1 hour ago, J4cobLIVE said:

Yup, but I think you need to think about that - MTA is old and its for almost any PC so players with lower-spec could still play it and enjoy time on the MTA server - while Five M you can't estimate the player base that will turn over eventually and if even so then players with medium-high spec at most.

Doing a RACE server on FiveM would be cool but idk if i would be able to join, just because i have GTA V copy on Epic Games so idk if FiveM works there actually - maybe it will be a success because some past MTA pros abandoned MTA for GTA V racing, so you could try that. However to have results you need to have interesting server concept there.

If you read my comment carefully you will read that a FiveM server is not happening. I wish it would, because it would be cool, since FiveM is lacking a proper MrGreen style racing server.

1 hour ago, J4cobLIVE said:

I'm also wondering if GTA Definitive Edition multiplayer that's appearantly coming up will be popular or not (talking about this one) 

Maybe you could port racing there and some players would play, but idk tbh - game's bugged and shit. But it seems there's some interest...

I haven't followed this project well enough to say something about it at this time. In any case I'll doubt they will be using the same or similar codebase as MTA. My initial suspicions are that our codebase will not be compatible with this multiplayer at all. So it would need a total redo, which I don't see happening any time soon.
Edit: They are using SA:MP as backbone, we do not support SA:MP and that will not happen due to a) codebase difference b) SA:MP is dead

I don't have the time nor resources to work on something major, so FiveM and this Definitive Multiplayer will not happen. 

Edited August 28, 2023 by Nick_026

[Moxing]

More markers for polish kids 

[Moxing]

You cant really fix the activity , low playerbase, racing community being dead and lack of new players is what you cant fix , you try nicely but vanilla players wont show up , they rather play ffs winter cup even tho ffs have race players deep in the ass 

Edited August 29, 2023 by Moxing

[suckarz]

I’d like to add a few words from myself.

I agree that Leaderboards could be a bit more expanded and detailed but the biggest issue I have with Leaderboards is that it counts points from already deleted maps, what obviously shouldn’t be a thing.

In my opinion lowering map costs is unhealthy for the server as some players keep spamming certain maps for weeks.

I’d also suggest toning down map uploading cause in that rate event/cw maps will soon be a half of total map pool and I find it a problem since Mr. Green was mainly about its specific maps which are going to be overshadowed by the new ones.  Don’t get me wrong – it’s not about
a quality of these maps, they are usually quite nice but I think we have already enough of them.

I naturally stand by V4POR’s opinion that we witnessed many improvements and problem’s solution such as new rank board, VIP’s functionalities, Leaderboards, 4 vote options, getting rid of time outs, fixing bugged spawns and probably few more. Events are also a great addition that attracts players even from outside Mr. Green community. Credits for all the people responsible for positive aspects – keep up the good work as much as you are able to.

I guess that’s it from me, thanks for reading.

[Nick_026]

On 8/29/2023 at 1:09 PM, suckarz said:

I agree that Leaderboards could be a bit more expanded and detailed but the biggest issue I have with Leaderboards is that it counts points from already deleted maps, what obviously shouldn’t be a thing.

I am aware that a few toptimes are in "limbo", linked to a map that is no longer in rotation. I believe this used to happen in the past when there was no proper system for deleting the maps. These days if a map gets deleted the toptimes gets deleted as well. If I have the time I could look into it to delete toptimes that are no longer linked to a map in rotation. No promises though, since I don't really think this has a high priority.

On 8/29/2023 at 1:09 PM, suckarz said:

In my opinion lowering map costs is unhealthy for the server as some players keep spamming certain maps for weeks.

I haven't really noticed a lot of "spam" maps these days comparing with the past. 

On 8/29/2023 at 1:09 PM, suckarz said:

I’d also suggest toning down map uploading cause in that rate event/cw maps will soon be a half of total map pool

Typical, boring clan war maps don't really get uploaded anymore. However, the event maps that get created these days are nice, especially the non-vanilla maps. Note that we currently have just over 3000 maps in rotation, so I personally think you're a bit exaggerating. Non event maps gets uploaded regulary as well.

Edited September 2, 2023 by Nick_026