[Craig Kostelecky]

I know I'm a day late with this, but it was one year ago that Demarest made this post - thus beginning the GTA:LC project. It amazing the things that have happened in the last year.

Here's some personal thanks to those who are mostly responsible for the project:

PineCreek-Skidz - This guy is pretty much completely responsible for the original GTA:WO files. He's the one that threw Vice City in the trash and brought Liberty City to life.

Demarest - If it weren't for Dem, I don't think this ever would have been started. I think it would have died with GTA:WO so long ago. It was Demarest that set up the idea that we should stay GTA3 authentic, and he started the open door team philosophy. I know I wouldn't have gotten involved if Demarest wasn't the original team leader.

killer.ip - Our original workhorse. He's the guy I've tried to live up to. This guy did more for the first beta release then anybody else I know. I wish he was still around because he's an expert on just about everything that I don't know. Together we'd make the perfect team.

ModelingMan - without this guy, I think we'd still have the Cubans ruling Saint Marks. Plus he's been a great help with keeping these forums under control.

Hammer83 - He's my coding go-to-guy. If there's a problem that I can't solve, Hammer's the first person I ask. He's the guy that got audio, garage doors, cutscenes, zones, the GTA3 HUD, and many other things working. I don't know where this project would be if it weren't for Hammer83. I'd also like to consider him a friend.

spaceeinstein - He's the king of the data files. I don't think there's a single notepad file that he hasn't modified. And he's been the guy who's kept me along the GTA3 authentic guidelines. I know I'm not as strict about staying GTA3 authentic as Demarest was, but with spaceeinstein poking me, we're not straying too far from GTA3 either.

PatrickW - I'm really glad Patrick decided to help us out. I remember browsing the coding forums wishing that we had a guy like Patrick helping us out with the coding. Then out of nowhere he comes in and says, "Here's the trains for you." I really hope when the trains are all finished you'll stick around and help us out with the LC code. In fact if you have the time, I've got quite a doozy that's hurting my brain right now.

jcab42 - He's my new mapping go-to-guy. If there's something that doesn't look right, I tell johnny cab. And now that Diamond Joe Quimby is helping out as well, I know we're going to get these mapping bugs fixed.

There's plenty more people to personally thank, but I've got to be at work in about 5 minutes. So I'll probably update this more when I get back.

Congratulations GTA:LC team. I love all you guys. And I don't regret any bit of the time that I've spent here in the last year. I wasn't going to have a social life anyway. We've been around for one full year. Let's hope it doesn't take us another year to finish.

This post has been edited by Craig Kostelecky on Thursday, Dec 13 2007, 04:29

[spaceeinstein]

It's great on how much volunteering was done to make this mod look very good.

[Mark Pagliaro]

Happy first team meambers and non team members this is just like a milestone but for more than 1 member it extends to all of those that help. A great gift would be the return of defected team members from Knux to Killer.ip but that is just high hopes. Some have felt like they have done all they could for the mod. Like I have at one time. I believe I have left 2 or 3 times now myself mostly due to vactioning or exams. (Like currently)

My special thanks go out to
Patrick W
Killer.ip

as these are two contributors I have gotten a chance to work along side with,

All other thanks to the rest of the team members.

[Cam]

Happy anniversary. Good to see where the mod is a year later.

[PatrickW]

Congratz and thanx to all the contributors to this mod. Sofar I've had a good time workin on this mod, especially with Mark and Craig.

Craig, I'll stick around as long as you can supply me "impossible" mission coding challenges. Just hit me, before your mind bursts ( either pm, msn or forum)

Here's an additional entry for the first post, this guy must have slipped your mind:

Craig Kostelecky - Team-Leader of this mod since Demarest decided that he couldn't dedicate the time that was needed to succeed. What makes him a good leader is the fact that he knows how to find the right person for the things he can't do himself. This guy is the one that gets the develments going, not in the least by doing most of it himself.

[yoman819]

Imagine another year from now.....

[ModelingMan]

I believe I started working with this team in April? Doesn't seem that long ago though. Anyway, I'd like to thank everyone who has contributed and still are contributing to this mod, especially:

Mark Pagliaro: For patching quite a handful of peds.
Hollower: For making it possible to put the peds in VC/LC.

Will there be another anniversary? [/big_question]

[jcab42]

Thanks for the mention Craig, cheers for not giving up on this thing. This mod means so many things to different people, it's so all-encompassing. I wonder what the future holds. LC for SA? What would you call that?

[Y_Less]

Well done people, i'm new to this mod, but I can see how much effort has gone into this.

I think it would be better if there WASN'T another aniversary, i.e. we get it completed in less that a year (but not at the expense of quality).

Alot of people wat to see LC/VC in SA so I think there will be a big push, and it may be easier to convert Liberty City and Vice City not GTA III, as then they're in the same format and any work can be done to both.

Anyway, well done again.

[Thesord]

Has it really been a year?
A lot of things hapened during this time which were only possible with the help of the dedicated team members!

[Monitor57]

i'l drink to this! all drinks are on me..

great work guys and yeah lol, lets hope it doesnt take another year to finish

congrats to all, and good luck




- M57

[Mealing]

personally i'd class it as finished even though there's no missions.
As long as there's no random crashes (which i've never come across) i'm happy

[tryptomine_sniper]

few days late, but I would also congradulate everyone who put all their time and effort into creating this simply amazing mod, though I did nothing, I am just now starting to get into moddeling, which in a sense, makes it even more understandabl how difficult and time-consuming something like this is..

@ The Team: Good job, lets hope to see the final here sometime in 2005, but not rushed so that quality is lost.

[GT-1]

GT-1 sneaks in

Yea im late just wanted to add a congratulations here also, long live Killer.ip

[Luke]

QUOTE (GT-1 @ Dec 18 2004, 11:55)

GT-1 sneaks in Yea im late just wanted to add a congratulations here also, long live Killer.ip

Killer.ip ruled, shame he left us - God knows what he's doing right now.

[Ben]

BUMP!
I know that I'm approximately one day and two-and-a-half hours early with this, but I'm not sure if I can get here tomorrow to post, and besides, it makes up for Craig being a day late last year !

It's interesting to read back through this topic and see that the majority of people posted things like:
"I can't believe how far we've come in a year", and
"Let's hope it doesn't take another year to get this complete". Well, we are still here after two years, and look at the progress we've made. I've followed the releases of the mod since early this year, although I only joined the forums in May, and I've witnessed a number of dramatic transformations throughout Liberty City. And, we are finally moving closer to a final version - I can actually see the light at the end of the tunnel now. For a while there, I was thinking that we'd never get finished...

People will always talk about what specific team members have done for this mod, especially Demarest originally and now Craig. No one doubts the amount of time and effort they have put in, the number of sacrifices they have made to get LC where it is today. But, we are also all aware that they can't do everything - that's why we have a team of people who specialise in certain areas.

So, I'd like to thank a few people who made some magnificant contributions over the past year (or at least since I've been here):
- Craig:
What can I say? Team leader, coding extraordinnaire, Mr Fixit. That's just some of his many traits. Thanks a lot, Craig
- Alex:
It's always hard to be compared to someone of Craig's stature, but I rate you equally. Forum mod, forum reshuffle, coding extraordinnaire, helper. Thanks Alex, you're a champion!
- Hammer83:
Although I don't know you very well Hammer, your contribution to this mod cannot be denied. Hell, I can actually play LC with my legit copy of VC now. Thanks,
- GTA_Thomas:
Although we had our differences originally, I think we've come such a long way since then and we respect each other (well, I certainly respect you a lot). You are proof that you don't have to be a modding extraordinnaire (my word of the day !) to contribute to this mod. Thanks
- Choofy:
My fellow countryman - you are to map modding/ped conversion as Craig is to coding. Is there anything you can't do? Not only that, but you've also managed to teach me (a n00b!) some basics about map modding. Thanks mate
And last but not least, everyone else who's made any sort of positive contribution to this mod over the past year (if I keep typing a list of individuals, I'll be here forever!). Actually, make that the entire LC team - past, present and even future members. We are forever in-debted to you. On behalf of everyone who has ever played GTA: Liberty City,

THANK YOU!

Oh, and to keep in with the current trend of this topic, let's hope it doesn't take us another year to finish this! Keep up the good work guys.

[Craig Kostelecky]

I can't believe how much this mod has consumed my life. Nearly every free moment I had over the last 2 years (I started in January of 04 and became the leader that summer) has been related to this mod. I can't tell you how many times I've played every mission now. And there's not a secret left in the GTA3 code that I haven't uncovered. Just check out the trivia topic in the GTA3 gameplay forum to see that.

Ben's list of names is good, but it's only the people that have helped out in the last few months. The majority of the work was done long ago by many other people.

First and formost, PineCreek-Skidz is the original creator of all of this. He was the one that got the GTA3 map into the VC engine. He was also around until the beta 1 package was released to help us work out many of the mapping bugs.

Next on the list would be killer.ip. This guy had his hands in nearly every kind of file. He was the first true leader of the mod.

Demarest was the guy who got this all started at GTAF. He was the one that had the idea of keeping this as a port of GTA3 without getting too fancy with changes that may turn off some other people. He also had a lot of pull (at the time) here at GTAF which led to us getting our own forum.

Hammer83 is the single most important member of the team in my opinion. Without his work, we would not have any audio, cutscene animations, several missions, proper water, garage doors, the GTA3 look, and many other things. Whenever anybody said anything couldn't be changed because it was hardcoded, Hammer found a way. I wasn't able to convert any missions from GTA3 until I saw how he did it. I've just been copying his style ever since.

spaceeinstein is another workhorse that we've had who I can't imagine being without. He's changed so many data files that I've completely lost count. I'm so glad that he's been willing to help us out over the years.

Knux is also a very important part of this mod. Especially in the beginning. He was one of the guys that worked on the infamous GTA:WO project. When that team fell apart and this one picked up the slack, he came over to help us out. The biggest part of his contribution to this mod would be the car conversions (with crazydude) and the original path conversion. Without his help, the city would be pretty bare with no cars or people on the streets.

ModelingMan was the first guy I promoted to led-by status. He was also our biggest ped converter. Those that have been around the entire time will always remember the joke about ModelingMan "boning" the fireman.

Mark Pagliaro is another guy who was helping out with a little of everything. What sticks out in my mind are the peds he converted and the train/subway models which we still use. There's also many little things that Mark did that I cannot possibly recall this long after they happened. Plus, I like his username. I like a guy who's not afraid to tell everybody who he is on the Internet.

[4D]Outback is another guy who did more than I can ever recall. When the time(s) came to move the city, he was right there leading the effort to put Liberty right where it should be.

jcab42, Gforce, and Diamond Joe Quimby were the guys I talked to whenever there was a mapping issue. And when they had the time, they were always willing to fix things. And the results of their work looked like it was done by Rockstar themselves.

DaEllum67 really helped me in the art of mission conversion. Before he did the Donald Love missions, I wasn't too sure on how to convert the missions. But after studying his approach, I was able to really figure out how to do it. Thanks go out to the other mission coders in the beginning: TbM2k, TwoZero, Samutz, sleeper777, and Thesord. These guys figured out how to do the missions. I just duplicated that process for the remaining 40 or so missions.

PatrickW: I knew you before Hot Coffeeâ„¢ turned the GTA world upside down. I'm surprised I wasn't harrassed as much as you were since my name was attached to that mod as well. I'm honored that you've played a small part in this mod's development.

Y_Less was my second led-by here. And it was certainly a good choice. When I was losing focus on the forums, Alex was there to keep things organized. Many of the things you're seeing in Ben right now were true with Y_Less when I promoted him. His attention to detail and his willingness to format all of the posts has really improved the look of this place. And I'm looking forward to seeing his car crusher code in action (if he helps me understand it )

Which brings me to Ben. He's shown every bit of the enthusiasm that Alex had back in the day and then some. With him watching the forums, I can relax and just work on the game (or just relax and slack off )

A few months ago, I felt like LC was dying a slow death. I wasn't motivated to do anything, and almost every other team member was doing something else. Then a guy by the name of Choofy came along and started finishing everybody else's work. With him doing the proper 2D-Fix, the ped models, the subway, building cols, and whatever else he hasn't told me about yet, I've felt motivated to keep up with him. I hope his drive lasts long enough to finish this thing off.

So many people have come and gone over these two years. And so many names have been made from this mod. When this started nobody heard of me, Hammer, ModelingMan, spaceeinstein, and many others. But now we have almost been imortalized because of what we've acomlished. And nearly every one of them is so humble that they'll always say it was the other guys' work that made the mod. I couldn't have done this without these guys.

[Hammer83]

Happy anniversary, everyone. Time flies fast, it's 2 years already and seems just like yesterday.

Along with everyone that was mentioned already, I'd like to add Spooky to the list of contributors to remember. He is not in the outro and not a lot of people associate him with LC, but it was actually him that made the launcher what it is today with this little suggestion. Most of the work I did wouldn't be possible without his, shall I say pioneering, work.

I won't list everyone here out of the fear of forgetting somebody, but I really need to write a special paragraph for Craig. You can write all you want about me being important, but you are the driver that keeps the LC machine rolling and improving. Sometimes I wonder off south and completely forget about LC for weeks, and there you appear keeping me in check and giving me a fresh dose of enthusiasm to keep going. And you give yourself far less credit than you should. More than half of the mission script (which is 3 MBs long!) is on your conscience, buddy, you can't deny that! Sure, at first you could have said that I just do it the way so and so does, but two years later there ought to be something of your own in there especially considering that none of us ex-mission coders touched the script significantly for a long while now (for which I feel really guilty btw ).

Finally, I'd like to thank everyone who had so many kind words for me. It always feels great when your work is appreciated. That's probably why I'm still here

Cheers!

[--Cole--]

Hey guys. 2 years...wow. I've only been here since the release of v5, I think. It really is amazing how much has been done. And it's interesting that since it's start, there's been this group of talented people that have left their mark on LC and then passed the torch to the next generation of modders every 6 months or so, and it's repeated to this day.

LC is the GTA counterstrike.

[GTAThomas]

i joined in October, and this was the forum i wanted to go to first
Happy aniversary continue your good work.