Tinkering games one byte at a time.
We are a gaming community dedicated to research and development of sandbox experiences.
History of Meta Construct
Garry's Mod on Steam
Valve finally convinced Garry to put his mod into Steam. Although GMod 9 will continue to live on for another decade the defacto GMod is now 10.
November 28, 2006
The beginning of the journey
People come and go, the so called servers were mainly only build servers with various addons and no real community.
December 31, 2007
The big bang
A mysterious benefactor donates a shell account to host a GMod server. Suddenly, there was a potential for a persisting GMod server. This act of kindness has had long standing positive consequences ever since. Earliest records point to this year as the so called beginning.
January 1, 2008
CapsAdmin
Hosting his own server with already crazy lua, CapsAdmin joined the ride and brought with him some of his addons developed with other GMod old-timers. Lots of coding happened from this point onwards.
December 31, 2008
Meta Construct - the beginning
Until now the server had gone by various names until the server started to be referred to as Meta Construct, referring to the fact that the server was not only about building props, but building the tools for building. gm_construct_flatgrass_v5 became the home map for a very long time.
January 1, 2009
First code commits in a version controlled system - era of collaboration
Our master repositories, srvaddons and metastruct were started this year. srvaddons is our monorepo. Metastruct repository got lua NPCs and televators that year. Weapon seats were one of the first addons added to the monorepo. Nanite was the admin mod for the server and ENEZ was the former EPOE to view lua errors.
December 31, 2009
Development picks up
At least 9 developers are contributing code to srvaddons alone in 2010. 2010 had over a thousand commits in srvaddons.
January 1, 2010
Metastruct, but it has a map
The server shifts to the Metastruct map version 1 with a large lobby area with a waterfall. The map was built from ground up to really not be anything but a build with non build area for fun stuff, such as a bar and a theater.
January 2, 2010
Metastruct Map, version 2
Sometimes the old must go for the new to rise. The map was replaced with a new rewrite from ground, borrowing from Half-Life 2 example VMFs. The old lobby had a distinct familiarity with the starting level of HL2.
September 30, 2010
Meta Construct expands
A second server gets hosted by another benefactor! Cross server chatsounds were made and promptly rejected.
October 1, 2010
The Chatbox
The default GMod chat was not sufficient. A new Lua version was now mostly possible. It slowly gained all the functionality one would expect from a chat box. At one point there were over three selectable chat hud iterations alone. The chatbox was the most successful addon of meta appearing in tens of different servers, credits be damned. The latest version of the chatbox could be called EasyChat in 2020, rewritten to fix the copyright problems caused by tens of developers contributing to the codebase and legacy technical debt baggage.
May 14, 2011
The aowl admin mod
Previously called Nero before it landed on meta, not to be confused with Nanite.
August 23, 2011
ChatHUD but it is interactive
Who knew there would be such spamming of a blackhole tag command sucking all the text into it???
September 30, 2011
Webchat
Now you can get your chatsound spam fix on the go, by ukgamer and Python1320. Talk on all the servers at the same time.
January 23, 2012
More developers join
Tenri joins, a young minge who comes in and breaks stuff with hassle. Including the SVNs with huge binary blobs.
June 19, 2012
The second Garry visit
The real Garry joined a second time. His only words were: <Garry> You guys are crazy WTF
June 19, 2012
Garry's Mod 13
Meta Construct was one of the first servers to survive the Garry's Mod 13 tsunami by developing a backwards compatibility library that was then copied by other developers outside of meta to help their gamemodes function again.
October 22, 2012
The demoscene
Meta Construct expands to demoscenes by having lua-based demos in the lobby, the addon is called demoman.
October 22, 2012
Yet more developers join
PotcFdk joins the team by getting granted developer access by CapsAdmin's judgement, at 3am GMT "I even remember where I stood."
October 23, 2012
A third server
Another server hosted by Shell32 is added: "I can't remember how long it lasted (a few weeks?)."
December 31, 2012
More minigames
ZMod, the zombie bunker fighting experience, was a success. Another minigame by Freezebug is developed, called Tremble, where you play against others trying to reach the last falling plate on a grid.
May 13, 2013
Achievements
Badges and MetaWorks are added, since achievements are all the rage in gaming.
July 7, 2013
Another developer added to the team
Twist joins the team, being given developer rank by CapsAdmin.
November 1, 2013
Nearly 50 developers contributing!
Suchipi joins, no one notices for 5 months until PAC3 gets mystery updates. At the end of 2013 the srvaddons alone has over 7000 commits.
December 6, 2013
April Fools' Day Event
Achievement for having achievements, Python hired by Valve. No, the bluescreen crashes were not part of the day.
March 31, 2014
Another third server
Donated by the mysterious first benefactor mentioned earlier, soon to replace server #1 as the hardware has grown rather old.
March 31, 2014
Suchipi begins adding stuff to PAC3
Proxy sgn() function, custom animation part, animation editor tweaks, fov override, lions, tigers, bears, oh my!
April 9, 2014
Custom models experiment for PAC begins
Whole player models can now theoretically be used.
July 14, 2014
Server #1 takes last breath
After threats spanning years about decomissioning the server decomissions itself presumably through hard disk death. Thank you for all the fun!
July 17, 2014
Server #2 decommission confirmed
Server #2 will be disabled "soon". Are you following the server stories yet?
August 5, 2014
#BringBackCapsAdmin
CapsAdmin has left Metastruct, most want him back, a new movement has began. CapsAdmin thinks it is best he does not come back.
August 14, 2014
DDoS
DDoS is increasingly common. Someone hates Metastruct, please tweet us why. Some sources confirm meta has attained a legendary status on withstanding DDoS which is why stress testers are being used on it.
August 19, 2014
Metastruct Website Redesign
ukgamer redesigns the website based on some logo KeyLimePie sent him.
December 21, 2014
Month of resignations
The developer Lapin has left the building. PAC is to be blamed
December 22, 2014
Metastruct IRC Server
THE chat system. Hosted by Threekelvin, coded and managed by Techbot and PotcFdk. A channel is linked to relay messages to ingame of course. Discord is not a thing anyone knows yet and Skype is still popular, but at least MSN Messenger is gone.
January 11, 2015
Server #5 added
One server goes, another one surfaces. It's hard to keep up. Even a server in Japan was offered to meta, but the latency was .... challenging. The venture was cancelled although PAC was/is popular in Asia.
March 6, 2015
Goodbye, Server #2
It "wasn't worth the power it was consuming". It was definitely worth the try. Meta Construct fortunately and unfortunately does not generate revenue, only funs.
March 29, 2015
Metastruct Map, version 3
A new version of the map, nicknamed M3ta, is released around this time, featuring a completely redesigned lobby. Built by FailCake with help from Python, Twist, and some others. Later maintained by Python and Kabus. By 2020 onwards, Robro also provides map changes.
June 12, 2015
Outfitter, the PAC contender is made
Since workshop had thousands of playermodels, it made sense to have them usable. Although lightweight compared to PAC, the model loading causes serious strain on systems.
January 31, 2016
Metastruct Discord Server
March 29, 2016
New developers join
At least Swadical, Arena, Sera, Collision02, Earu and Datamats join the development team in 2017. Noiwex, who later ends up creating NxServ ( https://nxserv.gg/ ), is given a second chance with developer rights after being too rowdy the first time.
December 31, 2016
New server: Server #9 aka. #2
It was known as server #9 for a few days (thanks to Vienvanva) until renamed to #2.
May 5, 2017
2017 Departures
Noiwex, Collision02 and EgrOnWire leave the development team due to internal issues.
December 30, 2017
Administrative Votes
A new type of discussion is brought to the developer team to hopefully allow for faster and more concise decisions.
April 18, 2018
"Pixels", an in-game artboard!
Wicopee creates an artboard where players add pixels one-by-one to an in-game board!
June 25, 2018
GitLab migration
Although GitHub was already being used, GitLab was chosen as the new home for all the development repositories from Subversion.
August 31, 2018
2018 New Developers
Twentysix, Paul, Wicopee, Homonovus and Some_Beach join the development team. EgrOnWire leaves.
September 30, 2018
More minigames
Say !knife to play one of them. Blatantly copied from all other games that have a similar feature.
October 31, 2018
A Decade of Development
Meta Construct community and servers still running after a decade!
December 31, 2018
Mining 2.0
Twist revamps Mining with better rocks, ore drops, and a pickaxe upgrading system!
January 25, 2019
Chatsounds gets taken down
Surprisingly, not a copyright takedown of the largest soundboard ever, but instead reported for containing lots of bad words. The whole history is rewritten such that no bad words exist anymore and new submissions need to be checked.
December 31, 2019
2020 New Entries
Carl and Henke join the development team. The process is now more formalized to prevent amount of in-fighting experienced in the previous years by vetting people with more than just one person.
December 31, 2019
COVID-19
Starting in December 2019 and escalating rapidly in 2020, the giant global pandemic strikes Earth. Worldwide lockdowns means more people stay inside and play video games.
January 1, 2020
COVID-19: Episode 2
A very calm year for the Meta Construct servers as the world decides to mess itself up for the second year in a row.
January 1, 2021
Map Developer joins
Robro isn't made a full developer, but a map developer who can contribute to the map freely. He now maintains the Meta map alongside Python and Kabus.
January 27, 2021
MTA
Meta Theft Auto on server #3! Collect points and be the cRiMinAL you always wanted to be on meta.
July 14, 2021
The "Haaugh" Incident
The infamous five hour long event of localised chaos. Many people piled into the Meta Discord voice channel and sides were in orbit - mass hysteria ensued over the sights of a baby bird going haaugh, complete with chatsounds. You had to be there.
March 27, 2022