We have a few important updates In this announcement, we'll cover the official launch of our forum and the latest updates and developments related to it.Also provide an overview of the changes and improvements made to the server. Finally, introduce the new players joining our team and share the latest changes to our roster.We're excited to share these updates with you and look forward to taking the next step together.
1. Server Updates
The Xenous deathmatch and race server, rebuilt from an empty folder. Nine rooms, one engine, and a UI drawn to spec instead of inherited. This is where it stands and what is still ahead
WHY START OVER
One engine instead of eight copies
The server Xenous has been running carries sixty resources, and the part that actually runs a round exists in it eight times over — once per room, copied byte for byte. Every bug had to be found once and fixed eight times, and in practice that meant it usually got fixed in one or two of them. Adding a room meant duplicating the whole thing again.
2.0 runs one round engine. A room is an entry in a configuration file that names its map pool, how a round is won, and which features are bolted on top. Adding a room is five lines, and a fix lands everywhere at once.
The old server has not been thrown away. It sits alongside the new one, switched off, and gets started by hand whenever we need to check how something really behaved — the clan war draft in particular is compiled, so the only way to read it is to run it.
RUNNING TODAY
What is already playable
Everything below is built, in the server, and working. A player can connect, pick a room, play a full round, vote on the next map and see their time on the board without a single console command.
Lobby | Pick a room from a wall of cards with live player counts. Hold F1 in game to come back out. |
|---|---|
Round engine | Loading, countdown, the race itself, the hunter, death by water or by choice, and the map vote at the end. |
Map voting | Ten candidates from the room's own pool, ten seconds, number keys to vote, F2 to fold the panel away. |
Top times | Per map and per room, kept in a database, with the flag of whoever set it. Opens on F5 and on every new map. |
Scoreboard | Hold TAB for every room on the server at once, grouped by category, with state, ping and FPS. |
Race HUD | Radar, round timer, speedometer with health and nitro, and the death list, all drawn to the design. |
Spectating | Die and you follow whoever is still alive, arrow keys to switch. The camera holds still when nobody is left. |
Car hide & fade | O hides every other car outright, F3 fades them as they get close. Both carried over from the old server. |
SCREENS
How it looks
The room picker, shown to every player on connect.
Spoiler — click to reveal
Held on TAB. Every room on the server, not just the one you are in.
Spoiler — click to reveal
THE ROOMS
Nine rooms, four doors
Rooms are grouped the way a player thinks about them. A category with one room is joined straight from its card; one with several opens a list. Capacity is set per category and enforced on the way in, so a card can never advertise room that is not there.
Category | Rooms | Slots |
|---|---|---|
Deathmatch | Deathmatch: Regular · Deathmatch: HDM | 256 |
Hunter | Hunter | 50 |
Training | Training | 256 |
Clanwars | Draft CW #1–#4 · WFF CW #1 | 256 |
Each room pulls from its own map pool by tag — [DM], [HDM], [Hunter], [WFF] — so a map lands in the right rooms by being named the way the community already names them. Dropping folders into the maps directory is all it takes; nothing has to be registered by hand.
UNDER THE HOOD
Three decisions worth knowing
Rooms genuinely run at the same time | Maps are built on each player's own machine rather than loaded into the shared world, which is what lets nine rooms play nine different maps at once without seeing each other. |
|---|---|
A map's files download once | The server sends a checksum list, the client asks only for what it is missing. A four megabyte track does not travel twice. |
Map scripts run in a sandbox | Custom map scripts get their own limited set of functions, so a map can do what maps do without reaching into the server. |
WHAT IS NEXT
The road from here
In rough order of what unlocks the most. Clan wars are the priority: they are what the server is for, and they are the last major system still living only in the old build.
IN PROGRESS Hunter and hard deathmatch tuning
Both rooms take maps of their own difficulty. Filling their pools and testing them is happening now.
NEXT Clan wars: teams, draft and points
Home and visitor sides, referee and admin roles, picking and banning maps from a pool, and a score that adds up across a war.
NEXT Player settings
Draw distance first, since it changes how far down a track you can read what is coming. Then the rest of what players expect to control.
PLANNED Ghosts
Record a run and race it back. Most useful in training, where the point is beating your own time.
PLANNED Importing the old records
The existing top times database is years of the community's history. It comes across rather than starting empty.
WHERE IT STANDS
Honestly, today
The server is playable from connect to leave, and has been tested that way repeatedly. What it is not yet is finished: clan wars run on the old build, there is no settings system, and a handful of development commands are still in place waiting to be removed before anyone outside the team plays on it.
Nothing in the list above is blocked or waiting on a decision. It is a matter of building it.
2. Forum Launch & Updates
The biggest batch yet. Xenous now has its own domain and its own email, you can see who's connected in our Discord straight from the forum, and staff got a full set of tools working behind the scenes.
LIVE
We Have Our Own Domain
The first update post said we didn't have one yet and that it could come later. It came:
The forum now lives at xenous-team.com. The old address still works and sends you here, so no link is broken.
Typing it with www in front lands in the same place.
The connection is secured automatically, so no browser warnings and no mixed signals about whether the site is trustworthy.
Spoiler — click to reveal
NEW
Email Confirmation & Password Recovery
Straight off the first roadmap — and the whole reason the domain mattered:
Forgot your password? There's now a recovery link on the login page. You get an email with a link to set a new one, and it works from any device, even if you're not logged in.
New accounts confirm their email. After signing up you get a confirmation email — one click and you're done.
Until an account is confirmed it can browse and log in normally, but can't create threads, reply, or use the chatbox. The confirmation email can be resent at any time.
Everything is sent from noreply@xenous-team.com — our own domain, properly authenticated, which is what keeps these emails out of spam folders.
Spoiler — click to reveal
NEW
See Who's Online in Discord
The Discord box on the home and forum pages no longer shows just a number — it shows the actual people:
Every connected member, with their avatar.
Their status — online, idle or do not disturb — with a coloured dot.
Their highest Discord role, written in that role's own colour.
The list updates on its own as people connect, disconnect or change status, and scrolls if there are more than fit.
Spoiler — click to reveal
NEW
Audit Log
A fourth tab in the admin panel that records every administrative action, so nothing happens silently:
Role and staff title changes, with an icon that tells promotions and demotions apart at a glance.
Bans and unbans.
Threads deleted, hidden, locked, pinned or moved by staff.
Usernames, emails and Discord links changed from the panel, plus leadership transfers.
Categories and sections created, edited or deleted.
Only actions on other people's content are recorded — editing or deleting your own post isn't an administrative action and doesn't clutter the log.
Spoiler — click to reveal
NEW
Hide Threads
Also from the first roadmap. Moderators and above, and the thread's own author, can now hide a thread instead of deleting it:
A hidden thread disappears everywhere — section listings, profiles, likes, replies and the chatbox — as if it had never been posted.
Staff and the author can still see it, and bring it back whenever they want. Nothing is lost.
Hiding and showing a thread over and over won't re-announce it in the chatbox, so it can't be used to push an old thread back to the top.
NEW
Smaller Additions
Profile hover cards — hover any username anywhere on the forum and a card appears with their avatar, role and stats, without leaving the page.
Emoji picker in the chatbox and in private messages.
Discord server box on the home and forum pages, with the server icon, how many are online and a Join button.
A new panel with three tabs next to the most liked users: the latest threads, the most liked of all time, and the most viewed of all time.
UPDATE
Fixes & Improvements
The banned role is finished and polished: a banned member sees a clear notice, keeps browsing with limited access instead of being thrown out blindly, and has a dedicated section to appeal.
Custom scrollbars across the whole site, matching the forum's colours — the chatbox was only the first one.
The icon next to every username is now the Xenous logo, tinted with that member's role colour. Same in the roles list.
The Like button moved next to the list of people who liked the post, where it belongs.
Topics & Posts is now split in two — new threads on one side, replies on the other — so a busy thread can't crowd everything else out. Each thread appears once instead of repeating.
The most liked users list is more compact and easier to read at a glance.
A warning with the recommended size when uploading a cover picture, so it doesn't come out stretched.
Sections and subsections now highlight properly when you hover them.
The login and sign-up buttons got an animation, and stopped overlapping each other.
A batch of responsive fixes for the admin panel and the mobile view.
Spoiler — click to reveal
ROADMAP
What's Coming Next
Nothing below is live yet, but this is what's actively planned:
Recognition & Community
Most liked posts by season, alongside the all-time ranking that just went live.
Monthly like competitions, with a counter and recognition for the winner.
Dedications — a way to dedicate a post to someone.
Moods, so you can show how you're feeling next to your name.
Forum Tools
Thread tags, to sort and find posts more easily.
Chat message deletion for moderators and above, plus optional small announcements in the chatbox.
"Add Former Member" button for moderators and above.
Account verification management in the admin panel, so staff can see and fix who's confirmed without touching anything else.
Changing your account email through a confirmation email, the same way password recovery works now.
Profiles
Profile view counts, and who visited you most recently.
Beyond the Forum
Showing up on Google when someone searches for Xenous MTA, instead of having to know the address already.
More from the MTA server — building on the player list and rooms already live, with more detail pulled straight from the server.
Format guides for Join Requests and reports, so nobody has to guess what to write.
Gallery and a dedicated Clan Wars page — both still early.
Special thanks to xen}AkroM for this amazing updates!
3. Roster Changes
Finally, we are pleased to introduce our new players, as well as the members who have successfully completed their trial periods and officially joined the roster.
TRIALS
We’re pleased to announce that several new Trials have officially joined our team;
xen}Haribo
xen}Maradox
xen}Sixiz
xen}Str3m
First of all, we would like to give everyone a warm welcome! We have no doubt that everyone will become a valuable part of the team, and we believe that everyone has already proven themselves. Wishing everyone the best of luck from now on!
For the other players, if you would like to join us, you can send a join request.
ROSTER CHANGES
We will now be announcing the players who have successfully completed the trial process after all their hard work and contributions;
xen}KLS - has been promoted to Member!
xen}Aeon - has been promoted to Member!
xen}KanyeWest - has been promoted to Member!
xen}Lolita - has been promoted to Member!
xen}PleXy - has been promoted to Member!
xen}SebastiaN - has been promoted to Member!
xen}xrandoMz - has been promoted to Member!
xen}ShaDe - has been promoted to Member!
xen}Memphis - has been promoted to Member!
We would like to thank each and every one of you for all your hard work and contributions to the team. With all of you, we are growing into an even bigger family.
LEADERSHIP CHANGES
Finally, as you all know, our team leader, xen}AkroM has stepped down from the leadership role for a while to take a break. As a result, xen}AkroM has moved to the Developers role to focus on areas such as our website and server, which are within their field of interest.
I would like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank xen}AkroM one last time for everything contributed to this team and for all the effort, support, and dedication shown throughout this journey.
From now on, you will see both xen}Flaky and me leading the team. On behalf of both of us, I promise that we will do everything in our power to take this team even further and achieve greater things together.
That's everything for now. If something looks off or breaks, let staff know, and if there's something you'd like to see, this is a good place to say so.
www.xenous-team.com · Xenous 2.0 · Development Update - Roster Changes NEWS #1
