Save N Play · Uploader N Downloader · GTA Save File Hosting

About This Site

Around Febuary 2004, GTAForums veteran Demarest began offering to complete missions in the PC versions of GTA III and Vice City for users that were struggling to finish them themselves. This service was called Save N Play, and quickly became popular with not only people seeking help, but also people willing to help as well. I began helping as well, and after witnessing many requesters and helpers struggle with getting their saves uploaded onto free hosts, such as RapidShare and YouSendIt, I decided to attempt to make a file hosting site specifically for the purpose of hosting these GTA save files. The site became a huge hit due to its quick and easy method of uploading and downloading saves and auto-file-naming of saves for any slot that you want. There are no annoying ads, no registration required, and no illegible captchas (these are the images with letters and numbers in them that you have to type). With San Andreas' release for the PC, SA save file support was added and the site's popularity grew, not just with GTAForums but with other forums as well, and has continued to grow thanks to the GTAForums Chain Game events.

History Overview

Febuary 2005
  • Site officially launched on free hosting space provided by a friend.
  • Had extremely long urls, such as
    http://bluehydraro.hostnmore.com/samutz/
    savenplay.php?mode=download&id=fc57cf032c244f17ab43929d8896c944
    (hosting was free and I was unemployed, couldn't really complain)
June 2005
  • Support for San Andreas PC saves added.
January 2006
  • Registered samutz.com and bought new hosting plan from Dreamhost.
  • Moved site to http://www.samutz.com/snp.
  • URLs a little bit shorter (and easier to remember)
December 2006
  • Registered gtasnp.com.
  • URLs system completely re-written to allow much shorter URLs (the current).
June 2007
  • File handling re-written.
  • Site load speeds improve considerably.
  • Changed save expiriration from 7 days to 30 days.
  • Added feature that automatically converts SA saves to be compatible with v2 executables.
  • Added feature that displays the version of the executable that created the SA save file.
  • Added feature that displays the last mission for SA save files.
May 2008
  • Entire site completely re-written from scratch.
  • New visual design.
  • Added user options: Auto-Download Slot, Display Extra Info, Custom BBCode for SnP Helpers and Chain-Gamers
  • Options page also displays users' last 10 uploads.
  • Download page displays BBCode and HTML links to share the save.
  • Added more information to display from SA save files, such as progress, mission info, and info useful for chain-gamers.
  • Added feature that displays the last mission for GTA III and VC save files.
  • Added support for SA-PS2 save files.
  • Files now expire 30 days after their last download, rather than after they were uploaded.

Special Thanks

Demarest
Founder of Save N Play, but mostly a huge influence in my involvement with GTAForums and the GTA modding community.
I don't know the details of your banishment from GTAF, but it sucks that you aren't around anymore.

Wolf68k
For keeping SnP running after Demarest left. And for encouraging people to use the site when it was starting out.

LordKurgan
For letting me have a free hosting account, on which the site ran during it's first year.

Tobias382
My brother-in-law, who helped me with some tricky PHP problems in the site's early stages.

JAJ
For reporting bugs, making suggestions, and runnning Chain Game. The site's popularity owes quite a bit to Chain Game's popularity.

pdescobar
For finding out how to convert v1 saves to v2. The auto-conversion on this site is based on his converter program.

HerrieM
For reporting bugs, making suggestions, and helping test the auto-conversion feature for SA save files.

rubregg
For reporting bugs, making suggestions, helping find exe version IDs, and helping test the auto-conversion feature for SA save files.

hmvartak
For the information needed to get the cheat flag, times busted, times wasted, progress/completion percent, missions, and other information from SA save files. Several functions were based on the scripts he gave me.

OrionSR
For SA-PS2 save information and various other SA save info.

girishb
For reporting bugs and making suggestions.

And the awesome community at GTAForums.
And all of the SnP participants who use the site.

Auto-Conversion of SA Saves

Saves created by v2 files have a specific ID set in them that only v2 will load. So if you tried to load a v1 save in v2, it won't work. However, you can set the v2 ID into a v1 save to make it work.
The site automatically adds this ID to all save files since v1 ignores the ID. Only v2 cares about it.
For more information see this topic.
In short, the site currently automates what pdescobar's San Andreas ID Converter does. This saves the SnP participants a bit of time and hassle.
Site maintained and hosted by Samutz

samutzCom · GTAForums.com