NoPixel vs ONX
The Unfair GTARP Battle.
ONX and NoPixel are Grand Theft Auto V roleplay (RP) servers. These are places where players can play as a criminal; growing and selling drugs, robbing banks and street racing as well as much more. Police; chase and arrest criminals, charge them and appear in court when needed. Or you could just be a civilian and visit one of the many player-created businesses in the city of Los Santos. To put it simply it is a life simulator based within the world of GTA V.
ONX Roleplay
ONX RP was created and developed by a couple of developers who helped build the NoPixel server and community, GTAWiseGuy and DW. They left to create their own server starting from scratch. The ONX server has been live for around a week and the launch has gone well. The timing has helped as the NoPixel server has been taken offline in preparation for the fourth iteration, known as Nopixel 4.0, more on this later. While many streamers have already been playing on ONX from day one, the others that had nowhere to go jumped to ONX.
It is unfair to compare ONX to Nopixel. One is a new server and the other has been around for years. With that, ONX has great foundations, they have their bugs and some of the basics to work on. The turnaround on bug fixes has been quick and reliable, there is no doubt that the team working on ONX are talented artists and programmers.
The budget for ONX is relatively small, not allowing them to employ more developers, resulting in some bugs and lackluster UI. The UI for many people does not matter as long as the mechanics behind the UI work. Unfortunately, the UI in the inventory, or pockets in the RP world, is not reliable. 90% of the time the inventory works well, however, that 10% of the time is causing frustration and duplicating glitches. I would like to point out that even though there is an unintentional duplication glitch, players are not power gaming and throwing away the duplicated items.
The other main issue is the communication. Like NoPixel in the early days ONX uses mumble for their in-game voice communication. Mumble is a free low latency chat service. When first loading into the world of ONX some people experienced not being able to hear or talk to others. As mentioned before the developers are quick to fix these issues and it does seem like this has been fixed.
People who have been playing or watching roleplay for a while will have the nostalgia of the Arma 3 roleplay days. People have to actually roleplay on ONX, pretending a soda is a coffee for example.
Overall ONX is a refreshing breath of air and creates more laughs and unique experiences in the few days it has been out than the last few months in NoPixel 3.0.
NoPixel
NoPixel has been around for years and was created by Koil, a self-taught developer who likes modding. Not knowing the impact NoPixel would have on the roleplay world he created the GTA V NoPixel server. In the beginning, the UI was simple, the animations and texture were downgraded and the voice communications kept breaking. Having more bugs and glitches than ONX are currently going through, Koil and, at the time, the unpaid team persevered. Now the NoPixel server is the most desired and many have tried and failed to replicate it.
NoPixel’s success came from the server being focused on streamers, quickly kicking and banning stream snipers, anyone being racist and offensive, and generally anything that goes against Twitch’s terms of service. For me the steamer that brought NoPixel to the forefront was Lirik. Lirik is someone Koil watched and was inspired by. For many people, Lirik is the one that inspired streamers to start and in many ways was the face of Twitch, in my biased opinion.
Through Lirik playing on NoPixel it introduced thousands of people to streamers they had never heard of such as Buddha and AnthonyZ who are some of the biggest roleplay streamers in the world.
This popularity resulted in players and viewers wanting to support the server through donations allowing Koil to pay developers and offset the enormous costs of running a server. How roleplay servers make their money varies but with NoPixel it’s difficult to see where the money came from other than donations.
With 4.0 coming out on the 15th of December. Timed to coincide with the creators of GTA V, Rockstar’s event, partnering with Twitch to give subscriptions to GTA V streamers. There will be an overflow of viewers and streamers all wanting to be on the NoPixel server.
All we have to judge NoPixel 4.0 on is the trailer. It seems the NoPixel team has created a whole new game based on the GTA V world and engine. You have all the tools you need to create a truly immersive roleplay experience where you can focus on the story you want to tell. EMTs can treat the part of the body that is injured, criminals can chase down bank trucks and rob them and the police can now have an impact on the city and end criminals careers.
However, on the other side, coming so far from where GTA V roleplay started it can seem like there is nothing left to roleplay other than the player’s voice. Locking the roleplay into what the server provides instead of creating your world. It could be, and most likely is, the case that the NoPixel team have created a world without boundaries.
Comparing ONX to NoPixel 4.0 is like comparing apples to oranges. They’re both GTA V roleplay servers but they are different beasts. ONX has just started and is having teething problems. NoPixel has been around for years. They are way past the teething problems. Not to say there won’t be issues when 4.0 goes live but they have the team and resources to fix them quickly.
There is no need to focus on the drama and history of either server, it is all in the past. Both servers provide a fun place to meet new people and roleplay.
