Myriad Islands
Myriad Islands is a community map project that is planned to totally convert the entire map of San Andreas into a user-made paradise. It has entirely new land, some new cars and weapons, a completely fresh new mission script, and much more.
History
The project was first started by illspirit in 2003 for Vice City. The entire map of Vice City was replaced by two islands. People were allowed to request sections of land to build buildings on them. After a few years, two more islands were created north of this. When San Andreas for PC was released, the map from Vice City was converted to San Andreas. In 2006, another project similar to this called Grand Tani Islands was merged into the Myriad Islands project.
Construction
The islands are split into lots. Empty lots can be requested by players so they can model their own buildings on it. There are certain limits on what can be built on them, but the general rule is to be realistic. If lack of progress is shown, the lot can be revoked from the player. All GTA vehicles and weapons will eventually be replaced by custom models. Players can request a vehicle or weapon to replace and model a vehicle or weapon that should be better than the model that is being replaced.
Problems
Since the entire map is user-made, there can be some oddities that can visually look bad, as well as glitches that can crash the game on the VC engine. Most glitches should be traceable, but some are not. The islands are not entirely stable on the VC engine but the mod is very stable to play with it for hours on the SA engine.
XBox
Some people have managed to install Myriad Islands onto the XBox, most notably Opius. The team does not directly support this version since it is a lot harder to mod on the XBox than on the PC.
New unofficial version (2020)
GTAForums user pimann wanted to revive the project with a new name MyriadMarie. In December 2018, the version 0.95 was released on ModDB.com, but it was deleted from GTAForums by staff because it violates the Official Modification Forum Rules (judging by the new vehicle and ped models). In May 2020, the version 2.0 was released on ModDB.com - it has added missing lots to Grand Tani and Illnorth, and many new vehicles (including GTA V vehicles with their real-life names in the localization files). The new protagonist is a 13-year-old girl Marie. The player can switch from Marie to her friends by entering their homes.
