The Situation in ShootMania

[Florenzius]

I assume it's like 2 maniaplanet games then? It feels a bit like the concept of MP is backstabbed then, "uniting 3 games in one game". But we don't know anything about your plans regarding this 'problem' yet so I guess we should just wait for the result. I like that you want to revive SM and are still so positive about the game, that also gives me some hope.

[Soprah]

Reduce Shootmania's possibilities. Focus your resources.

- Map Editor
- 4-5 Modes (1 or 2 for esports, 2-3 casual)

No titlepacks and everything that it includes. I know it's a very harsh approach that 90% of you will not like. Implementing the "channels-system" was a great idea to focus the remaining resources. But in my opinion, it wasn't enough because Maniaplanet simply offers too much to canalise your resources on a certain thing by adding channels. So, these are the main reasons for my idea:

- Less possibilities means less devs that are necessary
- Less possibilities means less bugs
- Less possibilities means more players on one thing and thus a thriving & healthy playerbase
- Less possibilities means a more comfortable environment (no mess, no chaos, everything is clear and understandable)

Imagine you double click the Shootmania client and you see a welcoming screen with only a circle (that represents the planet) which is divided into two halfs: "Play" & "Create". And a nice background animation. You click on "play" and chose between ranked or casual. You join the queue and you play when the queue is over. You click on "create" and you immediately join the map editor. On the top right corner is a little buttom with personal/social stuff like changing username, chatting with friends etc. That's it!

Successful example of this approach mentioned above:

- Trackmania Nations (forever)
=> It offered 1/10 of what TM offers now. But it had 10000/1 players
=> It offered way less but it was easy to dive in
=> It had a cleaner interface because it offered less
etc.

I know that you dont like this idea

You dont like this solution because it removes all the wonderful gifts that were brought to us over the last years. Action maker, mesh editor, maniascript etc. But please think rationally/economically and don't let your emotions blind you. Think of a relationship. You like a person very much. Maybe even love. But he/she guided you on a path that harms you. Drugs, losing your job, social isolation. Then you have to let your feelings go and do a harsh but necessary approach. Get rid of her/him. For greater good

In the end

We can build up from this reduced SM version. If this game has gathered a nice and stable foundation of players, we can slowly add more stuff. Like adding a mesh editor to the map-editor. Or a more "open" map editor. I would like to emphasize on "adding slowly" because if you try to accelerate the process of growing a plant (too much water/sunlight/nutrition), then it dies.


I haven't studied game design or anything. I am not experienced as Nadeo or any other game developer. This solution is made up from my own experiences because I personally think that we spend too much time on unnecessary things while forgetting the important things in life. Having a simple life helps you on finding the right and valuable things you need to spend your time on. Less is more

Greetings,
Soprah

[TMarc]

I assume it's like 2 maniaplanet games then?

And what about the dedicated server? SHould they also be separated? I don't think this makes sense.
I would not split Maniaplanet apart, because the base engine is the same for Trackmania and Shootmania.
My assumption is that you could do it better with the account settings.
At the start of Maniaplanet you would chose if you want to play Trackmania or Shootmania, eventually save this decistion for the next start.
And then the main menu would only show tiles, news flah etc. according to the chosen game path.

Soprah, your suggestion just sounds like you want to have some kind of Shootmania like they did with Turbo for Trackmania?
For all those who want to play a "finished" game, it is fine.
But in the past years, lot of really nice stuff has been made, and if you remove the possibility of the custom titlepacks, the diversity and the possibility of choice will be gone.

Aside this, it is good to have eyebo and keeth as candidates for the top 5 bugs & features

[Miss]

- Trackmania Nations (forever)
=> It offered 1/10 of what TM offers now. But it had 10000/1 players

It was also free. So I don't think making a comparison like that is fair.

Soprah, your suggestion just sounds like you want to have some kind of Shootmania like they did with Turbo for Trackmania?

To be perfectly honest, I think Turbo is probably the best TrackMania game right now. Especially so for entry-level players. The interface is clear and consistent, it had a lot of QA due to it being a console release, etc. So yeah, maybe a "ShootMania Turbo" is a very good solution

[mine3]

To me, there are NO real problems. Its almost same game as 5 years ago, and there was no problems. Why we see problem?

[Miss]

The topic is "Situation in Shootmania". What is the situation? Is the game that much different than 5 years ago? I mean, I seem to play almost same game as 5 years ago.

To me, there are NO real problems. Its almost same game as 5 years ago, and there was no problems. Why we see problem?

Check the original thread that this thread was derived from here for some more context: viewtopic.php?f=10&t=45477

[Alexey85]

[...]There are no problems in TM Nations Forever. Even today, such a old game, has 20 pages servers full of people at 4am night. There are no problems there, you see?

The smallest player number game, SM, seems to have all kinds of problems 24/7, even a bug seems to be earth shattering problem.[...]

let me give you the summary the way i see it. i don't know much TMNF, i reckon it's not being updated very often if ever. if SM was left unchanged in a state before the MP4 update, people would be way happier than now. the problem is that not only important issues are left unresolved (bad ui/ux for example) but starting from MP4 the updates break things while adding little of value to the players. some of the stuff Nadeo fix relatively fast but they are also known for fixing things way too slow or never. so if the game gets bugs, you don't really know when and if they will be fixed. besides that, some of the current bugs are critical enough and seem to be obvious to notice which casts doubt if anyone at Nadeo has spent any time for even a surface test of the game before releasing the last update. the volatility of the game state being introduced by its own developers is what got to people eventually. at least that's how i understand it.

[mine3]

The game is almost same as 5 years ago. We are playing the same game. Nothing big or problematic has happened.

SM, with full scene is the solution that will end the problems.

[Alexey85]

[...]Even when its "abandoned game".[...]

you missed the part when i said people would be much happier without all the updates which SM got in the past two years or so. which means being abandoned would be better than what currently is happening.

[...]OMG. THE LOADING TIME IS 5 SECONDS LONGER![...]

there is a bug literally preventing people from playing until next map is loaded.

you choose to ignore what others have to say, invent arguments based on nothing and prefer to stick to an idea you made up even if it doesn't match reality. there is a more productive way to conduct yourself, i hope you find it some day.

[mine3]

The only thing in MP4 update that affected me was there was no players. Free players went to channels, or something else happened. Thats it. Otherwise -the gameplay- remained the same. The game has always remained almost the same from the beginning. Theres no problem in the game.