Hot Seat mode in Maniaplanet 4 (?)

[McGaussey]

Why do we have to keep entering our names, why is there a huge delay between changing players where we stare at a static screen for 30 seconds, why is the map selection so complicated?

I feel like I’m missing something and likely I’m too stupid to understand why this is so hard compared to the older version of Maniaplanet. I’ve bought all the Trackmania games from a Stadium onwards hoping that something would change. Please help if you can. Do I need to buy United star edition too?

[TMarc]

You want a simple game? Take Trackmania Turbo

You don't need to buy a special edition. But you need to select tracks, either original tracks, or downloaded tracks.
Look at tm-mania-exchange.com

At first look the menu is a bit complicated, but it is not.
And you can save your setup and load it next time.

[Miss]

I just tried, you can't select the campaign maps in hot seat for some reason. This whole UI really needs some QA work.

Edit: Also, after (manually) clicking "Next map" in the pause menu, I didn't have to enter any names again, so that seems to work fine. Not sure what the problem is there exactly. (Besides there being no special trigger to go to the next map automatically, but maybe I didn't play long enough.)

[Alinoa]

Hi McGaussey,

Maybe this message will give you some clarification for using the hotseat:

Hi Colosso,

Here is a quick help explaining hotseats functions.


Number 1: Here is the game script and the hotseat is selected by default. So don't change it.

Number 2: By clicking on script parameters, you can edit some parameters as the track time, warmu-up, etc.

Number 3: Here you can select maps that have been downloaded on your maniaplanet folder (C:\Users\YourUserName\Documents\ManiaPlanet\Maps) or tracks that you created from the editor

Number 4: By clicking on the load button, you can choose maps of the Canyon campaign. It will load all maps of a level (White, Green or Blue)

So to start a hotseat, steps of the number 1 and 2 are optional (you can leave the default parameters).
The main step is to choose your tracks ( by using your tracks or campaign tracks), then click on the button "next".
Then please choose the number of players and their name and click on "start game".

I hope this will help you out.

Cheers

[Miss]

It's a bit convoluted. Here's some feedback points for whoever works on this in the future:

1. "Script parameters" is not really a friendly term - why not "Game settings" instead?
2. While we're at it, don't show the entire path to the gamemode script, show the name instead (so, not "Modes/TrackMania/HotSeat", but "Hot Seat")
3. Actually, why not hide the script name entirely on that menu, seeing you're not even supposed to change it? Showing it just adds to the confusion.
4. "File" is a bad name for what's actually a "Playlist of maps". This also shouldn't be so big on the UI as it seems to be "very important" now with how big it is. Perhaps the Save button there should even have a "Save as" dialog (like in ManiaPlanet 3) instead of having to type in the filename in a text field above. (Why is that even a thing?)
5. "Choose track" should not just show custom and downloaded maps. It should show the official maps from the campaign as well. It should probably show that before showing the custom maps, even. Having the list of official Nadeo campaign maps first, with a button to the side where you can toggle between custom or official maps.

[McGaussey]

Edit: Also, after (manually) clicking "Next map" in the pause menu, I didn't have to enter any names again, so that seems to work fine

When you quit a set of tracks you need to re-enter names.

Hi McGaussey,

Maybe this message will give you some clarification for using the hotseat:

Hi Colosso,

Here is a quick help explaining hotseats functions.

Number 1: Here is the game script and the hotseat is selected by default. So don't change it.

Number 2: By clicking on script parameters, you can edit some parameters as the track time, warmu-up, etc.

Number 3: Here you can select maps that have been downloaded on your maniaplanet folder (C:\Users\YourUserName\Documents\ManiaPlanet\Maps) or tracks that you created from the editor

Number 4: By clicking on the load button, you can choose maps of the Canyon campaign. It will load all maps of a level (White, Green or Blue)

So to start a hotseat, steps of the number 1 and 2 are optional (you can leave the default parameters).
The main step is to choose your tracks ( by using your tracks or campaign tracks), then click on the button "next".
Then please choose the number of players and their name and click on "start game".

I hope this will help you out.

Cheers

Thanks. How do I stop the 30 second wait at the end of each race and change game type to Tries instead of time like the old version and save names ?

[Miss]

Just hit Enter, it'll skip the wait. Or on gamepad, I'm sure there's a button for it too.

[McGaussey]

Just hit Enter, it'll skip the wait. Or on gamepad, I'm sure there's a button for it too.

Yes, enter works, it looks like Y on an Xbox controller which is also reset during the game. I just tested again, my friends aren’t here at the moment, and you have to enter names every two races.

[Miss]

Oh, every 2 races, I did not test that. Might be a bug.

[raf2069]

I purchased this game recently and when I tried to do a few rounds on the Canyon Hot Seat mode, the game only allowed me to play 2 tracks before I have to re-enter the players names again.

This same issue happens on all the other versions too i.e. Stadium.

I cannot find anywhere to change the settings so that the tracks are continuous and I do not have to re-enter the player names after every 2 races.

Please help as this is very annoying.

I logged this with Ubisoft but, they advised the following:

We have looked into the situation you described and this appears to be an unknown bug. Please register on the ManiaPlanet forums and report it

Has anyone else come across this issue?