You need to default the server browser to world!

[scaramoosh]

The ManiaPlanet UI is a mess, it's the thing that is killing this game. However the thing that everyone does is looks at the server browser, then sees how there is no players, quits and uninstalls and wishes they never wasted their money. Watching GiantBomb do a Quick Look for Stadium http://www.giantbomb.com/videos/quick-l ... 2300-7090/ even Jeff does the same thing in Canyon where he doesn't notice it is set to US only and doesn't switch it to world.

If this game had millions of players, then it would be find to split people up into regions by default, however you need to default to world!

[TMarc]

Well, the UI ... apparent changes are always taken very subjectively
It is still under work somehow.

About your suggestion, this is a really great idea.
People should only set their region after seing the world at least once.
And then the game should store the favorite default setting: region, country, continent, or world.

But to make it perfect, there should be at least a small display on top or at the bottom,
telling how many players are actually online, and how many players are in games.

And if there are less than say 50 players online in your selection, it should switch (automatically or with request) to the next higher regional level with more players ( from town to region, or from region to country, etc.).

[magnetik]

We display your country if there are at least 3 servers running in this zone, if not we go upper in the hierarchy. We have choosen do not go to lower levels because there are not many servers available at the moment.
We think that it's more fun to play with people closer to you because they may speak the same language, play at the same hours etc.

The video was shooted during the very first hours of Trackmania² Stadium which explained the lack of server.

I will increase this limit to 7 servers for testing purpose.

[infarctus]

I don't think it's a good idea. I always loose time to set it up on "world", and it takes ages, i think we all do it and it is very very anoying

[magnetik]

Why do you need to set it to World ? You find always the server with the high number of players ?
You are looking for a particular server ?

[jonthekiller]

I think to save our default value is better. On TrackMania I think we can play on European servers without problems, on ShootMania, it depends of some parameters.

I go all the time on Europe to have the choice of the server.

[infarctus]

same here. I'll explain to you with more details.

When i play SM i go to Europe, when i play to TM i go to World.
When i am launching the game it is for playing a match or just have fun. When i play a match, it is never from my land (normandie)
When i play for fun, i just want to browse a bit to see how many ppl are around and which game modes can i play (i mean crowded game mode)
Online gaming is all about sharing with the most important number of players around the world. So...Filter region by default is useless imo, and never used.

It's a good thing to want ppl play with players from their town or land but...I play NADEO games since years and i just looked i my region (to see who plays the game there) only 1 or 2 times, and just becasue i was curious.

But when i launch an online game, it's not for playin with my neighbourg, but with the world. I think that's the "gamer" phylosophy, and what's magic with internet. Usualy, i launch my game, and the servers by default do NEVER have my interrest.

Maybe we could have choice to set it by "our" defaul value, becasue everyone is playing for his personal reasons, but i definitly think that my reasons are shared by many ppl here around.

Moreover, casual ppl may not see this filter, and will make an ugly faceto see only 3 servers after having paid 10 euros

[magnetik]

You have some good points here.

We removed the ability to save a filter for now, we may redo something like that soon (like a button "Save default" in the advanced filter window which is set title by title).

[infarctus]

Would simplby be perfect and the best choice

[Forgot10]

I totally agree with infarctus.