Trackmania² Stadium

[eyebo]

I feel like this has all happened before. I wasn't here the last time it happened, but it's my understanding that a number of players held back from getting TrackMania United when it was released at the end of 2006. Why? Because they already owned TMO and TMS, and they could play Stadium for free in TMN ESWC. They had all the environments of United already, albeit in separate games.

Did players fear that TrackMania United would hurt the communities that had developed around those other games? Quite possibly. Was the new dirt blocks and arena blocks in United enough to pull Stadium players away from TMN ESWC? I don't know. For a few, maybe. For others, they may have stayed with TMN until TMNF's release in 2008. Did most TMO and TMS players stay with those games or did they move to United? It's my understanding that mostly they moved to United. I'm sure there were many cries of "splitting the community" to be heard in those days.

But now we have the benefit of experience. We can look back and ask: Did TrackMania suffer in the long run because United was released? In my experience, it was quite the contrary. United went on to become one of the best TrackMania games Nadeo has made. The huge community in United over the years has experienced a wonderfully rich competitive side and year after year after year of diversity and innovation on the creative side. The longevity of the community is also truly staggering. There's players there that have been mainstays of the community for 5+ years. That says not only a lot about the community, but a lot about the game, that it's been able to hold their interest for so long.

Now it's happening again. We have a new game that for all intents and purposes is meant to replace the old one. Will players make the switch? We have an old game (a free one) and a new game (a paid one). The new one has more features and is really the future, just as United was all those years ago.

I think it's quite natural that a paid game will have less players than a free game. This only makes sense. But how many players do you really need? From a community and competitive perspective, you only need enough players for those aspects of the game to be vibrant. United had far less players than TMNF ever did, but it still had a vibrant and active community. TM2S can enjoy the same type of community in the long run.

People need to stop looking at numbers and trying to determine whether the game is successful or not. In the long run, the success of the game (from a community perspective) will not be measured in the number of players, but in the commitment and level of community interaction that players have.

Let's put it this way. Today is the first day in the future of the Stadium community. Those that have bought the game, are making tracks, hosting server, setting up competitions, etc... they are laying the groundwork for a new future. It may not look the same as TMNF did in its heyday, but it will not be any less interesting. I have faith in the tenacity and resourcefulness of the Stadium community to create this new future.

I understand there's other issues at play. But sometimes I think we can have this tunnel vision while we're in the moment. Some have a vision of TM2S having as many players as TMNF has amassed over the years. I think that ship has sailed. Will it ever have 10 million players? Quite unlikely. Will it have enough players to be fun? Definitely.

Don't forget that Stadium is now part of ManiaPlanet, along with Canyon and soon to be Valley. Once multi-environment servers are introduced again (and I do believe they're coming), Stadium will see a spike in players as Canyon and Valley players play more Stadium again. This will increase exposure of Stadium tracks for authors who upload to MX.

Let history be my judge. But I think everything will work out in the end. If Stadium players are positive and optimistic about their future in TM2S, other players will pick up on that optimism and want to check out the game themselves. The future starts with you.

[broric]

Well said Evebo

[TGYoshi]

Don't forget that Stadium is now part of ManiaPlanet, along with Canyon and soon to be Valley. Once multi-environment servers are introduced again (and I do believe they're coming), Stadium will see a spike in players as Canyon and Valley players play more Stadium again. This will increase exposure of Stadium tracks for authors who upload to MX.

This is exactly my concern.
I do not believe multi-environment servers are coming anytime soon.
Why? Because Maniaplanet is flawed at its core at the moment. It simply doesn't support multi-environment servers. Maybe Nadeo is doing some stuff behind the scenes to support it "somehow" but I severely doubt it.

As I've elaborated in my wall of text these flaws include but are not limited to multi-environment servers. Features like custom objects can not be used till their full potential as well, because of it.
It's just saddening to see Maniaplanet, filled with new amazing features I'd love to utilize, makes it impossible due to a flawed core.
These "invisible" features can severely improve the experience of TM2Stad, and as a result attract more players because of the bigger difference between TMNF and TM2Stad.

The idea of titles simply doesn't work well in my opinion.

[eyebo]

Let's say you're right, and multi-environment servers don't come for a few years.

Even without multi-environment servers, I still think there's a bright future for TM2S players. My point was that multi-environment servers would help get their tracks played more. But probably most TMNF players coming to TM2S don't immediately care about multi-environment servers in and of themselves anyway. They're used to playing a single environment.

[haenry]

I completely agree with TGYoshi.

Actually I just hope that he is completely wrong. And I hope Nadeo will work on the core to make multienvironment servers possible and also implement all the new features better than in custom titles.
Nowadays you need a custom title/pack for every single new custom object. That's soo stupid

[lewis]

it still has a lot of flaws and this is why people are so called "complaining" because they want to see Nadeo give the game the proper priority it deserves because they love and care about the game and they can see how much potential there is that still hasn't been explored.
It also makes sense to do that seeing as it is their most popular title and has been for many many years now.

Ty Frost
Everybody who's writing here has this purpose i think.

@eyebo: You're right about numbers (tm2s won't probably reach tmf peak) but we (Nadeo and ManiaPlanet community) have to attract somehow tmf players to switch to tm2

[Pedal]

Haven't been around much lately for various reasons. As many others i am very, to say the least, surprised by the approach from Nadeo for the release of TM2S.

The free beta has been out for some months now and has been available in a scaled down version for free. Without a Word Nadeo just removes this access and release the full version in a hurry. Not a single Word or warning to those who was playing the free version. This reminds me of the freezone

I am not saying the game should be free, i am saying a "heads-up" should have been raised beforehand for people to adapt.

I am dissapointed about the entire approach of the launch from Nadeo. Remember when they released the beta in February? They announced it to happen at 09:00, i guess i was many of thousands who where forced to wait without to after 15:00 in the afternoon...... disrespectful behaviour is what i call it.

And they now release the so called "full version" of the game without any fixes or patches other than restricting it from beeing played for free.

Let me also add that i have in the past as with TM2 bought and paid for the game, mainly to support Nadeo. So i am a paying customer.

Will be interesting to see how this will turn out for Nadeo and Trackmania. From my Point of view they will have a long and troublesome way to make this a success.

[Xymph]

Quite sad you can't check logins/rankings etc right now

Actually, one can for a year already. MetaStats allows you to look up info on logins and their rankings: http://forum.maniaplanet.com/viewtopic.php?f=465&t=9739
Currently just TM2C, but full MP support is almost done.

The updated MetaStats page with full ManiaPlanet support is now online.

[Cerovan]

We know that the Stadium release wasn't perfect and we'll work about these issues to avoid them for the next releases as much as possible.

As for the multi-environments server support, we told numerous times that's not an easy thing to do as in TMUF because the way to get the environments in ManiaPlanet is different from this compilation.

The game design of this feature is very complex to set-up and it could be even harder to implement it, so we can't tell you yet if or when we'll do it. I think everyone will prefer a feature which works instead of a feature which will prevent most of the players to play on a server (for example).

About TM2S, personnaly i don't expect to have the game as popular as TMNF on a very short timeframe for several reasons:

• It's a paid game, so it's natural that the transition will ask more time because there is a toll first before accessing to the game
• Most of all, it asks time to be built a community around a new game (because TM2S is a new game even if it's an improved remake). Games like LoL, Dota 2, Counter-Strike, etc asked years to be as successful as they are now today, it's not something that you can do in several weeks. Think it more like a marathon than a sprint

About the "apparent" drop of players in TM2C since the release, there is more players playing Stadium now than during the Beta. If there is less players on the servers, it's certainly because a good part of them are playing the solo campaign, you should see more players in the coming days

Of course we work to make our games as popular as possible but you're to take into account that it'll be not from one day to the next