A couple questions about the 3 separate "expansions" for TM2

[Omnixor]

stadium is considered TM2 too, be more specific (canyon/valley)

[Romain42]

Even if people don't like it, my solution would still be to shut down the TMNF and ESWC master server and then you see how many people are willing to buy the new game or not. I bet a lot of people will.

The truth often hurts, but it’s so well said!

There's also the issue of Stadium. Nations Forever players will never move to Stadium en masse until it's free.

I believe they’ll do it, if tcq’s suggestion is applied. Maybe not all of them, but enough to keep TM2 alive for a while.

Tradition and fear vanishes when the choice is between playing TM2, or playing offline. Only remains the minimum requirements but oh, it’s Nadeo’s responsibility to not increase their requirements faster than the average PCs performances. "It's not even about the money". Making TM2S free could bring back fewer players than expected...

Except that, I agree with everything you wrote in this message. I hope Nadeo realizes how much you supported them and how such a diagnosis genuinely reveals a serious crisis, when it’s expressed by someone like you.

I hope they do something to get the desertion of this game fixed. If they don’t, the TM2 community itself is under death threat: links will become so stretched and players so strewn that everything will be to restart from scratch. I see it all days in the leagues community: teams become inactive one after the other. Some players are tired to wait for promises and leave, others lose their motivation when they lose their teammates, and most of those who stick there wait for the comeback of the good old days.

The faith in an enjoyable Trackmania future seems to have left most of us. What could bring it back? It's probably about trust and emotions as well...

Stadium has that special something, TM2 has not.

What is that “special something”? It looks supernatural and inexpressible, but it shouldn’t. Tradition? Fear?

The last environment must be less serious

I agree, back to the roots. But it shouldn’t be too extreme and become a junk game in which only lol-maps are possible. By the way, the wackiest environments were for sure the TMO ones, they aren’t called the “Mario-Kart” environments for nothing.

[Demented]

I see people all the time talk about how great Stadium is and was... and I agree. But, I also see people saying it's the best environment or that the other ones don't even compare or things like "Stadium has that special something, TM2 has not". I disagree.
I, for the most part, find all the environments good each in their own way. They do seem to get better in many ways with each new release. Many Stadium fanatics got the free version and played it a lot before ever trying the other environments. I purchased them all in order of release. Is this the reason Stadium is liked more by so many and I find it just as good? Maybe so. Do people find Stadium better because the didn't have to pay for it? Could be. It seems that people who have played them all from the beginning have a tendency to like most of the environments and might have a favorite or two while those who started with Stadium tend to only like Stadium.

[Alter-Fox]

I think you're on the right track (bwahahahaha) but I think part of it is also the mindset a lot of people have that "the first is always best". A lot of stadium fanatics somehow consider Nations to be the first trackmania even if they know that TMO and TMS came before it (and they were popular enough that Nadeo could afford to make Nations in the first place).
So it's a strange subversion of the "first is best" mindset, but from the people I've talked to it's definitely there. They come into Nations, and by the time they buy United, or Valley, or Stadium 2, or whatever, they already have the expectation that it will have "sequelitis" even if it actually came before Nations. And opinions like this are the most reliable kind of self-fulfilling prophecies because they're entirely subjective in the first place.

And speaking just about Stadium 2, there's also the fact that it practically calls itself a sequel to Stadium.

[Demented]

Well said Alter-Fox.

I actually loved the original TM (with Desert, Snow and Rally) because in part it was good but also because it was such a cool and new concept. I do feel though that every successive environment gets a bit better. Graphics, physics and the overall mechanics of the game play and editor systems. I think there are obvious things that need refined, cleaned up, re-implemented and so on in the current system but overall it's my opinion that it's still getting better. My only real disappointment is that I expected more in TM2 not less. (By that I mean Play Modes and Multi Env compatibility).

[D1visor]

Great post eyebo, i think the same. I remember when i play TM2 and there's just barely anyone playing so i stay in the editor and make screenshots of cars or make a video. If you wan't to keep the series alive you better change your bussines strategy.

[Alter-Fox]

At the hours when I actually want to play (and most other times I go online) I'm consistently finding many more active servers that I actually want to play on than I ever have in United. So I still haven't seen what you guys are talking about.

[isamu]

The reason the game is losing players fast, is lack of good steering wheel and pedal support, and no true force feedback. See this thread:

http://forum.maniaplanet.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=14591

[Omnixor]

The reason the game is losing players fast, is lack of good steering wheel and pedal support, and no true force feedback. See this thread:

http://forum.maniaplanet.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=14591

no, it's not the reason.

[edk]

If Nadeo did a "Humble Nadeo Bundle Weekly", then they'd make over a million dollars. That's after Humble takes it's cut and after the charity amount is subtracted. That's based on published precedent on amounts, not just some random guess.

Make TMO, TMS, TMU, and TM2S for the $1 minimum. Then make TM2C and SMS as the $6 BTA (beat the average to unlock). Just leave Valley out, I kind of feel that may be too much.

The one caveat being that Steam keys may need to be made for TMO and TMS.

That's not really an optimistic view on how much they'd make. That's more like a mid to low-tier amount. Humble Bundle is so popular their branding alone just about gaurantees this amount. I personally buy just about everything they do each week and regular bundle.

Compare that to the 10,000 copies that Valley sold at $20 each in 3 months. Just about garaunteed to make 5 times as much in a week. And talk about an influx of new players, wow. Would have somewhere in the neigborhood of 250,000 to 400,000 new players logging into Maniaplanet for TM2S and SMS.

Seems like a no-brainer to me.