An open letter to Nadeo regarding the state of TM.

[Smigles]

Nadeo are still recovering from trying way too much with maniaplanet instead of just releasing TMU(2). Why do you think we still dont have half of the features of TMU or the ability to make multi enviroment servers?

What Nadeo released at first was nothing but a skelleton, and they are still trying to fill meat between those bones. It's what a greedy business decision and megalomania lead to.

I just hope that TM2 will be playable by the time that nobody is playing TMU any more. It's a shame that Nadeo is pissing all over the goodwill of the community that made the original Trackmania as big as it is today. It's even more of a shame that so many of us baught their crap. A total boycot would have been a wakeup call for them...

[oliverde8]

Nadeo are still recovering from trying way too much with maniaplanet instead of just releasing TMU(2). Why do you think we still dont have half of the features of TMU or the ability to make multi enviroment servers?

What Nadeo released at first was nothing but a skelleton, and they are still trying to fill meat between those bones. It's what a greedy business decision and megalomania lead to.

I won't argue about what you said, just about the greedy business decision par. Well I think they have thought more like developers then salesman. They thought let make something near perfect, let's make something in which we will be able to do nearly everything. So they created ManiaPlanet a system that is incredible and as you say it is a skelleton.
The down part of such development is time, it needs more time then just making something that can do specific tasks. There is a huge problem when you do such things, you are always trying to make it better; if you don't release one day you might find your self developing the same things for years. There is also the fact that they had to make some profit at one point.

I also think maniaplanet has a feeling of not being complete, it has to much rough edges but updates are coming and we don't pay more to get the updates which is nice. Maniaplanet came after TMUF which was fantastic so it is normal that it should take some time to get going. New server controllers are emerging and with them plenty of new stuff. The usage of maniascript by such server tools is increasing and making the game experience better every day.
Have you tried a server running ManiaControl, or eXpansion? In eXpansion for exemple; to scroll the map list you have a true scroll bar, widgets can be moved around one by one and they update immediately with nearly no lag. All this thanks to ManiaScript. It is details but in long term it will certainly make difference. And these things start to take shape 2,3 years after the game is realesed. There is so much new stuff it is hard at first to see.
*
I remember when TMU came out(not TMUF) it wasn't fantastic either but then there was the TMUF update and more people bought the game and it become what it is.

I think a lot of people have forgotten that a game is first for fun, not competition, not making maps that are the best. I have seen this with some people I used to play with. They are so serious about ther new competitions, I am there "hey guys can we play something else?" and no 100 times same map every day and I don't see them having fun (maybe they do). But we use to play really bad maps and I always sucked and we use to lough, now I don't visit them on the server anymore.

It has been quite a text, XD

(*)It is very easy to see what is missing but harder to see what is new. (Nadeo very ofthen isn't clear about the new things they introduce)
(**)I think that that at Nadeo they really had a lot of courage to built such a sytem

[Alter-Fox]

Even TMU (not TMUF) was three or four years in the making, since it was just a combination of all of Trackmania up to that point.

[Smigles]

Ok maybe greedy was the wrong word. They just did not think it trough and obviously had no idea how much work it will be till they have done all they planned.

At least I hope that is the case. A bad voice in my head still says that they knew and just did not tell the community and hope that enugh of the community will remain once they are done...

[bobbotheclown]

part of the problem is maniaplanet, as it is, is an nothing but an inconvenience to the games.

it literally only makes the games loadup time extremely longer in the state its in. if i click trackmania2 valley, i dont want to see all the options i have because i clicked valley. steam alphabetizes your library. they're all literally right next to eachother. nobody who opens any of the environments needs to be reminded of the options they have. and if you choose a different game than the one you initially chose, you have to restart completely and do it all over again.

the mania planet pipeline, is a cancer to the games within it, in the state that its in. if it cannot be improved, it needs to be removed, for all the games own good.

sorry i got ranty, i just felt these frustrations needed to be voiced.

[Apostate]

part of the problem is maniaplanet, as it is, is an nothing but an inconvenience to the games.

it literally only makes the games loadup time extremely longer in the state its in. if i click trackmania2 valley, i dont want to see all the options i have because i clicked valley. steam alphabetizes your library. they're all literally right next to eachother. nobody who opens any of the environments needs to be reminded of the options they have. and if you choose a different game than the one you initially chose, you have to restart completely and do it all over again.

the mania planet pipeline, is a cancer to the games within it, in the state that its in. if it cannot be improved, it needs to be removed, for all the games own good.

sorry i got ranty, i just felt these frustrations needed to be voiced.

^this.

[Alter-Fox]

Ok maybe greedy was the wrong word. They just did not think it trough and obviously had no idea how much work it will be till they have done all they planned...

I still support them for being willing to try something new, when most major studios aren't. (And as for ubisoft, at least they were willing to financially support Nadeo doing something new, even if they really should have done more than they did). And doing something new, you can't do it perfectly the first time. Maniaplanet is a big project and the first few years really do count as "the first time". You don't have the example of "what not to do" from other peoples' screwups, or the example of "what to do" from other companies that got it right. I'm sure they knew this from the start, but they probably didn't want the community they had to lose confidence if they said it the wrong way so they didn't say it at all.

To me, that they managed to create something new while creating racing environments that are still, IMHO, better than most of the racing games out there, is pretty darn impressive.

The meta-interface is annoying though. Especially since you now have to wait five seconds for a server list to load up before you can enter one of the titles.

[appor]

I think maniaplanet is really great system and concept. It would feel much more 'lonely' to have separate individual games without maniaplanet system. Maniaplanet connects everything nicely together

I dont know, but i could think something like this as one option to maybe make it better:
The first main screen shows logos of 3 games 'TM, SM, QM'.
You click TM -> It opens up main TM page and shows all environment logos, etc
The main TM page has buttons: 'show all servers', 'main profile' and other buttons. So the games are packed up under one main name and it connects everything from that one place.
Currently all the environments are more seen as individual complete games layed inside the system, so the TM mainpage would pack them up into one place organized and then buttons like 'main profile', 'show all servers' etc would unify the games.

[TMarc]

Ok maybe greedy was the wrong word. They just did not think it trough and obviously had no idea how much work it will be till they have done all they planned.

At least I hope that is the case. A bad voice in my head still says that they knew and just did not tell the community and hope that enugh of the community will remain once they are done...

They certainly did not imagine what the community would have for ideas and which things the community "absolutely wants to have as soon as possible" - this also let them postpone many other things we don't know of.

On one thing we can certainly agree: if Nadeo had not worked on ShootMania, but only on ManiaPlanet for TrackMania, we would have had much more evolution here.

[znik]

These threads just seem to pop up one by one lately. I really hope that NADEO eventually will give us clear and informative statement about their future plans to improve TrackMania Stadium as an E-sport, if even at all, and what they think about the suggestions made by the community.

To me it also feels like ManiaPlanet is in a constant beta phase with so much potential and unused features. Features that to me seem quite obvious to implement already in the early stages of the developement in order to ensure the success of the game early on.

TrackMania will always be a less serious and chill game, but once you aquire some experience and start to learn the driving techniques, you eventually start to discover the fun in competing at a high level. This is what TrackMania has become to me after many years of racing, and it just makes me very jealous when I see the other E-sport titles like LoL and DotA 2 having all these feautures and great support from the developers in polishing the competition aspect of the game.

I hope that NADEO is able to read this feedback without taking offense. I think I can speak for everyone when I say we love your game and what you have built here so far. We just want to help point out what may be the cause to a lacking income of new players and what potential this game can have with some tweaking and polishing. The game was after all built with the sole purpose of being a competition game (If I'm not mistaken), and had a very successful start in doing so!