ManiaPlanet needs a bigger community/playerbase

[toffe]

Wouldn't it be more effective to add a proper bugreport tool to the game like in many other games?

Maybe something like for example Mantis: http://www.mantisbt.org/wiki/doku.php/mantisbt:features
which is written in PHP and open source ?

Greetz,

This will be a great solution for solving issues, and the nadeo will spend less time looking on the forum for bugs and have a better overview on the issues.

I think that this will help improve the quality of the products.

Toffe

[djhubertus]

Wouldn't it be more effective to add a proper bugreport tool to the game like in many other games?

Maybe something like for example Mantis: http://www.mantisbt.org/wiki/doku.php/mantisbt:features
which is written in PHP and open source ?

Greetz,

This will be a great solution for solving issues, and the nadeo will spend less time looking on the forum for bugs and have a better overview on the issues.

I think that this will help improve the quality of the products.

Toffe

+10, It would be better to collect all suggestions and bugs in one place.

[TMarc]

Why not use directly Bugzilla? It also allows comments.
At work I'm partially using it e.g. for RfC ("Request for Comment") discussion with others and as base for decision, and as soon as it is approved, a followup work item ("Implementation task") is created and assigned to the actual responsible.

[toffe]

Why not use directly Bugzilla? It also allows comments.
At work I'm partially using it e.g. for RfC ("Request for Comment") discussion with others and as base for decision, and as soon as it is approved, a followup work item ("Implementation task") is created and assigned to the actual responsible.

Agree on that. I also worked with bugzilla and I really like the fact that you can also use it for internal use, so you can overview the work thats to do and assign someone on it.

Toffe

[TheM]

- ESL esports: bigger tournaments for both shootmania and trackmania (like with lol, dota2 and csgo), also looking for people that want to play competitively, because there are not many teams anymore I guess.

At the moment ESL is doing what it can to organize tournaments for TrackMania (and I suppose ShootMania too), if you expect tournaments along the lines of EES or ESL One, it'll need Ubisoft/Nadeo to "sponsor" or at least make contact with the ESL management.

Why not use directly Bugzilla? It also allows comments.
At work I'm partially using it e.g. for RfC ("Request for Comment") discussion with others and as base for decision, and as soon as it is approved, a followup work item ("Implementation task") is created and assigned to the actual responsible.

Agree on that. I also worked with bugzilla and I really like the fact that you can also use it for internal use, so you can overview the work thats to do and assign someone on it.

Toffe

I've mentioned before towards Hylis that I (and I think multiple moderators) are willing to make this all work, along with the moderation of the bug tracker (closing/redirecting doubleposted bug reports f.e.). The only thing is: the developers will have to use it if we want a bugtracker to become usefull. I think it would be a great move away from the half-working forumsystem and it will show what the devs are really doing and what has been sorted out/needs more info/are they working on/etc.

So, Hylis: please

[TMarc]

I've mentioned before towards Hylis that I (and I think multiple moderators) are willing to make this all work, along with the moderation of the bug tracker (closing/redirecting doubleposted bug reports f.e.). The only thing is: the developers will have to use it if we want a bugtracker to become usefull. I think it would be a great move away from the half-working forumsystem and it will show what the devs are really doing and what has been sorted out/needs more info/are they working on/etc.

So, Hylis: please

Big

Of course it would only work if there is no double maintenance like Bugzilla for the community and Nadeo-internal change management system.
I doubt Nadeo will want to open everything to us and do the complete CM stuff in Bugzilla, and this is also not very suitable for everything.
Perhaps it would be a good start to at least have the bugtracking and improvement request activities in Bugzilla.

[novationx]

I read today that NADEO is sponsoring a new lan in Germany. I noticed NADEO sponsors a lot of these events (on & offline). THIS IS AWESOME

BUT,
I think it would be better to sponsor 5 tournaments/year with 3x more prizes instead of 15 tournaments with just a few prizes.

The current prizes for this lan in Germany:
1st - 3x Logitech Keyboard + SM bag + SM Tshirt
2nd - 3x Logitech Mouse + SM bag + SM Tshirt
3rd - 3x SM Mousepad + SM bag + SM Tshirt

Lets be honest, these prizes are mmeehh. You know what I mean...
I know the admin (hes a CPLAY member) of this lan. He is really grateful but deep inside he knows there wont come a lot of teams. The same story goes for other lans.

A better solution would be:
1st - 3x Logitech Keyboard, Mouse, Headset + SM Mousepad + SM Bag + SM Tshirt
2nd - 3x Logitech Keyboard, Headset + SM Bag + SM Tshirt
3rd - 3x Logitech Mouse + SM Mousepad + SM Bag

Thats more than 1000€ of hardware, much more appealing & organisations would consider paying their teams to go.

The Golden Rule to attend a lan:
The prizes need to be more expensive than the trip!
Prizes > Trip = Good ( Teams might attend the lan. )
Prizes < Trip = Bad ( Teams wont attend the lan. )

Of course the lan also has other sponsors, but not always & not always "good" sponsors. This can be verified if you check recent ShootMania Lans.

So less lans, but more quality lans worth the money & the trip.... Just a random suggestion, a little bit off-topic... but good lans also help to get and KEEP more players in this game we all love: ShootMania.

[TheM]

Perhaps it would be a good start to at least have the bugtracking and improvement request activities in Bugzilla.

It would also be a good move for improvement requests indeed!
The wishlist is in my eyes quite un-understandable and always leads to more discussions.
Just open an improvement request for the new update and people can support it (like some do now in the wishlist).

So less lans, but more quality lans worth the money & the trip.... Just a random suggestion, a little bit off-topic... but good lans also help to get and KEEP more players in this game we all love: ShootMania.

AND TrackMania. I feel at the moment that we should be happy with every LAN support Nadeo/Ubisoft is providing, as I don't expect much more from them (for now). I would prefer more support for online competitions, for both SM and TM, like the return of Go4 for SM, a possible EES for TM2:Stadium.

I feel that we should also look past keeping the players and look at how to attract new players without losing the current players.

[weerwolf]

I also conlude that this discussion heats up every year again in august/september; when really a lot of players are on vacation.

[caspa]

I read today that NADEO is sponsoring a new lan in Germany. I noticed NADEO sponsors a lot of these events (on & offline). THIS IS AWESOME

BUT,
I think it would be better to sponsor 5 tournaments/year with 3x more prizes instead of 15 tournaments with just a few prizes.

The current prizes for this lan in Germany:
1st - 3x Logitech Keyboard + SM bag + SM Tshirt
2nd - 3x Logitech Mouse + SM bag + SM Tshirt
3rd - 3x SM Mousepad + SM bag + SM Tshirt

Lets be honest, these prizes are mmeehh. You know what I mean...
I know the admin (hes a CPLAY member) of this lan. He is really grateful but deep inside he knows there wont come a lot of teams. The same story goes for other lans.

A better solution would be:
1st - 3x Logitech Keyboard, Mouse, Headset + SM Mousepad + SM Bag + SM Tshirt
2nd - 3x Logitech Keyboard, Headset + SM Bag + SM Tshirt
3rd - 3x Logitech Mouse + SM Mousepad + SM Bag

Thats more than 1000€ of hardware, much more appealing & organisations would consider paying their teams to go.

The Golden Rule to attend a lan:
The prizes need to be more expensive than the trip!
Prizes > Trip = Good ( Teams might attend the lan. )
Prizes < Trip = Bad ( Teams wont attend the lan. )

Of course the lan also has other sponsors, but not always & not always "good" sponsors. This can be verified if you check recent ShootMania Lans.

So less lans, but more quality lans worth the money & the trip.... Just a random suggestion, a little bit off-topic... but good lans also help to get and KEEP more players in this game we all love: ShootMania.

To be honest, the better prizes you suggested are hardly an improvement. An improvement yes, but still not really enough for an organisation to decide to send the team. 9 times out of 10 an org which is willing to send an SM team overseas for a lan already has a peripheral sponsor which is superior to Logitech. As well as that, most orgs take a cut of any winnings (generally around the 15% mark in my experience). What are they gonna do, chop the keyboard in half?

I feel like Nadeo (with a Ubisoft backing them) could perhaps provide something more to keep people interested. Maybe something like €1500 for the "bigger" LANs these days - GA, Iseries (with i-series the organisers are likely to add to the prizepot themselves) as for that I don't really know any other lan events that are big enough yet also host SM tournies. We all love travelling and competing in another place/country, but the reason we join organisations is because we generally don't/can't pay the expenses out of our own pocket. Gaming orgs want to make something in return for their support, how are they going to benefit from a few headsets and mice? Essentially, money is the motivator here. There needs to be a stronger incentive for people to go. ESWC has a far superior prizepool to what we expect from SM these days, but 99% of the community would be satisfied in just participating in the finals because its a huge event, regardless of the game you play. Unfortunately these other lans don't have that same pull.

I'd just like Nadeo to push a bit more in regards to the competitive community. We generally don't get a lot of love in terms of tournaments and gameplay anymore. I think its great what Paragon are doing but at the very least we need something like Go4SM to return. While I still do enjoy this game (mainly due to the people I play with and stuff like obstacle/infection is still good), if I wasn't lucky enough to be attending ESWC again I really would have no reason to continue playing competitively. There is just no incentive.