The future of TM...

[kidmaciek]

Hey. I do know there have probably been a lot of similar threads, and you're probably fed up with this "TM is dying" shit, but I really feel like I need to post this.

Why today? Well, some of you surely know "dac-SP" team. Today they announced the end of their 'tech' division era due to inactivity of some of their players. The team lasted for almost 10 years, and I remember them from the very past TMN ESWC days. I consider this announcement as 'signum temporis'.
The STC/NC has started 3 weeks ago, and only 33 teams have signed up for STC, compared to over 100 in the days of 'glory'. When did TM start losing players? Why we don't see the newcomers? Why is it happening now, when TM has a lot more potential, lot more tools for the players to reveal their creativity in map-making, also new game-modes have been introduced. TMN ESWC was a lot more simple, it had 3 game-modes (TA, Rounds, Team), less blocks, no map-mixing and stuff. And yet it did WAY better than TM2. Why? Because TMN ESWC was free? I don't think so. Now TM2 is also free till October (not sure). But hey, what's the point of making this game free for some period, if you (Nadeo, Ubisoft, or whoever is responsible for promoting this game) just don't do anything to promote this game? Does anyone in Ubisoft give a shit about TM? Why does nobody know about TM? Ubisoft is some big company, they should care about their products. And, once again, YOU, Nadeo guys, should care EVEN MORE. You made this game! It's your masterpiece, why would you let it die? What ideas have you introduced to make the game grow bigger in the last years? Why not giving a free TM2 key as the addition to TM Turbo? Have you ever tried to organize an event in TM, that would give the players some kind of motivation? There is no sponsorship at all. Why would anyone be motivated to play this game more than just for fun? What's the point of learning the maps every week? What is this all about? Back in the days of 'glory', winning a major tournament, like ESL CPS, STC, NC, TMT was prestigious. If you won, you knew that you're really good at this game and you were actually motivated for every tournament, because there were so many teams to beat. Now it's all about Team Dignitas and whether they give some single points away, or not. What I mean, is that I really admire the 'competitive' players for still being active in the game even though the attraction to the game is so low, and they get absolutely nothing for being actually good at something. Of course, the game is supposed to bring fun, not money, but how long can you play for nothing? I know that it's the community business to bring some sponsorship to the game, but you're not helping at all. Who would want to give money to the game that has 500 active players? Or didn't we (the community) take our chance when the game was really on the peak (6-7 years ago). Maybe that was the moment we should attract some sponsors to the game?
Nadeo, do you really see the problem? No, I don't mean the lack of sponsorship, but the attraction to the game, that is lower and lower each day. Do you have any idea to turn this around? How come this game is struggling so much, when the other competitive games have developed since TM was on its peak?
The conclusion is: I know it's not about the money. Sometimes I just feel sorry for the players, and I feel like one day they will just think 'why am I doing this, it's not fun anymore', and eventually the game will die. This game has so much potential, it's a real shame that so few players are attracted to this game. Nadeo/Ubisoft need to start promoting this game.

I hope you'll get my point, and understand my concerns. Cheers.

P.S. Another question just came up to my mind. Who is the latest 'wonderkid' of TM? Every good player I can think about started in TMN/TMNF. So TM2 have 'produced' no top-notch players at all.

[kidmaciek]

I think I complicated this, and my point is not clear at all. It was 1 am when I wrote this so forgive me

I just wanted to say that this game needs some promotion, because it is already awesome, but not enough people know about it. Nadeo/Ubisoft (shit, I don't know how this works, does Nadeo still exist, or what) doesn't really seem to care about TM. Or if they do, they think that releasing a new game will change anything. Of course, there will be some hype with TM Turbo being released, but this way we're not getting any new players to try TM2 Stadium, which I really think should be the 'apple of the eye', since this environment made the whole TM-series popular and no other environment made so many players love TM.

I have found some other threads regarding the same problem today, and I haven't found any Nadeo guy reply to the posts. It would be nice if you actually replied to this message, I would like to know your point of view. It's not about blaming you, it's about looking for a solution

[Edster]

"It is always difficult to close a division or abandon a game, which you believed in. But numbers do not lie and the game TrackMania nowadays plays no role in our modern world of esports. While publishers like Blizzard , Riot or Valve have a crystal clear strategy for esport the publisher of TrackMania do obviously think that a good plan is not necessary and teams like us will do their job."

Statement by Team Acer today, announcing that they're pulling out of TM2, forever: http://teamacer.com/en/trackmania_farewell.htm

It's sad to say but Acer are right; Rocket League is the new driving game esport which has totally eclipsed TM in terms of popularity, because it's just marketed so much better, it's much more accessible and the developers always keep adding little updates to keep people hooked; they consistently nuture their community and get involved with them. By contrast, Nadeo take a very laissez faire approach: "We've been popular for years; we don't need to do anything radical or revolutionary to maintain that!" The problem for Trackmania is that since it joined Ubisoft it has become the complete anthesis of it's original concept; what was fresh, new, exciting and fun back in 2003-2007 has become to many people,(and I don't fully agree with them because I still play TM2 a lot) a stale and 'paint-by-numbers' rehash today, (Come on, even spectator mode could be so much better! Pretty much unchanged since TMUF) and to be honest that's what happens when you abandon your core playerbase in search of casuals who will just come and go. Today's announcement strips bare the shortcomings of TM's current lack of strategy, because even one of it's longest running and successful esport teams have cried enough. The publishers have forgotten that it's: "Build it and they will come", not the other way around.

If that sounds harsh, then I'm sorry. I love this game, I really do. But right now, it's like watching an old friend drink themselves to death, wasting away and becoming a pale imitation of their former glory. There's still positives in the community; I guess it will just be a much smaller knit one than it used to be, and there won't be much money involved, especially once ESWC drops TM2 which will surely be the next step. I'll still be around though, because the GP community has pretty much always been small anyway and it's just a dozen or so friends hanging out together and doing 1 hour races; that's probably not going to change much even with the rest of the community feeling all at sea.

[Demented]

I gotta say, I think most people here would agree that my general attitude toward Maniaplanet and TM² has been optimistic and positive, but lately I've found that I too am losing interest. It's not because I like it any less, but rather that new content is just coming too slowly. There is nothing keeping it fresh other than the hope of something new.
At the beginning of Maniaplanet was TM² and the goal Nadeo hoped for was to release three to five new environments at a rate of one per year for each game (Trackmania², Shootmania and Questmania). No one can argue that this goal has been met. I do understand that unexpected things come up and I do prefer that the time be taken to release a finished product. Nothing bugs me more than a product being shoved out on the market before it's ready. However, waiting for something new in time turns from anticipation to boredom to frustration and eventually rejection.
~
I think in order to keep the MP series alive Nadeo has got to find a way to start getting new content out to the players at a much faster rate. I don't want to see it die, so step on that gas pedal.

[TMarc]

This would be entirely true if there was not the possibility of custom contents, especially as more or less free (if you don't count the few planets one sometimes have to spend for that).
The community has asked long for the possibility of own creations that go beyond simple texture modding,
but it is apparently not enough.
And it is very difficult, if not impossible, to create a complete new title with the quality of Nadeo original titles.

However, I agree to most points you wrote, Demented.
So sad some consequences are, they are simply just natural.

I fear that TMT will not help much, it will just add a new side branch.

And we still don't know when Lagoon will be there for Maniaplanet... neither how it will really look like, nor if it will be more successfull than Valley.

The only consolation is that it is not much better with many other games.
Some games are fresh, have new and interesting concepts, others just copy old stuff. But after a while, the hype is over, and people are hungry for other challenges.

Also I have lost interest myself to play Trackmania every day like in earlier times, sometimes I don't even play it for weeks. Not talking of Shootmania...
But it's always there, installed, up to date, and ready to play, because it is always easy to use it.

let's see what happens this year...

[Hylis]

Demented & TMarc, we are going to step on the gas pedal with Turbo. We will release a huge work with cool stuff, with the great opportunity to widen tremendously the area of new incoming players.

Anyway, we did not expected it to take so long. Good thing is that Trackmania kept some speed and is still up and running (both 1 & 2) in the super competitive environment of gaming, probably thanks to the players. It's also good to see a game like Rocket League having a good player base since it opens minds and may make organizers and players also look forward this type of game and esport, closer to Trackmania, in the Acer team spirit on which is was built and that we still keep for our really long term strategy.

We really want make Trackmania the king of racing, and much bigger. And that's where a 2.0 game deserves to be. Our two last years of work is going to be released, and from Trackmania Turbo to Maniaplanet 4, I expect that a lot of new Trackmania players will arrive while I hope that some of the old ones that are bored will be excited again!

[Palteza]

Yeah i think it's the general feeling of the community right now : everyone loosing interest and passion. Even if we always try with new projects, it's the same here for me, no real deep motivation. Last efforts put in the battle.

I don't want to be unpleasant with Nadeo (even if they did huge mistakes in the late years), since i think a kind of cycle is now ending. The original community is loosing interest. There is no new force in this community (mainly Nadeo's fault, but would they managed anyway ?) to bring some new energy in this game. Stadium still holding "decently" mainly because the old TMNF community puts lots of efforts into this game. But just open TMU and compare the amount of players with TM² and ... real pain when I see this. Why all these efforts ?
For the rest, Shootmania, Valley, Canyon ... well ...
All the money put in Shootmania with the Paragon cups was not enough. Of course it was not enough, who could have thought it was ?

There are many chances that TmT will split even more the forces. You're launching this game for the money (I dunnow, I suppose, I should have read the topics about TmT but i'm really sick about always launching new projects when you achieved 50% your previous ones without any readability) ? Ok no prob' you're a company and needs money, who would'nt understand that after the joy you gave us ? But Maniaplanet is dying at the same time. It will be too late after. Your community who is holding the game will be gone.

I don't want to list here all the mistakes done by Nadeo, that's not the point and I don't know everything this ofc since i'm not in Nadeo staff. I also don"t want to forget all their great success and efforts put into their games.
Even if they did all the right decisions lately, maybe it wouldn't work anyway.

Will Maniaplanet survive ? I hope, but there would be many many things to change. Just compare the time to launch TMU with TM² to be able to drive on a server (if you manage to understand this widgets thing when you're new ...) and you have a nice start to rework on the platform.


Maybe in the future you'll manage to make people come here in big proporition and a new community will grow again, I hope for you since it's a fucking nice game.
Or I dunnow, shut down TMU or TM² to gather the troops


Keep fighting for those who still can

[Hylis]

An ending cycle is also a starting cycle for me. And what you are looking for about United being simple is what we are doing for Turbo (and we are working on loading time at the moment for example) Maniaplanet is a plateform that is made to evolve in a much more ambitious way than United Forever in the 2.0 aspect. It's made to avoid this cycling effect more, and I hope for even more "forever" than before.

[Palteza]

Yeah I also think Maniaplanet has a great capacity of always renewing its content but to my mind you also forget one of the basic thing of a game : user-friendliness (even more with the new generations, people are also evolving).

But the basic question is what is you strategy to bring back people to Maniaplanet ? We can put all the efforts witin the game and in the community, you have the keys of the "outside the game" aspect.

[Hylis]

A platform success is determined by it's killer apps. I think that when we will have opened it in the right way, the 2.0 of the internet will be enough to bring people in. HL2 pushed Steam, DayZ, Dota, CS starts were a little complicated at start to play but it did not prevented them to succeed. Btw, I am thinking of a different way than these creation, and I know that the thougher it is to get people in, the harder it is to get the killer app (and more especially in multiplayer and nowadays, I agree)

I think that Maniaplanet should still be more simple to release for creators & access for players. But like it has been said by TMarc, outstanding 2.0 content is still too unreachable. So, we have to work on both: accessible & advanced. Just avoid to forget about the time it gets to make such an ambitious thing.

Until then, I think that Turbo is a way to bring a lot people to Trackmania and I believe that Maniaplanet is likely to be a good place for the long term future of it's most engaged players.

I think it will be better to have this debate once we have released the work we are doing. Otherwise, I feel it can continu maybe a little too much