Questions and answers

[TMarc]

or in other words: the sooner the full documentation of Maniaplanet features & tools is there, the sooner the community will be occupied using all that, while Nadeo teams can work on more interesting or totally different stuff at the same time and more in peace

[lebossnico1001]

So Shootmania got rekt again I suppose...

I'm not against the fact that the documentation need to be updated but meanwhile the players database are going out of this game (especially with OverWatch that is coming in the next month).

Because if the players are not present to play the game, I don't know why developpers like dommy (no offense buddy, it's only my POV and I'm taking an example) should devellop new game modes if they are no one to play them...

The fact is that the game is not really ... dead but it's not alive at all... Just like a freakin zombie (let's say like that)
If you want to try to play the game during the day, you can't as there not enough player to play with and against.

Communication is a plus

It's not a plus in your case, It's almost an obligation and we talked about that at GA...
I know that a game can't be out in a small, especially yours but two years... Even with Turbo...

I expect with MP4 that the player database will grow up but if you can continue to take the time you won't have no one in the end (in the SM case ofc, TM will be alive I think)

[quadkillgod]

I would like to stay positive too, but you (NADEO, forumreaders, etc ) have to understand that this is very hard. I dont think anyone on this world is being negative on purpose. There is always a source/cause of this negativity. Some people can handle it, some people cant, some people create bug reports... we're all positive/negative in our own way.



Solution for negativity : Editting, Warning, Locking ( & Banning )
1. When it becomes TOO negative I think the correct solution would simply be to EDIT the post and give this person a warning. And at some point you simply lock the thread... If a similar thread already exists then TMarc could combine them.

Once we ( the forum readers ) start to see that negativity will always be "editted" then it will surely be reduced after a while. Banning should be a last resort...


2. Give us something to look forward to
NADEO if I'm completely honest then I have to say that I do not like what you are doing ( even if you are working hard etc ... ) You can communicate differently but still work hard. I of course appreciate all your hard work. Don't get me wrong. I will be forever grateful for this wonderful game you made, called ShootMania.

- Why is it such a big deal to not share anything?
- Why this limited communication?
- Why do you choose to only write 1 blogpost per year? Is it really that time-consuming?
- Why cant we know about the future of our favorite portal (MP) and games ( TM/SM )?

People pre-ordered SM in 2012 as a beta. And then it got released 10/4/13 on Steam. That was the time when the game was supposed to be finished... That's what we all thought. And then suddenly it became a 'long term plan"...
Then you said that we'll get more frequent updates late 2014. We never did. Then out of the blue 2015 would be the year of TM and 2016 the year of SM...
And now... Now I'm reading that we wont get anything before june ( = 50% of 2016 already passed ) and then the summer holidays will start... So maybe an update in octobre?

To me this is a very very very big test for my patience and sometimes it's very very hard to stay positive about this. It makes me somewhat dissapointed. Of course I'm hoping for a super awesome update and I'm hoping it will be a good update... but it's hard to stay positive.

Also if I look at the previous updates... ( I'm sorry Hylis for what I am going to say ) then I'm not happy. We often got reskins of the game ( for me this is nothing. ) . We got a (partially) reskin of MP ( for me this is absolutely nothing ). We got a new buddylist and it's not working ( for me this is a downgrade & not an update, sorry ). You removed the ladder ( for me this is a downgrade & not an update, sorry) And besides walljumps/bluepads/grapples nothing ever changed for the official main modes ( Joust, Elite ). Nothing.
= How I experience ShootMania updates :/

Why did I say this? Because it's making me worry about the next update... which makes it , again, harder to stay positive. And what do you (NADEO) do? Work hard behind the scenes, but nobody gets to know anything and we just have to "believe you". I believe you... but you could make it easier for us to believe. You can change the negative people in believers.

It feels like one giant big test on our patience. And trust me...2-3y is a very long time and some of us just dont want to wait anymore. That's why I believe we deserve more than 1 blogpost per year... We deserve to know what is going on so we can decide that this (mp/sm/tm) is worth the wait or that we should move on.

Basically I"ve been waiting sooooo long and I dont know what I am waiting for. It's very weird feeling.

If you promise updates but you cant do it, then that's okay. But then at least show us a glimpse... You see? Unfortunately you choose to delay after delay and absolutely show us nothing. On top of that you stopped communication. To me this is very frustrating. Remove this frustration and the forum will be 'negativity-free'.


So because this is a 'Question & Answers Thread' I will end my post with a question :
- Why cant we know about the future of this great portal and its games? What is the logic behind this decision and are you willing to share more with your community which is already waiting such a long time?
- Will you update more frequently in the future?

Sorry for the long read
-QG-

[Hylis]

lebossnico1001

I was just answering the other topic that we must hurry to move forward on Maniaplanet. So I don't think we take the time we don't have. Trackmania Turbo was expected to be done faster but we put quite a list of features to make it a solid game to live on.

I said it many times, Shootmania is many things for us. Even for Trackmania, Shootmania can be it's best advantage for esport and other things. But if you talk about Overwatch, let read this answer from Blizzard Jess Kaplan interview:

How did you end up on Overwatch? Were you always going to try and make a first-person game with your love of Half-Life 1 deathmatch maps?

I think a lot of us were FPS fans our whole lives. So there's always been this dream to work on an FPS, and, unlike a lot of other genres, the FPS is very explored. There is such a diversity in what people do with FPS games, and there's also a mastery in the genre. There are some genres that you look at and you can see as fertile ground where there are cool ideas but nobody's ever done the "great game" in the genre. Whereas with the FPS, there are many great games; there are many all-time, put-them-on-the-wall, Hall of Fame type games. Behind my desk over there I actually have the boxes for Doom 1 and Doom 2, just sitting there in honor of their greatness. It's a daunting genre to step into. The fans know exactly what they want out of the genre and are very particular. Your stepping into something that is hallowed ground, and you have to be very careful to respect what has been done there for 20 years before you.

We have the same goal to make a great FPS and I think many of people who played Shootmania, they feel there could be something unique and big. But it takes time to do it. I think we made already first good steps and this is why you are asking us to go faster. We have quite a distance to do, and since the game is clearly missing obvious things, it should help. It will just take time. More time than I wished. But not because we are going slowly, because we are ambitious for it. Esport is key but it requires everything else to be on top of something big. So, Maniaplanet is taking our time away but it is also key for the long term of Shootmania in the way I was describing it in the other thread to say that we need forward.

QG, I will answer a little later, but some stuff comes up to mind: we made tons of things in updates while we were working on Shootmania. It always been long term plan for us. And this Trackmania year thing was indeed the plan, but we easily took one more year, unfortunately. 2/3 years is very long in a game time, but it's smaller on the scale of major games evolutions. Again, I don't want to make it look smaller, it's an eternity for us, but it's common in the gaming industry to see such time to make ambitious titles.

[HYPE]

The fact is that the game is not really ... dead but it's not alive at all... Just like a freakin zombie (let's say like that)

haha I like the way you put this .

@quadkillgod I agree on most of your points 100% and I also would like to see some updates so players come back to game. On the other hand I wonder what kind of updates the players acutally expect. What do you expect quadkillgod?
Because I think I mentioned that before but I'm acutally quite happy with the game as it is right now (except of that there so less players ofc ).

@Hylis Another question: When ShootMania is finished in your POV, will there be advertising for this game? Because thats what the game need imo. I can understand that you don't want to do advertising for a unfinished game but I wonder if you actually think you will finish the game in the near future anyway .


P.S.: My 150th post on this forum!

[Hylis]

Hype, you like the game as it is but the game needs to please to much more type of players, so that in the end you are even happier because there are more people playing. Advertising it would requires that most new players or other type of players (like gamers that are different type as competitive for me) would be happy to discover & stay. We have things to do on that road and if we have to keep secret some stuff, it's also because we intend to make some more strategic communication at one point. We need to make some hype (ok it was super easy ^_^)

[kripkee]

@Hylis Another question: When ShootMania is finished in your POV, will there be advertising for this game? Because thats what the game need imo. I can understand that you don't want to do advertising for a unfinished game but I wonder if you actually think you will finish the game in the near future anyway .

I don't think that we need adverts in kind of Google-ads etc. for Shootmania/Trackmania 2(/Turbo). We just need some Youtuber (>100k subs and a good connected community from them) which should have the "know how" of this game. Zerator for example did a good job with cups in the past and brought some new player to maniaplanet.

Shootmania is for me a "finished game" which just need players. We have already a lot of tools and blocks etc. which is splitted in 5+ (needlessly) titlepacks^^.

At least "we" should try to increase the "care-level" of Maniaplanet in general.

[Hylis]

If you would have only Elite for example, people from battle or siege would not join. But they can play occasionnaly there and improve their skill to be able to start more easily thanks to other modes. But yet, I think there is a need for even wider tastes.

And yes, I think that if the game is great enough, it should went naturally through youtubers, more especially with that 2.0 & competitive aspect.

[lebossnico1001]

more especially with that 2.0 & competitive aspect.

Wait.. what ?

The fact is that the game is not really ... dead but it's not alive at all... Just like a freakin zombie (let's say like that)

haha I like the way you put this .

I think it's the perfect term actually xD

[Hylis]

When I talk about the 2.0 aspect, it's about the creation or entertainement that players can do or share. This is aspect is a cornerstone of Shootmania, as well as the competitive aspect, including the spectator perspective. And when we improve Maniaplanet, it is for these aspects required for Shootmania to be a success in my oppinion and according to the strength of the studio.

The game is ongoing, slowly declining without update since a long time. For me, it only raised in France, but not that much. It simply has to grow for real one day and it requires a bigger stuff at it's core to grow naturally, like a plant. Or another way to see it is that it must become a fire that propagates itself but that the game itself is not yet enough strong for it to do by itself. Players are key at that moment (more especially if they are not destructive) or advertising to set it, but if the game is losing too much style of players along the way, it would mostly decline. This ascension requires big updates and the entire studio to cooperate with players to ignite the fire. But if we shoot too soon, however, we may burn some of the fuel.

This being said, I think we can help keep what could be kept. But it will even take time for us to be ready to do it without putting in danger the main plan.