Trackmania² Lagoon Special Beta for Trackmania Turbo PC owners

[Hylis]

Miguel, there are some limits to what we can do and there are also issues on the various options. I was personally supporting was to send an email to all TMT buyers from any platform to give them a special access to Lagoon. For me, it was a way to make them discover the great "community" place. In ended with somewhat a minimal solution to mostly support this community that was present during the beta phases. Of course, there are border cases, like you, and drawing the line is complicated: the beta was a tool to do it.
Now, saying that you have to buy it twice, I would like to point out that the majority of the work is on many other things, like block updates for Valley but also, and that's by far the most costly engagement we have, is to develop special software: title pack maker, channels, mesh modeler, optimizations, modes, levels etc. It is also the reason why we limit the gift to MP4. And if we said that we wished to provide Lagoon but can't confirm, it was more to compensate the waiting the community had to have with Lagoon in Maniaplanet at the moment we revealed (and we can't do it earlier) that we were in fact working on a console game, and the win-win situation was to bring into Maniaplanet more players that were unlikely to try it out.
All in all, I know it's blurry since we sell environments, but a little like we did with United, the concept is to support all the work we do to enable user created content. Some people would say that 70€ is too much for all the environments, while it's 9 years of work from the studio. I saw that the game was 15% off on gamesplanet, and that's something that happened at even higher percentage on TMT over the last year. In the end, there is one thing we should be a little serious about, even if it's always great to have your contributions, it's when we charge for the work of the big and engaged Nadeo team.
And it was useless to present yourself, I know who you are ^_^ And you even help at the release of MP4. We care, it's just that it's complicated.

[Miguel]

Thank Hylis for explaining all this

I'm sorry about the complaints, I'm not in a good mood these days so it affected a bit my posts on the forum

I know I don't play TM/MP a lot since months, but I like coming back when there's updates, yesterday I received the press releases of Lagoon on my Gamersyde's email so I came right to the forum in hope know more about the Lagoon MP4 update. Hoping to get Lagoon for free in MP4 because I owned TMT was maybe too much.

Hylis

[Mithestral]

...

Is this a confirmation that the "special beta" offer for TMT owner has now come to an end ?

[adsun]

In ended with somewhat a minimal solution to mostly support this community that was present during the beta phases.

But people have confirmed that they just registered today and got lagoon for free using their steam turbo version. Therefore everyone who bought turbo on steam could get lagoon for free until today, but people who bought turbo on uplay could not.
Instead of rewarding beta testers you rewarded steam customers.

I don't really see a problem in buying the game again, however it seems very unfair that some people could get lagoon for free and some could not.

[Hylis]

If there were a unfair treatment between steam and uplay and will try to fix it by making it fair. That's exactly why everything is more complicated than just thinking we can do whatever we wish.

Miguel, it was not too much at all to hope for something and I understand the feeling. After, yes, we have to stay as constructive as possible and see other point of view. In the end, you are the type of player we care a lot about and that's just because things are more complex than it appears that there are misunderstandings.

Mithestral, yes, the special beta operation has ended and this is also why we though we should limit the Lagoon extension to only MP4 to make this more balanced. (but if some players were able to register until today, we will have to make it for people until today: I have ask to clarify all this quickly and Cerovan will keep your informed)

[Mithestral]

Basically I could play lagoon this morning, thinking I owned the game... but now, a few hours later I have to buy the game to gain access. It feels terrible

[undef.de]

Is it still possible for Trackmania Turbo on PC owners to get Lagoon for free in Maniaplanet? I ask this because the option to identify in the Playerpage has been removed.

[Basher7]

But people have confirmed that they just registered today and got lagoon for free using their steam turbo version. Therefore everyone who bought turbo on steam could get lagoon for free until today, but people who bought turbo on uplay could not.
Instead of rewarding beta testers you rewarded steam customers.

Agree with this.

[Reaxgrim]

ok so Trackmania turbo owners DO NOT get trackmania lagoon for free?
that sucks. wont be buying it sadly not after buying tm:turbo for a dead community

[TMarc]

First you (nearly) all claimed to get Turbo for free (having all existing Maniaplanet titles) and now you claim to get Lagoon for free again? Is this really fair?
That Turbo is not very popular is not necessarily the fault of Nadeo, it is a game that was conceived primarily for consoles, and for that it is certainly great. That it is not as good and not as expected on PC, is only the point of view of the "old" Trackmania and Maniaplanet gamers.
And this is much more sad to see the game die by itself than a few people can't get access to lagoon (for free and for their personal benefit only).

So, for the effort Nadeo has put into everything since years, you can really afford the few Euros or Dollars that Lagoon costs, if you're really interested to have it.
I'm not telling that you absolutely have to purchase it, you can also try the channels if you want to play it "for free".

The circumstances around the betas and the release are admittedly not nice, Hylis has just acknowledged it,
but now you need to wait if they can decide of something. But this can't be done in a hurry either. It will certainly take a few days, including some holidays we're having now in Europe.
Therefore, as always, please be patient.