A new Trackmania game will be out in July, 1st!

[djhubertus]

I will try to be as positive as possible but I truely have some questions and concerns:

1. Whose idea was to make such a complicated business model? I mean, Trackmania still feels like a game from 20th century. Have You even considered making the game free with cosmetic battle pass and grand league pass? Pay 5-10 bucks per season and unlock stickers, decals, tribals, horns, wheels, trials, flames, mascots...you know, like rocket league, the successful game. Modding is great etc. but Maniaplanet was definitely too much for current generation of players and from what I understood, You want to make Trackmania popular again so time to move on with times and take some features. From what I read, I wouldn't even be able to play with friends where we want until they buy a subscription. This isn't a good sign, we maniaplanet all over again.
2. Since You are aiming once again to esports/being competitive after poor sales of Turbo. Will Trackmania finally go modern and add 1v1v1v1 ranked mode? You tried chase, chase wasn't designed to play with randoms.
3. Any plans to add more cars/car physics per envi? So In future mappers will be able to pick different car to play on stadium?
4. Is Ubisoft pushing You to release the game in very early stage of production? I think, the live service game needs a good start and from what I know, it isn't ready to the public. At least I wouldn't recommend it to anyone at current state.

My 2 cents. Good luck with the launch.

[mazzyfred]

My two cents.

TMUF was made of six enviros where the main objective was no to drift (or touch a wall/object) in order not to lose speed, and Stadium which was added after the success of Nations and included some 'light' drifting mechanisms. Stadium was clearly my least favorite enviro of TMUF, but I never hated it unlike most of the old school TMUF base. Afterwards, all the further enviros developped by Nadeo relied more and more on drifting (especially Canyon which is definitely one the enviro i like the least), with less and less pure driving (taking curves and not sliding). This is mainly why, shortly after TM2 was launched and Stadium 2 was announced, I left the community after having spent more than 10 years playing and managing competitions for TMU community.

I followed TM² from a distance, and even came back to TMUF and Maniaplanet earlier this year (thanks Covid-19) to check out the enviros that were released since 2012. Valley is ok and could have been a great base to renew my interest back in the day, but there is almost no one that plays the game nowadays. Stadium² is Stadium. Lagoon is incredibly stupid (Bay on steroids where physics don't matter to impress kids). Turbo is somewhat interesting but brings little new imho.

So I bought Valley so I could also the reworked TMU enviros (TrackmaniaONE by Unbitn Studio (consider supporting them)), which is a very nice feature of TM² and Maniaplanet. It is also a proof that uniting the TMUF enviros in TM² could and should have been done at some point instead of constantly developping new (and ofter useless to most players) features. ///today, i am mostly active on TMUF where there are still leagues and competitions (competitive or friendly), and where people gather on a regular basis to play to play together. It is back to 2004, with a few active servers available and where almost everyone knows each other.

Honnestly, it is quite amazing that Nadeo survived this long with so little new and interesting content available, and that some essential features of the TM² needed to be made by the community. This is also a proof that I don't understand anything from the business side of the game industry.

Now for this new TM². Looks nice, will try it for free, might even play for a while, but won't probably buy it unless i start to see "racing" and no "drifting".

And, of course, the business model makes absolutely no sense.

If you make a free to play game, allow everyone to play with the game, and sell stuff above that for people who are ready to pay for skins, access to tournaments, and so on. Make some new skins obtainable through XP gain, accelerate XP gain through premium accounts, but do not prevent FTP players to access all the available servers. I have been playing other online game since I left the TM community 8 years ago, and having such a weird stance between FTP game (more like a rolling demo) and a subscription model is kinda weird.

But as I stated earlier, I know nothing on the business side, and I wish Nadeo all the luck in the world with this (i won't call it new) game.

[Tekay37]

And, of course, the business model makes absolutely no sense.

If you make a free to play game, allow everyone to play with the game, and sell stuff above that for people who are ready to pay for skins, access to tournaments, and so on. Make some new skins obtainable through XP gain, accelerate XP gain through premium accounts, but do not prevent FTP players to access all the available servers. I have been playing other online game since I left the TM community 8 years ago, and having such a weird stance between FTP game (more like a rolling demo) and a subscription model is kinda weird.

But as I stated earlier, I know nothing on the business side, and I wish Nadeo all the luck in the world with this (i won't call it new) game.

The business model actually makes a lot of sense.

Basically you have 3 options to monetize a game:

1. Release a new game very or every other year (depending on the success of the previous game). People complain about this because it "splits the community".
2. Use microtransactions. Now this might look like a reasonable option on first glance, but you should look at the consequences. If you monetize customization you have to remove certain features from the game. If you monetize on car skins, you can't have free custom skins in a game because people would opt for the free skins made by users rather than for the paid ones by Nadeo. Same applies for monetizing car models, track elements, dedicated servers or server slots, etc.. You'd also be dependent on constantly add new customization stuff to your game, so people keep buying stuff so your company can pay the bills. Since lots of f2p players don't want to pay anything you'll rely on players who pay 100€ a year and more, aggressively trying to get as much money as possible from them. That's why the fancy item in games like rocket league and fortnite cost 20€ and more and why gambling mechnisms (loot boxes) are used to "buy" items.
3. Use a subscription model with a restricted f2p-option. This is the honest option. Developing a software is very expensive. And maintaining it over a long period of time is even more expensive. And it's fair to have people pay for it regularly based on how they use the software. Nadeos subscription model is based on how much of their infrastructure you use. That's a reasonable metric.

However, since business models in the gaming industry have become so diverse, I came up with a different metric: "price"/"hours of fun". I consider a value of 1€/h a "good deal". When I get below 0.5€/h I often decide to invest some more money in the game. In games like Rocket League this would mean that I buy some of the ingame currency to eventually buy a good looking item in the shop. In games like Trackmania this could be buying a licence key for standard access (if that was possible) to gift that to someone on a Trackmania stream I watch regularly.

[kidmaciek]

I think to avoid calling the model what it is - a subscription model - was a big mistake and it already backfired. Drop the corporate talk, Nadeo, and don't be afraid to use the s-word. You deserve the support, just please don't treat people like they're idiots.

[Akbalder]

Basically you have 3 options to monetize a game

There is another option which could work for Trackmania: Sell a new version of Trackmania each year which contains all the previous updates (blocs, environments and features). The price could be the same as one year of subscription.
- The split of the community would be the same as with this subscription model (all players having payed in the last year would be on the same version)
- You would still be able to play and edit any map which uses the blocs and environments you have payed for.
- If you only own an older version, you could access free servers to play maps with latest blocs and environments.

[Chris92]

Here's your answer about the whole controversy, from Hylis himself: https://twitter.com/Hylis1/status/12677 ... 21601?s=20

[Demented]

So where's the problem for you, Demented?

Really Kidmaciek? You don't understand the problem for me? Thought I explained it good enough but let's see if this helps.
To be clear I've loved Trackmania from the very first version of the game and still do. You would be hard pressed to find many players that have been more devoted to this game and the people involved in producing and supporting it. You'd probably also be hard pressed to find many that have defended and tried to maintain a positive atmosphere around the game and community as much as I have.

My "problem" with this new model is that I am not that into online play. I prefer to buy a game and own it. I prefer to have a hard copy of what I purchase that can play for the rest of my life if I choose to without paying more in the future to access it. And, I really don't like making online transactions any more than I absolutely have to.
Do you understand now?
I am not dissing on the game or the developers of it, it's just simply not fitting to my prefered style and quite frankly I find it offensive for you to question it.
Clear enough?

[Miss]

I dunno. At first I was like "hmm. That might be quite an expensive subscription", but when you start thinking about it - if I were to pay $60 every 3 years for Trackmania, how does that compare to my other game purchases? I definitely have bought a $60 AAA game every other year or so already, and I consider myself to be a light-gamer (eg. I don't buy AAA games a lot).

When you realize how long 3 years actually are..

[mazzyfred]

TM is not a AAA game (which i never buy full price anyway).
Nadeo has not a great history regarding the whole "promises made, promises kept"
Paying 20 $ a year for a 10 year old game with improved graphics seems a bit a stretch to me.
But I also fully understand that I am not the target audience for this game.

[mooseman2099]

Hi Guys.

A shorter post perhaps.

The views are all excellent, by the players. We need more views of interest from Nadeo. What is the reason for the year on year subscription (Making money, but how does this keep me interested.)
What am I getting as a player each year. Continued use is not an answer. I have that now with Trackmania 2 Stadium, Canyon, Valley, Lagoon, Platform, and Storm. Plenty of wonderful continues games fully payed. Oh and off topic Trackmania United. There is that other one (Not got Turbo yet still want it in ManiaPlanet ) Okay ill shut up. Today.

Which version would suit my needs if I was to agree with you new idea.

Which version gets me the ability to :

1) Make a track and save it and reload it every single day until its finished. With maybe a nice intro, GPS, etc.
2) I would like to run a dedicated server on my machine. This would be free as I only run it when I am on it. I am happier this way.
3) I would like to maybe visit my friends on a server they are on.
4) I am not interested in competition, I have a slow response time.
5) Nothing else comes to mind, that's all I do.

Thanks