TrackMania2: Centralised News about the Game

[DonTubo]

Thanks for your long statement of the situation right now.

I'm a little bit disappointed, that the splitscreen-mode isn't included right from the beginning, but as long as it comes a bit later as a feature, all is good

Hylis said, he still has to decide, so don't be disappointed already

[Hylis]

yeah, I would like it too as well since it is quite basic to say that you can play with two to four people on the same computer. It is not a 'fancy' feature. But we already have spend a lot of time on it and if we can't make it rock solid, I am unsure we will release it first. And if we don't, since I think we will not do it for ShootMania or QuestMania, we will have to wait later to see it happen.

In fact, I need to see how we move on the other subjects first. At the moment, there are other priorities.

[DonTubo]

Do what you have to do!
we waited so long already (*cough*), therefore some more month won't be that hard ^^

But I still have an unanswered question:
Is the Beta going to be public or for some important people by invitation only - didn't read any specific info about that yet.

[Hylis]

we have re designed the beta plan this week

at the moment (things can change) we expect to do a progressive closed beta and no open beta
it means that few people will be invited first (no rules and numbers made yet) and then will grow this number (new direct invitation and invitations given to first testers)

thank you for your support, it is really making us uncomfortable to have this late release. Each time, I tell myself: just few months left and they will start the new adventure!

[Yrp360]

I think we all here trust in Nadeo's people skill to make an amazing game, and to my mind we are all able to wait 2011 for this release...TMU works still well

[redfog]

I hope I will have a friend who will Beta test.
Lucky Yrp

[tcq]

Thx for taking the time to explain this stuff to us Hylis. It's really appreciated and i'm sure not many developer would do this. As we trust in you and your team, we are pretty sure that, if the game is released it will be high quality. If you are unsure about current implementations, just let them out and try to add them later on due to updates or while the new environments are coming.
Better no cake than a half-baked one =)

[redfog]

Some screens won't slowdown nadeo, though.

[eie]

Some screens won't slowdown nadeo, though.

oh yes this would be awesome, but this request has been requested hundreds of times now, and is just becoming a spam... stop spamming please
the game will be ready when it is ready, and screens won't bring the game faster

[Hylis]

in fact, it is very long to have the first screen with everything done in the picture. For example, the background scenery is not done yet. We are also still working on small details but on all blocs. It is quite specific to TrackMania, but we improve the graphics until late in the project and we can easily put misleading ones earlier. Another reason is that the communication is also being designed at the moment. Maniaplanet is great but needs good communication for people to understand it well. So, I think that releasing screenshots into the wild will be less effective than making proper announcement. Our goal is to communicate on both sides: directly to the players and also with the press. It requires us to wait a little with players, but it is not bad since it will reduce the time to wait between screenshots and the release ^_^