This game dead?

[firstdriver]

there are tons of free games out there, not everyone is popular. the reason why games like LoL and TMN are so popular are not because they are free, it's simply because they are great games. people don't continue playing games for years just because they are free. im honestly getting really tired of people (TMU players) bashing the game saying the only reason it reached success was because it was free, it's just such nonsense and show of ignorance. i can write alot about why i think stadium is such a deep and awesome environment, and im hardly the only one.
to end it of, you should know that alot of people that started with the free version then bought United. and still most of them mainly/only play stadium.

Nadeo has alot to thank TMN for i'd say. too bad they don't seem to realize it.

I've got to agree with this guy ... talks sense

[Serpwidgets]

Hahaha buddy you have so got no idea about what you're saying

I know exactly what I'm saying. Your presumptions about me are mistaken.

NO

Start small, try game maker.

P.S.: You remind me of my 9 year old self. Thank god there were no XNA shit back then. I'd so get hooked and give up.

I'm curious, what do you think is so bad about XNA?

anyway, if nadeo wants to make a revolution, pls copy the ModNation Racers editor! thats the future... not the blockstyle it would fit perfect for a pc game , cause u can make nice tracks with a mouse instead of fingers (as in ModNation Racers ) that would bring u in front of consoleracinggames too (GT,NFS,Forza) , cause it would be no fun to draw maps with a pad!

Ya, the block style is more appropriate for an old NES game like Excitebike.

[Dany0]

That's not true. The only reason a game is popular nowadays is because good people sit on it. Take their time and planning and do it.

There are a lot of extraordinary shitty games, that are popular just because of the highly profound developers, which profoundness may or may not have come from the money paid. But just to list an example: CoD, GoW.

The people of the True Combat: Elite team, the people from Free Lunch Design, and many more were simply good at it. Doesn't matter if the game was actually any good, they spread like a joint in a Brazilian household because people enjoyed it, good or not.

The games were stable(well the TC:E story is a bit complicated), they looked nice, they didn't have any technical game design flaws, were just so hard, just so repetitive, just so fun to keep a person playing it. Nadeo surely did something wrong.

If an 11 year old can create a game that sold much more copies then TM2, or all virtual skippers together, that created a cult that's still alive today, that was and will be always much more fun then then any other modern FPS, why can't Nadeo do it? (Ken Silverman, Duke Nukem 3d)

If a 9 year old Chinese boy can create an app that sold more copies then all Nadeo titles together, why couldn't Nadeo bring up a good TM2 in a short time while investing in the long term? We don't like it Nadeo, we spend more time thinking about TM2 then playing it. Why did you deprecate the Valley environment? The real-time day time change? The 300-2000 blocks you were promising? The custom blocks and mania script that I bought TM2 for?

And don't put me down on Ubisoft. Ubisoft is evil. EVIL. I don't like Ubisoft. I don't like Gameloft. I don't like any of you lying, money-sucking b-bastards! Whatever Nadeo did bad, couldn't come from them, Ubisoft is the root of all the evil. What did you do to Rayman! Those bastards!

I know what they did, they bought Nadeo because they believed they finally found a way how to please, and engage, the community again. Oh no you did NOT. You took a set of people, and taught them they're not good enough. You told Hylis, and other gallantly intelligent and enthusiastic people that they're stupid, and just rude for being there on their own.



Maybe it would be nice if Nadeo finally realizes that Ubisoft isn't here to make friends. It just slams people until money falls out of them. And it slams it's developers. If I recall, Beyond Good & Evil 2 is being constantly pushed away. It's maybe rumors but doesn't it just seem a little suspicious to you? The great graphics presented, and the great gameplay known to everyone, why not public?

And honestly, who the hell would want to buy your pathetic little title called "I Am Alive" anyway? We all know your deal, you're taking a twilight-level writing, put in some people, say it's epic, add a shitty DRM everyone hates, and say it's any good? You know what? Don't even bother releasing a game on the PC anymore! Leave Nadeo and the rest alone, and return to your declining console gaming. Your average uncreative loser, I mean user, has full hands of debt that he'd love to share with Ubisoft.

Talking about slamming everyone around, who slammed Nadeo? Who, when for once, finally came a "mania" that had full community engagement in it's plans, took it and just threw away? Sounds like Ubisoft for me, that's their job. They do what it takes to fail. They took over Nadeo, said they're free, lies, real lies. And a Fail with a big F too. They take it over, thinking the community will be pleased with the engagement offered, then they get scared with the first sight for "openness". You know, I don't really think there would be a lot of total conversions of TM2. You wouldn't offer the source code(no that anyone really wants it), and it's TMs tradition that every mod isn't covering more then it's theme. There would be maximum 4 total conversions by now I'd say, and honestly, 2 of which would probably just suck, and one would be 'dev example'. Well I'm just talking 'what if' here. Don't mind it.

Another thing, yes, why, why Ubisoft? Why so un-open? Do you hate producing people power? More people power is good. Not bad, you, you fools!

bla bla

I know exactly what I'm saying. Your presumptions about me are mistaken.

bla bla

I'm curious, what do you think is so bad about XNA?

blah blah

Ya, the block style is more appropriate for an old NES game like Excitebike.

"The block style" isn't a damn style, man you're driving me crazy! So listen, "the block style" was derived from a technological limitation, it was the only way you could make a fast intuitive editor back then. They couldn't use diamonds or anything like that because that isn't intuitive. TM has a history, if it was designed for a 2011 PC, it'd look damn different, and the editor would be much slower, even today, and it would be much much more complicated. You wouldn't play that kind of a game silly! You kids can't understand that kind of stuff. You believe XNA is any good. Yeah that's actually a proof. No need to understand, just go with it.

Can you imagine, in 2003, Nadeo would come down to a meeting, and say "hey let's create a car racing game that would be fun for everyone!". And then suddenly turn around and say "Hey, those crytek guys are right, we should molest our computers! Let's make the game totally unplayable on a 2000-ish PC, then just make a typical Radiant-ish editor and forget our really good C programmers, mathematical geniuses with good optimization skills! In that case, a theoretical free version of our game would be played by so many people! Like 3 or so! That's a lot!"

Think again.

[dejamo42]

Interesting, the battles on forums continue but people seem to forget that the war ended/was won/lost on December the 9th 2010!

[Serpwidgets]

Dany0, I bet your post will read like the rantings of a lunatic to most readers. But you've got it right. I was hired by UbiSoft 14 years ago to design a fully customizable racing game. In 1996 they went from a privately-owned to a publicly-owned company and I think that's why it is what it is today. (That's not specific to one company, it's a natural feature of publicly owned companies, stockholders care ONLY about short-term profit, at the expense of all other things.)

I was in the Montreuil office when those changes happened: they cancelled every big project and put all of their development teams on quick-to-develop console games, because that was the most profitable. That was when (and why) I left. I didn't want to be a part of making crappy games just because they were more profitable.

Another thing, yes, why, why Ubisoft? Why so un-open? Do you hate producing people power? More people power is good. Not bad, you, you fools!

I witnessed first-hand their attitude toward user-created content when they did everything they could to prevent me from releasing a 3dfx version of the forest track for pod. It wasn't because everyone hated the track, plenty of people on the US forums said they loved it and wanted a 3dfx version. It was because someone at UbiSoft didn't like the track. That was a good enough reason to say nobody else should be allowed to choose for themselves. It's also why the only way a car could be added to pod was through them, so they could make sure nothing that they didn't like would get through.

You kids can't understand that kind of stuff. You believe XNA is any good. Yeah that's actually a proof. No need to understand, just go with it.

Saying it sucks over and over doesn't make it so. And saying I'm wrong/stupid simply for failing to agree with you doesn't really help. Can you be specific? What's so bad about XNA?

[Trackmaniack]

Damn. I just come back to the TM/MP forums, and here we are, arguing like children over what's good and what isn't. Whether Nations is good because it's free or good because it's deep isn't the point. Personally I think while it has the most block variety of any environment, it's the most shallow because of the lack of any other type of customization to go with it (no tunnels, no underground, no buildings, really, to speak of, no bridges...)

Now, admittedly, Canyon, with its technological finesse, could have done more with the editor. Potentially. That's an -if-. A big -if-. The developers had desired it. And that's not saying they simply nixed it because they -could-. Trackmania 2 takes the concepts of Trackmania 1 and refines them into a sleeker, more elegant, package. How many times have I said this? Don't think of Trackmania 2 as a continuing of where TMUF left off. Think of it as a reboot. A completely different series under the same franchise. They -can- coexist, people. Canyon is beautiful. And plays wonderfully. But it is, by its very nature, unfinished. It has been said on the forums that all good things 'Mania come in threes. How many Trackmania 2's do we have as of thus far? 1. Again, let me state this very plainly: Trackmania Canyon rocks my socks off. As well as nearly everybody else that I've talked to, or have read the reviews of.

Part of the problem, however, I think, was us. We saw beta footage of both Canyon and Valley, and wanted it. Now. If Nadeo had taken the time to wait, get the game tweaked 100% to perfection, and -then- released, it would have been 2015 or later and we all would have been going crazy. Secondly. 15 million opinions are better than 15 (I don't know the actual Nadeo staff numbers, forgive me if this is incorrect). Now, before you all jump on me (and them) for saying that it's not fair they released an obvious beta, it isn't. Yes, there are bugs, but there are going to be bugs in any game. Need I remind you of how many bugs were decried with the release of ESWC? Or how many players chanted "They Changed It Now It Sucks" with the updating of TMNF? Or the community's infighting when the Nations players joined the United players? TM has undergone upheaval with every -new- release. TMUF didn't simply because it was a refinement of all that currently -was- TM. And it is by no means dead.

Metoxys said on one of his videos to a comment I made: "TMF will last F." Simple, and true. If you're a graphical nut, then you might feel a little dated playing TMUF, but in all honesty and fairness to those who say that: I've cranked the graphics all the way up on TMUF, and between the two Trackmanias, the main difference I can find is that Canyon has more shiny.

Before I lose track of my main point here, let me say that no Trackmania ever started perfect, but has it ever finished as anything less than that? TMS-X? TMO? TMF? Come on. Can anybody tell me that those titles weren't the awesomest games you've ever played? And, just as a reminder, this isn't -quite- TM2. It's TM^2: Canyon. Emphasis on the Canyon part. Then there will be TM^2: Valley. 2/3 of the way done. And then TM^2: (unnamed third environment which I suspect is Cryo, or Alpine, or something snowy). Together, we have the Mania-verse rule of three and TM2 in its completed, epic butt-kicking form.

So don't desert Nadeo now, simply because there are gripes. In fact, the inverse should be true. You should support them all the more for sticking true to their form and style, even -after- being acquiesced by the infamous Ubisoft...

[eyebo]

Deep within the long posts, the rants, the praise, the desperate need to reason with other people... I see a lot of people here who care. I see people who care for TM so deeply that they'll write long posts about it in the hopes that it will survive. This is part of what makes the community great.

Just don't forget to go play the game once and a while, or you may forget what you're fighting for.

[AlexKF]

If a 9 year old Chinese boy can create an app that sold more copies then all Nadeo titles together, why couldn't Nadeo bring up a good TM2 in a short time while investing in the long term? We don't like it Nadeo, we spend more time thinking about TM2 then playing it. Why did you deprecate the Valley environment? The real-time day time change? The 300-2000 blocks you were promising? The custom blocks and mania script that I bought TM2 for?

Couldn't agree more, and I think its the community as a whole that knows these things, not just individuals like you who actually write about it.

[db89]

If a 9 year old Chinese boy can create an app that sold more copies then all Nadeo titles together, why couldn't Nadeo bring up a good TM2 in a short time while investing in the long term?

Make a game is 1000 times more hard and long than make an app
Maybe an app version of TM2 would help?

Anyway, I think TM2 is not dead, maybe seems to someone, but just wait for Valley on the next months and, with more variety, the players will increase. Surely a bit of more advertising would be important

[firstdriver]

I must admit that Trackmaniak has a point ... we are all rooting for TM but we all have our gripes and visions of how it should be. I'll support Nadeo, but I do think that unless Canyons is sorted, most people won't pay the extra cash on Valley in case its another let-down.

I was disappointed at the beta release. The only info I had was what was shown in the sparkling trailers and later on, the videos and feedback from the beta-testers. I couldn't 'feel' the car and track so when I did buy it I was stunned at the loss of alot of the good things from the previous TMs, including car control. It's just not fun learning to drive it.