Some criticism of Stadium

[TMarc]

Do you get payed by Nadeo ?

Funny such kind of question always comes in such topics, from people who are always against those who still have visions, who are more patient, and you are willing to help to improve things.

If I was payed, I would be a Nadeo member, and then my nick would be certainly colored orange here, but I'm not.
I'm free and I can express my personal opionion as much as I want
And no, I did never get anything from them, except answers to my questions, and their request to be moderator here, which is a free and leisure time only participation.

It is very strange to blame always and only Nadeo. You forget why they are doing all this... for us, for the community!

Keep dreaming , People work for money.

And, so what?
I'm not dreaming, I'm realistic. You better stop your dreams that everything falls down into your arms for free.

The community asks for something, and if there is a company ready to work on something, why should they not get paid for it? Provided they are doing it good.
They did Stadium for free once, you always tend to forget this.
But you also named yourself that not everyone is working for money, part of the community is just doing it for fun, for a name. Others do it for Planets (which is somehow also for money).
And the big companies who can afford to do something for free or "open source", they get the money with licenses and advertisement from another division, so it is also not really free.

for the community ? TMarc you have to talk with some of the server tools devellopers , who have put maybe hundreds of ours in dedvelloping of server controlers or tools and now stopped. Just ask them why.
They are asking Nadeo already years for some stuff , and not getting support.
It's just sad to see that so many people leave so soon.

I know the situation very well, but you also have to see which kind of support was asked.
Its a basket without bottom: the people ask more and more and Nadeo can't keep pace.
Now if people are not patient or get angry, no one can do anything.
It's a pity some people have stopped, but they certainly have their own private reasons.
That some blamed Nadeo for good reasons is ok, but other reasons are rather private, and we better never know.

People change , people do not exept things easy , want more for their money.

Right. And they get impatient. But why also impertinent? This is not nice.

It's even worse. Some of them might close some topics with actually have a good point. Proof and example.

The one topic you show as "example" I closed because the questions were already asked again and again somewhere else.
Furhermore I have clarified other things in PM with him, and he is fine with what I did.
If you don't like closed topics, it is your problem.
It can be opened again anytime on request from the topic owner.

If things are not working properly, we can give feedback. But please always be constructive.

Who were you talking to? To the OP? Or to yourself?

To all of those are reading this forum, this is we all, including - and especially - YOU

OP clearly said he is annoyed by things he listed. It's understandable that pop ups about some not installed game might and actaully ARE annoying.

This is ok, but it is still not a reason to be aggressive, to use bad words, to blame anyone unnecessarily.
This makes things only worse. The more you do this, the less the developpers will want to listen to that.
Please try to understand this, and also respect the forum rules, thank you!

It is very strange to blame always and only Nadeo. You forget why they are doing all this... for us, for the community!

Oh yeah, there's also Ubisoft. Haha.

Ubisoft? I don't care much of Ubisoft, that's why I did not name them at all

And please, "they doing it for us, for the community", please, it's just... no way you can believe that.

But I do. I am part of the same community like you are, but you did obviously still not understand how a good community should work.
Please don't get me wrong, I welcome criticism, but not endless and useless general rants and distortions like you tend to do here.

It's a company and company makes money. It's their job. I think you (if not, couple of other people) even stated in an excellent topic about "why the hell stadium is now paid", that they made great game blablabla and they should get some money (but there was used wrong word - "support" developers). So yeah, they totally do things for money, not for some idea or community.

Your logic is fantastically twisted in a very strange way.
If no one would want to buy the games, why should they produce them then?

So there is a demand, and they are working to feed this demand.
If they are doing something for the community, both for money and for free, why not? Where is the problem there?

That you don't like their way is now obvious, you have repeated many times,
but no one forces you to purchase anything you don't like, and this is valid for everything out there.
No one will blame you for your descisions, if you explain them calm and reasonable.

It is like you would be angry because no car manufacturer produces the car you would like to have, and not for free.

I support my opinion by fact, that they even copied stadium into maniaplanet and made it buyable for 10€.

Yeah this is questionable indeed, if it is really only a copy, but they have announced some changes, so let's wait until it is gets released, before taking a final decision
And they had quite some work with Stadium in the past, so why don't let them ask for some money?
If you don't want it, you don't need to buy it, very simple. Let's hope TMN servers will be running as long as you have fun driving there

So it is again very strang that Nadeo is still making it... they bring Stadium for TM² and sacrifice some other work.
And now this is still not enough? I don't understand you there, really...

Yes, it is strange that Nadeo are making so many games (even different genres) at the same time. I agree with that, for once!

It was their own decision to do so.

Nadeo now spends time on TM² Stadium because apparently enough players asked for it, and perhaps because it seemed easy to convert it. Now we know there were a few issues, like camera 2 change. So it was not so easy and causes even more work.
But why? Because old Stadium players expected a 1:1 copy, but they forget TM² is a different engine.

Blame whom now? those who absolutley wanted Stadium also in TM²? Nadeo because they did not resist? Nadeo because they did it? Ubisoft because they support Nadeo?
No, this is just ridiculous!
Please stop blaming! This is totally useless and brings nothing at all!

If you want to bring things forward, help finding bugs, report them.
Don't be angry if there is no direct answer and no direct fix.

Just accept the facts and the way they're working on it.
They can't throw over board everything they're doing only because a few have issues.

From the past, I know that their responsiveness has improved a lot.

Only they got distracted by ShootMania for some while, so their attention to TM has reduced.
They are gradually getting back, with Stadium, with Valley, and other things to come.

I don't know if you're software developpers, perhaps even game developpers, but simply try to figure the amount of functions and possible combinations.
Then you will see it is all not so easy to do.

And now, after I wrote all that stuff, I realized that any discussion with you probably has no sense at all . You can reply me if you want to, but I'm out. I'll read it, but I'm not going to reply, because I actually take my time to give you arguments with examples.

the "pleasure" to "discuss" with you is on my side

[eyebo]

I believe there can be genuine criticism of the way Nadeo does some things. I think the ManiaPlanet UI could be better. I'm not a huge fan of the complexity we find in the menus. It's not horrible, but it could be a lot better. I also personally think communication could be a little better from their side in some areas. And yet, I also see them posting in the forums a lot, and making updates to the blog, facebook, twitter, and I even see Hylis replying to people in the comments sections on other gaming sites, along with posting here in these forums a lot. Of course they can't always be posting, or they don't get any work done. But isn't it great that when they do post, it's not some PR person that has no clue? No, we actually get to hear from the people who are themselves doing the coding and/or directly overseeing it. I don't take this for granted, and neither should any of you.

Maybe even more impressive than their posts, is that they're reading. Yeah, we have their ear. Don't misuse that privilege. It's a rare thing. And to be honest, I'm also impressed that many of them are multilingual. These are really smart and devoted people working on this game. They deserve our respect.

Some here have questioned their motives for making the games. To be blunt, I really think that's none of our business. But for the sake of argument, I'll go down this path a little ways... So, are they doing it for money? Well I'm sure they do on a basic level, because they have to feed their families. It's a basic thing. But people also work for the fulfillment it gives them. If you don't, then you're probably in the wrong job. It's not wrong to have a passion for your work and a desire to please those who are benefiting from your work (the community). Many who work at Nadeo also play TM and SM and interact with the ManiaPlanet community in their off-time. I'm not just saying this. I know it for a fact. To me, this shows a serious commitment to the game and to the community.

Of course, to us, it shouldn't matter what they do. What matters is the game. Is TrackMania the best racing game in the history of the universe? Of course. Does the ShootMania editor have the most complex and diverse set of blocks and block variations of any game Nadeo has ever made? Check. Are these games still fun for more hours than you should actually be spending on them? Yeah. Then the rest is minutia.

We should all keep in mind that TM2 Stadium is still in beta. The few bugs we experience come with the territory. Report them, and move on.

To say Nadeo is destroying Stadium, when they've spent countless months bringing it to ManiaPlanet to ensure it's survival into the future, is just... wrong. Some think the bugs should be fixed in an instant, whenever they're found. Nadeo could do this. And yet, that would require many micro updates to be pushed for the game. This is actually the way Nadeo did it early on with ManiaPlanet, and there was a huge backlash by people who didn't want frequent updates. So now they only push an update when they have a substantial amount of new things to give us. This means we have to wait a little longer for bug fixes. Well, you can blame those people who whined and whined about frequent updates.

I really don`t get it!
I get a great, good looking game and endless possibilities (servers, titles, maps, mods, cars, skins, tournaments,...), additionally a fantastic community, for only 10€. And the best, the game is not even out now, so i can expect to get even more!

Well said.

[TGYoshi]

In my opinion Stad2 will simply split the Stadium players between TMNF and Maniaplanet, which is an oversight by Nando.
In Stad2 there might be new blocks and stuff, but F2P players (which many are) will only be able to play Time Attack and some demo campaign (probably solo as well). No editor or so, that all won't be free. (Unless they revise their plans, which isn't too late yet.)
I'm sure this will split the Stadium community, which might 'destroy' Stadium in another way.

By the way, those update popups are NOT related to Shootmania, only the text is. The update you're getting is for Maniaplanet itself (but could be related to SM and TM at the same time, for example, Items can be used in both TM and SM, but Nando does not really announce it for TM, nor it is fully functional in TM, but it works).
Cams are just your opinion.
There never was an official blockmixing tool, you can't complain about that at all.

Get your facts straight first, you're complaining about nothing.

[mistertl]

http://forum.maniaplanet.com/viewtopic. ... 10#p165137
Great post, eyebo! Where is the 'Like' button for these kind of posts?

[eyebo]

Great post, eyebo! Where is the 'Like' button for these kind of posts?

Thanks

In my opinion [TrackMania² Stadium] will simply split the Stadium players between TMNF and ManiaPlanet, which is an oversight by [Nadeo].

I don't think it was an oversight. It was a calculated risk. And besides, people have been asking for it for years.

There will always be people who stick with the old thing. Perhaps, even with very good reasons. I know some players who only play United primarily because they have really bad internet. Downloading a 50 KB track while playing online may take a little while for the track to load, but playing ManiaPlanet with these 500 KB maps would take an unacceptable amount of time for the track to load. Or people with very slow computers who aren't willing to let their computer sit there for 2 hours while lightmaps compute for their 10sec lol map. Will these people eventually jump over to ManiaPlanet? Maybe. Someday they may have better PCs and faster internet. For now, they have the old thing and it works great, so they stay with that. Nothing wrong with that.

Keep in mind also that back in 2008 a lot of Stadium players stayed with TMN ESWC when TMNF came out. It took years, but eventually the vast majority of Stadium players moved primarily to TMNF. Some continue to play both. Likewise, some today will play both TM²S and TMNF.

The TMUF community experienced a bit of a shock when Canyon came out. TMUF practically died. The servers were nearly dead, TMX was nearly dead (activity-wise), many thought it was done for. The buzz around Canyon was huge. Those who didn't like it, tended to just quit TM instead of going back to TMUF. Those who did like Canyon tended to only play it and leave their years of TMUF playing in the past. Two years later, the TMUF community has seen a resurgence. The MTC has been back for over a year, ET is doing competitions there, and many well known track builders are once again innovating there. Maybe it isn't what it once was, but things have somewhat normalized again. All the while, Canyon continues to increase in popularity too. It's what I primarily play.

My point is, the community is extremely resilient. People will find a way. And people will eventually come together, even if it takes a little time for an adjustment to happen.

[TGYoshi]

I don't think you can compare Stad2/TMNF with TMUF/Canyon.
I personally see Stad2 as a replacement (attempt) for TMNF while Canyon is not necessarily a replacement for TMUF.

Thing is, the pay to play concept on a previous completely free (funded-by-adverts) game is in general unwanted.
Money has to be made, but by blocking e.g. the editor (which is in TMNF completely free, no limits etc.) it's just weird to suddenly pay for it.

It's just my opinion that it's unlogical to do it this way, but I see your point.

I'll just see how it turns out, but I have big doubts as the community itself isn't that big.

[zarexz]

I would only like to point out once more that stadium was NEVER free. It may have been free for us but Nadeo still got payed for their work. Either by Nvidea or by ad revenues. So NO! it's not all of a sudden we have to pay for the game. What ever happend to realizm with you guys? Open your eyes and your narrow minds for crying out loud!

[TGYoshi]

I would only like to point out once more that stadium was NEVER free. It may have been free for us but Nadeo still got payed for their work. Either by Nvidea or by ad revenues. So NO! it's not all of a sudden we have to pay for the game. What ever happend to realizm with you guys? Open your eyes and your narrow minds for crying out loud!

The F2P player doesn't care about the fact they got paid on another way, the F2P player just doesn't want to pay by him/herself.

[zarexz]

The F2P player doesn't care about the fact they got paid on another way, the F2P player just doesn't want to pay by him/herself.

If they don't want to pay they have absolutely zero right to say anything at all.

[TGYoshi]

The F2P player doesn't care about the fact they got paid on another way, the F2P player just doesn't want to pay by him/herself.

If they don't want to pay they have absolutely zero right to say anything at all.

Whatever you desire.

My point mainly is that because of this the people who don't want to pay stick at TMNF due to the severe limitations of Stad2, as a result it MIGHT split the community, depending on how severe the effect is.
A community split could destroy Stadium overall after some time.