Maniaplanet Forum

My story is kind of an on-off, flirting relationship with Trackmania.

My story begins in 2003 or 2004 when I was 11/12 and I saw the demo for Trackmania Original in a gaming magazine. Being a young pup then, I was completely interested in the flying cars at the front of the disc and had to play it! And after playing it, I remember my mind was blown by the sheer awesomeness that I could make my dream tracks come alive once and for all (though being 11/12, they were probably crap). But after the demo, I never got the full game as I was barely allowed on the PC anyway as it was a family PC and others needed to use it too.

Step forward to mid-2006 when I realised that each time my brother got a new PC component for his PC in our shared room, it usually came with a disc. After like the 10th disc or so, I looked at the pile and saw what they were: Trackmania Nations. Of course, I was 4/5 years older by now, 16, so was completely legal for my on-line fun and frolic with the game, which I always did when the Family PC was free. But alas, the same problem occurred where we could never spend much time with each other again and drifted away.

2008 was the next time I reunited with the game, almost out of school and relaxing a bit. This time, I showed Trackmania Nations to others this time who also thought it was amazing thing. They got bored of it pretty quickly after it got upgraded to Nations Forever as they either had PS3s or were into Maple Story then. But I wouldn't let my Xbox 360 come between me and my past love, so went and got Trackmania United from a store for £5 and spent a few more months with it...until I realised I was still on the family PC

There was a couple of one-nighters from then on, including some DS action when on holiday, but we knew it'd never last.

Of course i'd heard whispers of Trackmania 2 as early as 2009 and glanced at it across the hallway a couple of times, but I didn't give much of it really. Then after seeing the April trailer and how matured it look and thought that I had fallen in love all over again. It was only when my mum and dad went away for 2 weeks that I saw there was a beta and decided to buy and play the hell out of it. During this time, people I chatted with often got trailers of the game, like The one for the Beta and the Launch Trailer, which they are used to now as I get excited and show them crap they don't care about all the time. Then, my parents got back and it was back to not using the PC again.

Christmas Day 2011: My bro finally made my long-awaited PC for my room and it was like heaven! 32 inches of Trackmania 2 Canyon on my screen? I thought this would be impossible 7 years ago, but it was happening! Of course, people were complaining that nothing was happening with the game, so I only got in a few matches amongst other games.

February 2012: I woke up and saw that King Arthur's Gold, an indie game I play was getting an update to include zombies and will raise it's price a bit, so I decided to pay the small sum and wait for news on that. The Tribes: Ascend Beta also got an update yesterday which I can't wait to try out...And of course, Cerovan was teasing the forum enough of news of anything "Mania", so I decided to finally join the community a bit more and am very excited about what February will bring to my gaming.

-sits back and watches-

Thank you for anyone who reads this completely boring story.

The sheer competitiveness on this game is what amazes me. For every thing there is a ranking, and as a competitive person, I just can't resist it

the competitive esports nature of TMN is what got me hooked and is what still makes me excited to play the game.

A game featuring a user-friendly track editor.

Enough said.

and all the friends I made from all over the world.. even from a remote country called New Zealand..

I'll try to keep this short.

What introduced me to TM?
A friend of mine was looking for free racing games we could play over LAN. He found TMN ESWC.

What got me hooked on TM?
Buying TMU in late 2007. Playing a LOT of Island tracks! So fun! Discovering TMX in early 2008. Also becoming very active with SFFN in TM... building and racing each other's tracks as well as racing in some leagues. So it was really the community and the massive amount of custom tracks to drive that hooked me. It's never been directly about the editor for me, although I do enjoy the process of building tracks. But for me it's about driving other people's tracks. That's the "hook".

For me it was a search for a free online game back in 2008. It didn't take long to get addicted to the fun, the chat and painting cars so when Christmas came my daughter bought me TMUF. A couple of months later while cruising the servers I stumbled across a brand new server I hadn't seen before which specialised in 'dirt' and suddenly found a small group of players all addicted to not only TM but also the dirt tracks. The friendships I formed on that server not only reinforced my addiction to TM but made me want to become more involved with the community. A new team was being formed on that server and I was invited to join and take an active part in running it ... 3 years later and I have never looked back.

The team now has around 150 dedicated members and I also have countless friends elsewhere in TM .... Thats an awful good reason to get addicted lol.

This video is what started it all: http://video.google.de/videoplay?docid= ... 8719023249

tcq wrote:

banjee wrote:when i was little my parents read an article that said kids who play FPS's grow up to be cereal killers

I love this one

woah! Huge quote! awesome!

I got into TM by playing the Sunrise Demo.
But my Clan and all the people I know keep me playing TM. It's the Community, not the game itself, in my eyes

Wow, loads of late-joiners here.

I started off with TM:S - can't even remember anymore how i discovered TM

What got me hooked was the learning curve, the required skill level (coming from competitive GP2 scene) and
the ability to create your own stuff (mainly models and skins, i've never been a great track builder)
Sadly i came too late to TM2 and now it's a struggle with only the hardcore community online and only few servers.