Why do people complain about Trackmania²?

[bgphantom]

It's because the Canyon handling is worse than all of the previous envs (doriftuuu~) and handling is basically the main part of gameplay so it's important enough to complain about all the time!

For TM2 Stadium it's a bit harder to explain, but I think it might be because hardcore TMN players only care about the gameplay, not all the other useless (for when you just want to race) stuff that ManiaPlanet added for TM2S, and so TM2S is not an improvement for them. It's hard to see any improvement for people who just like to drive and compete, and since the interface is so terrible that even if there are some rumoured improvements (competitions system) no one can find them. And people who wanted to see more stuff in the Stadium env were disappointed too.

Also, misinformation is something that is not necessarily the community's fault, if the information we get is unclear, then it is difficult to be well informed. In the TM community I notice way too often that important information is only available in some forum post somewhere, and you are still expected to know about it when you post on the forum (i.e. people will be like "come on why do you ask, everyone knows that, see this post by Hylis in some offtopic thread from 2009")
And the game interface isn't very informative either, finding out how the ladder system works also involves a lot of forum searching

I agree with everything you said.

[maxi031]

It's because the Canyon handling is worse than all of the previous envs (doriftuuu~) and handling is basically the main part of gameplay so it's important enough to complain about all the time!

For TM2 Stadium it's a bit harder to explain, but I think it might be because hardcore TMN players only care about the gameplay, not all the other useless (for when you just want to race) stuff that ManiaPlanet added for TM2S, and so TM2S is not an improvement for them. It's hard to see any improvement for people who just like to drive and compete, and since the interface is so terrible that even if there are some rumoured improvements (competitions system) no one can find them. And people who wanted to see more stuff in the Stadium env were disappointed too.

Also, misinformation is something that is not necessarily the community's fault, if the information we get is unclear, then it is difficult to be well informed. In the TM community I notice way too often that important information is only available in some forum post somewhere, and you are still expected to know about it when you post on the forum (i.e. people will be like "come on why do you ask, everyone knows that, see this post by Hylis in some offtopic thread from 2009")
And the game interface isn't very informative either, finding out how the ladder system works also involves a lot of forum searching

You read my mind.

[stevenamtaan]

It's because the Canyon handling is worse than all of the previous envs (doriftuuu~) and handling is basically the main part of gameplay so it's important enough to complain about all the time

Are you trying to say that the Canyon cars handling is worse than TMU Rally or Snow.. .. I don't think the mere mention of handling is the real issue here .. maybe your driving skills?? .. personnel preference?? Everyone has their own choice of envi... mine was Desert.. just loved the two wheelin' fast flowin' tracks that the "little red devil" could handle and the same goes for Canyon.. the variety of tracks whereby you experience some amazing handling that takes time and practice to acheive of course.
Stadium to me was such an annoying driving experience at times due to 'landing bugs' (the other envi's also had BUGS) .. ..that I lost interest very quickly once TMU arrived and I hope that Nadeo can "fix" some of these issues but then again the "complainers" might start over saying "we want our bugs back"..
You can never satisfy everyone but I beleive Nadeo cares more about their games and the community than any other game producers.
Just my thoughts - no harm intended..

[wiidesire-2]

In my opinion Canyon was a too drastic change.

All TMUF Environments except Stadium are not based on drifting. And in my opinion Canyon is nearly 90% only drifting. And in the alpha of Canyon I realised that the car is to non responsive for me. There were always these moments where you thought: Why did the car got out of control? Yes I mastered this then after about ~100 hours of driving, but even then I just didn't like Canyon.

You know I really wanted to like it even drove myself up to 80k, I wasn't even bad in the multiplayer but I just couldn't like it.

This is only a personal prefference but the new Valley Gameplay gives me hope. Yes this is a new environment, but it is not such an drastic change. Valley is kinda like Rally what I can see from the gameplay.

And ofcourse I like changes otherwise it will get all boring (in my opinion Stadium 2 should have more changes, however I know some players really wanted nearly the same Stadium with updated graphics and those are many players -> profit for Nadeo.

But Canyon was just a too drastic change for me. I already see that I will love Valley. I will try to master this thing.

Also it was a problem that the only choice was Canyon. I also complained about it. Why? Well I wanted updated graphics and some new fun. I played TMUF for too long. More than 2000 hours of playing. And I only had the choice to play Canyon and as you can read above I tried to like it, but I simply can't. So I complained.

Now Stadium is released and Valley is coming out. I don't complain anymore. Because now I have OPTIONS on my PERSONAL PREFERENCE, which one of those three I would like to play.

[Hylis]

Gameplay of Canyon was quite 'specific' since it was made to be part of a collection. This collection is taking much time to be done, and this is why people complain about Trackmania² in my oppinion, when they do it well ^_^ This is why I am happy of seeing Stadium, Valley and new Maniaplanet features soon.

The number of players on Canyon is quite high by the way. It is decreasing since two - three weeks, after the Steam effect peak, but it is still higher than a year ago and more than what we can observe on the complete Original Sunrise edition, in their time, for example. I don't have United since it is mixed with Nations, but I don't think any environment ever had so many players than Canyon, except Stadium of course. I think that Stadium, Valley and Storm will also bring it more people, as well as to bring more custom knowledge for objects etc.

With more people and less divisions, there will be less complain. Maniaplanet was under the crossfire of Nations and former FPS pro for some time. It will change as long as the story of Maniaplanet will be written. And some people here are writing it really well, 40 times better than what people can complain about ^_^

And I agree that people complain because they expect things to be perfect while we just do our best. But, then, I think they are going to complain for a lot of things against a lot of people

[Akbalder]

With more people and less divisions, there will be less complain.

Does "Less divisons" mean multi-environement servers?

[Ozon]

Also, misinformation is something that is not necessarily the community's fault, if the information we get is unclear, then it is difficult to be well informed. In the TM community I notice way too often that important information is only available in some forum post somewhere, and you are still expected to know about it when you post on the forum (i.e. people will be like "come on why do you ask, everyone knows that, see this post by Hylis in some offtopic thread from 2009")

What's the type of misinformation you get? If you mean the info for upcoming games, then I don't see any problem here. Of course, the more I know, the better, but also the less intrested and curious I am about the game.
If you are curious about what will happen and which game comes out, you have to run through this forum for fullfilling your quest to get your desired information. You can also ask people here. Nadeo is not EA; we should stay curious and fantasize about what will happen in the future. In my opinion, this all would be so boring if I would already know all the blocks from Valley for example.

It's because the Canyon handling is worse than all of the previous envs (doriftuuu~) and handling is basically the main part of gameplay so it's important enough to complain about all the time!

Seriously, what do you want to reach with this?

Do you think they'll release an update for you? Get used to it, deal with it.
What's with all the united environments? Coast - Nobody did like this environment first, just good for stunting around, until people started to see, that skill is something to achieve to be a good driver in it. Same goes for all environments, especially for Rally, Desert and Island.

It's hard to see any improvement for people who just like to drive and compete,

Because they wanted Stadium to remain the same, while others wanted change. Nadeo found a balance between these opinions: Nadeo did a great job in adding the new stuff, but still letting users to import the old maps.

And people who wanted to see more stuff in the Stadium env were disappointed too.

That's because some people can't read "Open Beta" (Yes this was a bit offensive, excuse me). It's ok to ask Nadeo, if there will be additions, but it's not ok at this moment, to say that TM²S is no improvement, since they let you play the open beta to find bugs and improvements.


It's sometimes sad to see this forum splitting up into 3 parties; the ones who are actually happy with the game, the ones who aren't and the people, who think having a stadium around you is the only place to have serious competition. Sometimes I still don't get some people. Buying a game and spending more time to hate on the forums instead of just getting used to new things. Spoiled customers? Issues with new enviroments? I don't know.

EDIT: well said, Hylis

[Omnixor]

just getting used to new things

I think that, if earlier something was actually better, it's not pointless to "hate" on the forums. we got used that Nadeo often hears players' wishes, so people expect it all the time.

[Romain42]

I don't think any environment ever had so many players than Canyon, except Stadium of course.

I think the same. As a single environment, Canyon does pretty well.

But on the other hand, the 6 environments of TMU (and even Stadium is sort of way) were much more linked than the environments of now. Once you had one installed, you had all the others. Which implied, there was a single community for the whole TMU and in my opinion Canyon shouldn't be compared with any specific environment of TMU. It will be way harder to unite the whole TM2 community because lots of players will not have all the environments. Last but not least, i have the feeling the Canyon community is less active than the old TMU one in terms of initiatives: they involve less in new projects and they wait more from Nadeo or older players to lead the changes. Of course it's an observation of the average community, those who take initiatives shouldn't feel attacked. And even the others, i can pretty well understand that lots of players don't haven enough time for instance... But the average observation show trends, and the trend of nowadays is to more passiveness, i'm affraid. If someone has ideas about how to change this, it could be a good idea of debate i think.

With more people and less divisions, there will be less complain.

As said above, i don't really agree about "less divisions". I hope to be wrong, though.

And I agree that people complain because they expect things to be perfect while we just do our best. But, then, I think they are going to complain for a lot of things against a lot of people

In the whole life, people complain about lots of things because they complain about anything that isn't perfect. On the other hand, if you asked people to give a mark to Maniaplanet, lots of "complainers" might give 7, 8 or even 9/10. Surely, the feedback you get is more negative than the truth, because we don't bring an overall opinion of the game with each thing we criticize. Neverhteless, as said eyebo, the simple fact players come here and write messages (sometimes long) show they care about TM and they love it. The players you really disappoint don't come here to complain, they just leave and shut-up, while playing another game. Of course, it can get on your nerves when you have to deal with such a phenomena. After all, everybody is a human an nobody likes to be flamed.

A new stuff is only good, when the older stuff does not exist anymore

I guess your point is ironical... But anyway a new thing should be considered as good when it surpasses the older one (and only then).

And look at the complaints of TMN players, whatever Nadeo is doing with TrackMania²Stadium, it is not good enough.

It's quite hard to have an holistic view of the stadium community regarding this issue. Each player has one's own expectations about the evolution of the game and the expectations of A aren't those of B. Thus whatever Nadeo does, either A or B will complain. But it gives the impression that the whole community wants both everything and nothing. I makes me wonder about the Hydra of the greek mythology: with so much heads (thus brains?) how could it have a consistant wisedom?

Let's see in 10 years, what people then think about TM² and TM

We should hope TM² surpasses TM until then, otherwise it would be a huge failure...

I actually think most of the "complaining" about TM2C is over. People either like it or they don't. As Hylis has said, it's a very polarizing environment. I think that's fine. And I don't really see a lot of forum posts trying to nag about it anymore.

Strangely, i had the opposite thought about Canyon. For me, this environment was intended to please everybody (at least moderately). When Hylis presented it, he said they input things from all the environment and at the moment i really had the impression they tried to make something rather "classic", that would be able to gather a large variety of players. And today the Canyon community contains former United players, former TMN ones and newcomers so it has been archieved in a certain way. I thought they tried to avoid to make a sequel of TMN, or a sequel of TMU, to stay from scratch the new TM was for everybody. And now we have the sequels of both (Stadium 2 and Valley) that are coming. [EDIT: well, it seems the contrary of what Hylis said in this topic...Maybe i misunderstood at the moment]

It's normal that people stop complaining about the physics/gameplay of Canyon, because after a period you know the environment will not be changed and complaining is useless. You like it or not, but it will stay as it is.

--- Price ---

I think it is not the best option to make Stadium (partly) free while other environments are not. Because it will maintain a huge business difference between the environments and over the long run it risks to prevent Stadium to fit in the whole Trackmania.

If a single environment should be free, i think it should be the last version. For instance, make Valley partly free when it cames out, while Stadiums become totally charged (and 20 euros like others). And when the 4th TM2 environment cames out, make it free while Valley becomes 20 euros charged. The free version would then be used to boost the start of a new game instead of giving a permanent gift to a part of the community, but a part only. And after having played 6 months we can expect players to take part to the development cost if they really like the game. Else... Let they go away.

Also, misinformation is something that is not necessarily the community's fault, if the information we get is unclear, then it is difficult to be well informed. In the TM community I notice way too often that important information is only available in some forum post somewhere, and you are still expected to know about it when you post on the forum (i.e. people will be like "come on why do you ask, everyone knows that, see this post by Hylis in some offtopic thread from 2009")
And the game interface isn't very informative either, finding out how the ladder system works also involves a lot of forum searching

I agree, although it's not that simple to make a lot of information available through a simple clic. We could imagine a specific part in the forums, where only Nadeo members can post and that gathers all official information. You could access those threads from the forum index or from some ingame links, clicking on "learn more" icons for instance. It's an idea, maybe someone can suggest better. (And it already exists at some point with the competitions feature being linked with some info on the player page).

And regarding how many posts from Nadeo guys we have here, i think they are making efforts to inform us, maybe it just needs to be tidy.

[Fluffykins]

Gameplay of Canyon was quite 'specific' since it was made to be part of a collection. This collection is taking much time to be done, and this is why people complain about Trackmania² in my oppinion, when they do it well ^_^ This is why I am happy of seeing Stadium, Valley and new Maniaplanet features soon.

Yeah, it is taking long, but what do you expect from a team of small, but awesome Ponies who work on it?

The number of players on Canyon is quite high by the way. It is decreasing since two - three weeks, after the Steam effect peak, but it is still higher than a year ago and more than what we can observe on the complete Original Sunrise edition, in their time, for example.

How does that remove players? They still have to log in and make a MP account, right?

I don't have United since it is mixed with Nations, but I don't think any environment ever had so many players than Canyon, except Stadium of course. I think that Stadium, Valley and Storm will also bring it more people, as well as to bring more custom knowledge for objects etc.

Yes, it most certainly will.

With more people and less divisions, there will be less complain. Maniaplanet was under the crossfire of Nations and former FPS pro for some time. It will change as long as the story of Maniaplanet will be written. And some people here are writing it really well, 40 times better than what people can complain about ^_^

Eeyup.

And I agree that people complain because they expect things to be perfect while we just do our best. But, then, I think they are going to complain for a lot of things against a lot of people

Ah, I get it, they though the game was worse then they thought. Anyhoof, you, my Stallion, are awesome.