Maniaplanet Forum

Great update overall, I especially like the important upgrades for TrackMania like slidemarks in spectator mode (very useful in a casters perspective) and better lightning. As an eager person for the competitive aspect of trackmania, it was a little bit worrying that it was ignored for so many years already, but great to see it added never the less.

One thing that I'm not sure I like about the new menu system is the way you put everything into very small and tiny icons that you barely can find. Especially in the buddy menu, you have to study real hard and hover the mouse over all the icons before you understand it. A minimalist and tiny design, but is it user friendly? Time will show.

My next hope for maniaplanet and trackmania is to get a properly working match making system that includes a database for rankings, results, tournaments and teams. For nearly 8 years, all our effort into performing in matches and tournament has just vanished. No records of the history, no ranking to refer to, no match statistics or history. In these days where E-sports and competition is one of the strongest growing markets, it is essential to build up a system that backs up historical moments, statistics and rankings. Without this, there will be a great lack of hype and prestige. Because of the very split community, especially within TrackMania 2 Stadium, the best way would be to separate the whole system and create a ranking list for every driving style, like TECH, SPEED, DIRT, etc. Having a ranking list that included all driving styles in TM2S would be pointless, just like the current LP system is quite pointless in regards to the players skill. It is all about playing in the correct servers, and play 24/7 to achieve a good LP.

Hopefully we will see a better use of the planet system as well. Personally I have many ideas for how to improve both a ranking and a planet system, but I'll save that for later.

Maniaplanet.exe also seem to crash very frequently now. I also got many reports from players having performance issues, and now have problems playing the game at lowest settings.

Hylis wrote:For me, it's the opposite.

It may only be good, or too soon, considering that the game can only become better and better with time.

Sorry to say it, but the game can get worse with time too. TM2 i worse than TMNF. The later updates of TM2 is at worse than earlier, because of constantly added annoyances and bugs. I have the impression that none of the developers are Trackmania drivers themselves. I guess you were at the time when you made TMN and TMNF.

The driving itself is good, and the environments, but the menu system is not what it should be. I don't have much hope for Trackmania. Trackmania could become a huge success if you make it in the right way. Every detail matters. Not only driving and graphics, but also sounds and menues.

TMarc wrote:

liquidmetalrob wrote:I don't like how in TM2 the map name, author's name and flag have gone from the top right of the screen. Clicking there used to be a really easy way to find out the medal times for a track and with lots of title packs that don't have ghosts it was the only way to find them out.

It's still there if you press the TAB key while driving (at least this works in solo mode).
It ws mainly hidden to allow the server controllers more room and nearly totaly control of the display

Thanks for the help.

I feel quite similar to Znik. I haven't tried the editor yet to see the changes that have been made there, but we have already had a problem where we can't get on our online server because whenever we try to connect to it, the message "Server has not been updated to the latest version" appears. Not sure if this is something mandatory or just an error message, but our admin has emailed the server host in search of answers.

Maniaplanet has also crashed twice yesterday for me. Without reason, during an online session it sent me back to the desktop and the game had shut down.

Something I do not understand yet is: players who own 2 out of 3 TrackMania² titles have no access to the multi-environment title. Only those, who have all 3 titles can actually play the multi-environment title, which doesn't make any sense to me.
This means, these players cannot even play envi-mix tracks (for example StadiumCar on Valley) where nothing related to Canyon (car physics or the environment itself) is used.
In case this player joins a server and a Canyon map is about to load, he should simply be redirected back to the main menu of the title with a message "You do not own the title "TMCanyon". You will be redirected back to the main menu." instead of not being able to use the multi-environment title pack at all.
I've heard a few people complaining about that already :/

But it's also stupid to get kicked sometimes from a server. But in general I have to agree, because I don't bought Stadium since I can play it in TMUF.

honestly, people should purchase the full titles and stop complaining that they don't have access to the full possibilites
There should still be some advantage for those who have the full package, don't you think!?

Anyways this is just the begin of environment mixing in ManiaPlanet.
The optimal solution, to allow connection only to the servers that propose maps for the available titles, is something more difficult to implement.
Certainly postponed to a future major update.

xxluke wrote:But it's also stupid to get kicked sometimes from a server.

Sure, but that might encourage you to buy the missing title.

TMarc wrote:honestly, people should purchase the full titles and stop complaining that they don't have access to the full possibilites

Let me quote a part from the newest part on the Maniaplanet blog:

TrackMania upgrades
Multi-environments possible and a TrackMania 2 title with all modes (Canyon + Stadium + Valley)

Nadeo is advertising brand new possibilities with the games and you can't even install the multi-envi title because you are missing one environment? If I was someone who is missing one TM2 game, I would complain about that as well.
Not being able to play envi-mix maps which don't contain content of the missing title is just one of the negative aspects anyway.

TMarc wrote: The optimal solution, to allow connection only to the servers that propose maps for the available titles, is something more difficult to implement.

True point, but that would at least be one possible solution to make things more fair for those, who do not own all titles (for whatever reason).

Hey, the update is really great, really love the blockmix and all the new features, i will maybe write better feedback but just came to ask there was mention of items in shootmania but i cant find any? Or is item different in shootmania

they have to be added in a custom title