Seb's Taiwan Trackmania project

[seb9138]

Hi.

I am Seb, French leader of LDLC-PyRo tech team on TMStadium.
I wanted to create this post to share with you my trackmania project (which is a bit special), and to listen to any commentaries about it.

So my project is : I want to promote Trackmania in Taiwan.
Woooo great idea Seb! Ok seriously, let me explain why a little bit.

Why :
1/ I am now living in Taiwan and I am staying at least 2 years.
2/ I want to promote Trackmania because I love this game for a long time, and the amount of players currently playing isn’t good at all (this topic isn’t a place to debate why…)
3/ I want this project to be a great human relationship experiment. I mean, I want to create connections with locals thanks to my trackmania hobbit.

How :
This is the part some of you could give me some ideas, I am always listening.
Until now I’ve some basics ideas:

1/ Play in internet cafes Trackmania. An europen in an internet cafe isn’t commun at all, so I’ll be “watched”. And an European playing another game than LOL or Starcraft, that’ even less commun! By this way I hope I could get the attention of some players, and engage a conversation with them. Then explain the game, then let them play, etc…
2/ Organise supersmall competition (for instance with only one pc and hotseat mode) and give some demo keys for winners.
3/ To be determined….

Ofc I’ve some ideas left, but I wont enter in details for this first post, because point 1/ is a main step of my project and that’s gonna take time. Now I wrote TBD, coz I will be glad to listen to your ideas, and update this post if needed.

Ok so guys, I don’t want this post to be too long, here is how I’ll proceed with this topic : when I’ll achieve a main fact for this project, I will write a post on this topic, to explain what I did and eventually share some pictures.
That’s it! Ofc if you have no interest that’s np I am not saying that tis project gonna 100% rocks, but lets try.

I've just arrived and I need some time to settle down, so I wont achieve a lot of actions now, but I'll watch this post everyday.
See u.

[nighthawk4571]

Hi Seb

I have some Taiwanese friends, mostly employed in the software industry. Their interests seem to be:
- Eating out in groups;
- Taking selfies with their food;
- Travelling the world - most of them make enough money to head overseas three or four times each year;
- Social networking, where they madly share their food selfies.

All of them are keen gamers and I've watched them (in groups of five or six males and females) sitting around the breakfast table with their Tablets etc, not talking, eating a little and going silently crazy over their games.

I have been visited in Australia by about 16 of these friends and have enjoyed many silent evenings with them, playing Lan games with gear they brought with them, plus some computers borrowed from me. Both boys and girls have really had fun with ManiaPlanet and a few other games.

So I think you might have some fun with your idea. It wont be hard to make friends in Taiwan, especially if you love eating out .
Good luck with this mate!

[seb9138]

Hey nighthawk.

Thanks for your experience sharing.
I am in Taipei for only fews days, but your point of view seems right.

The subway is really quite and half are playing or social-networking on their phones.
I saw the same thing for eating, silently on their phones.

I found a TTesport internet cafes yesterday, had no time unfortunqtely, but I am going to start playing there.

[hpvinzenz]

its sounds good

[seb9138]

Ater 1 month of setting down in the country, and travellers illness haha, I finally went in a cybercafe to play.

I went to a TTesport gaming cafes, there are several of this esport brand in Taipei.
If I suceed about some points, that was a bad first experience!

Difficulties:
-As expected I had to install the game on the computer. But that took me...2h!
The internet connection speed is great, but since the maniaplanet servers are in Europe, it was really really slow...
The ping on european server is high, despite the good dl/ul rate.

- The cybercafes was not really crowded, probably because it was lat and in the week.

Success :
-I played one about one hour only, but i caught the attention of my two neighbors. Basically speccing at the beginning, and I gave the opportunity to play to one of them. Liked it, but that was too short.

Action :
I seriously need to do something about the game installation, I cant loose 2 hours each time. I know the game is portable, I will investigate to set the game on a usb stick.
That's also give me idea for the future : to buy small data size usb key (inexpensive in Taiwan), set the game on it, and provide it to the gamers who want to play.

About the ping, anyone has any advice to give me? The only solution I see now is to have a asian-based server.

I plan to go back soon, with a portable version.

[hpvinzenz]

How is ur plan going ?

[seb9138]

Hey.

Unfortunately my project is pending at the moment.
Because or my work, I don't have enough time.

But I still have this project idea into my head, and I try to figure out how I could keep doing it in parallel with my job. I am thinking to use social network now, coz it is time-cheap and indred very used there in Taïwan(facebook). I am now able to read some sentences,that will help me Instead of translate.and also speak a bit.

btw, I solved the set up issue, just install tm2 on a stick works fine.

I know what to do, and plenty of ideas.
My biggest now worry us that I will get more time and means for it too late, since tm2 has been launched for a while all ready.

feel free to push me for this, as I told I don't have enough time to focus,but I really want to help tm