A magic moment

[Soprah]

It's been exactly one month since I've played TM Lagoon on the PS4 together with my elder brother, sister and her boyfriend at christmas. It was one of those rare moments where we've been together and playing a game on a console just like in the old days with mario kart. This was a very nice feeling, but on top of that: They really enjoyed playing this game which made me very proud. (although my sister clearly couldn't handle the sensitive car - luckily she took it good-humouredly)

It did not only remember me of the good old mario kart days where we've been playing together, but it also reminded of Trackmania's success in the past. And it made me feel sad how Trackmania developed over the last 10 years. From "everyone knows and plays Trackmania"-game to "every 20years old-ish knows TMNF but doesn't play it anymore"-game..

I am fully sure that nearly everybody feels like (being sad about how TM developed over the last years) this who experienced the grand success of TMNF on their own. But losing yourself in anger and despair is not the way to go I guess. Just remind yourself who made TMNF with its super-grand success. The team didn't change. Nadeo did it

I am saying this because lately I began to take a look on the forum again. I quickly realised that the majority isn't happy about the recent MP4 previews.. that Nadeo is mostly supporting creators (again) instead of favouring the players. I've got mixed feeling about this but whenever I remind myself of "Who made the fantastic game called Trackmania Nations forever which was probably the best gaming experience I ever had in my life?", then all my fear, despair and anger are blown away when I say:

"NADEO did it."
(Could also be the slogan when your post gets deleted. Sorry, couldn't resist. It's just a joke)

And mabye in the (far) future we'll re-experience the grand success of TM which would be another magic moment

[Hylis]

Thanks for the testimony about your family enjoying playing together, and yes, we should have done simpler tracks for the local multiplayer, dedicated to these modes.

Keep in mind:
+ 2016 was the year with the biggest number of new player on Trackmania ever with 4 millions new registrations
+ 2016 was the best commercial year of the Nadeo team and support the much stronger team
+ 2016 was the year with the most popular and crazy offline Trackmania only event ever with the ZeratoR Cup
- there are tons of other multiplayer games
- there are tons of other online disctractions, like facebook, youtube, twitch & others
- there is not "one" united place, there are many places to play Trackmania

+ You will soon see, thanks to the last preview, how Maniaplanet 4 is somehow dealing with the 3 last (-) points
+ Maniaplanet 4 will be done around June and there is still time left for cool things

And the most important:
+ like you said, we are the same people that made Forever, and even better (yes, we improve with experience ^_^)
+ the team is 3 times bigger than years before Forever and as cool!

Most of the work done over the last years was hard to see:
+ it was deep engineering: evolution of Maniaplanet low level, online architectures for services, tool framework etc.
+ training of the new team members which also requires time from experienced ones
+ Some of the current work is undisclosed and for future big steps

Anyway, this forum is now restricted to game development topic (Nadeo / players, players/players) and I would like it to stay like that. I will lock the topic since I know too easily that useless debates can arise from these kind of post. I would like to say that (+) the players will welcome better and better new comer and be more positive as a whole than the recent past by promotting positive attitudes, since I aslo think that the same players as before did it!

You did it!