May 24th – June 2nd

Let the feast begin!

Starting on May 24th Beyond Gaming, Ubisioft and our partners invite you to bring your ShootMania skills to the table and claim your “Royal Treatment”. Throw down in this Free-for-All challenge and walk away with Papa John’s pizza, DVD’s from Columbia House, gaming eye-wear from Gunnar Optiks, Soundblaster products, and the Grand Prize a REVOLT R770 Gaming PC courtesy of iBuyPower! Rank in the Top 100 players and you are guaranteed to win!

Registration is free! Sign up at: Beyond Gaming – Royal Feast Tournament

Don’t have ShootMania?! No problem! We’re giving away free 30-day trial accounts to new players who want to participate in the event. Claim you’re free trial, here: FREE 30-Day ShootMania Access

For complete event details, including information on open play ladders and qualifying for the finals, check out: http:/bit.ly/12czTFg

A new update is now available for (mainly) ShootMania Storm! One of the noticeable additions is the Arrow platform, where you can use the “Arrow” weapon which was featured in the Combo title pack. You are now able to add this weapon to all your maps, new and old.

The patch  also features:

• The Arrow platform is now available for all modes (block 1-8-6)

• ShootMania: Imports characters skins (3D Models)

• ShootMania: Create item & dynamic objects

• ShootMania: New features for the scripts

• ShootMania: More bots controls

• ShootMania: New items / objects api and features.

• ShootMania: Mousewheel to change actions / weapons

• ShootMania: New Storm blocks

• Stadium: Stadium blocks adjustments for upcoming blocks

• Editor: Improved underground edition mode

• MediaTracker: Record ghost from the MT

There is also many bufixes all around ManiaPlanet!

You only need to launch the game to apply the update.

Have fun!

Last month, the community, Nadeo, and Ubisoft, in partnership with SteelSeries, came together to celebrate a very special event: the release of ShootMania Storm with the “ShootMania4All” Launch Party.

For the entire day, thousands of people from all around the world came together to discover and play ShootMania – online or in person, from North America, Europe, Australia and many places inbetween.

Players created a fun and friendly ambiance, sporting the ShootMania colors alongside other awesome swag the received, including t-shirts, mugs, and the limited edition ShootMania collector mousepads.

Fans unable to attend one of the live events still had a chance to participate in the fun, joining the FragDolls and O’GamingTV for their livestreams. They put together an awesome show, which you can watch [or rewatch!] here:

Watch live video from Frag Dolls on TwitchTV

Finally, for those who prefered to simply play the game, special online servers were configured specifically for this event. These servers featured some of the most popular community-generated game modes, and allowed everyone to participate in the party [and even meet members of the Nadeo crew!

We leave with this small re-cap video of the event, and our thanks once again to our fans and players for helping us with organizing and participating in the launch of ShootMania Storm. It was really awesome.

EUROPE

Time: Thursday, May 9th at 6 PM CEST [3 PM EDT, 12 PM PDT]
Link to Stream: Twitch.tv
Tournament Bracket: Here
Complete Tournament Details

NORTH AMERICA

Time: Thursday, May 9th at 10 PM CDT [9 PM EDT, 4 AM CEST]
Link to Stream: Twitch.tv
Tournament Bracket: Here
Complete Tournament Details

There has been a lot of activity in the previous weeks, between the ManiaGala, the ShootMania Launch Tournament, and the ShootMania 4 All Release Party.

Today, we’re releasing a small summary of what happened during the ManiaGala event at Gamers Assembly. Gamers Assembly took place on March 30th to April 1st, at the Palais des Congrès of the Futuroscope in Poitiers, France. This year, a part of the Gamers Assembly was decked out in the ManiaPlanet colors.

It was an exciting party that was open to everyone: TrackMania and ShootMania players united together to compete in amazing tournaments! Almost the entire Nadeo Development team was on hand to meet members of the community. It was a weekend full of hanging out with people and new players, chills, and smiles in a fun, open and friendly environement.

Five tournaments were held for players who registered in advance, and two were open to anyone attending, filling both days with intensive matches.

During the first public tournament, ManiaGala 1, “Oniby” won first place, with “Stonn” and “Leaf” coming in second and third place respectively.

ManiaGala 2 was won by “Profeta”, a young ShootMania player, followed by “Nanouskaa”, “Judoka” and “Gaetan” who all tied for second place.

Finally, here are the results of the “official” tournaments, where the finals (except for Elite) were played in the ManiaPlanet amphiteatre in front of a crazy audience!

TrackMania² Canyon

First Place: “Onio”, followed by “Cocow” and “Zypher”.

TrackMania² Stadium

The winner was “Yoyo”. Second and Third Place: “Tamarillo” and “HakkiJr”.

ShootMania Elite

“Swiss Bulls” won this tournament, followed by “PyroGEN” in second and “ImG.Mistral” in third.

ShootMania Royal

“Narwak” won the gold medal, “efg” came ini second and “Dim” earned third.

ShootMania Joust

The winner was “Oniby”. Second and Third Place: “yoannlink” and “d4mszczku”.

A big congrats to all the players, and a  big thank you to Alienware and Logitech for their generous donations towards prizes for all the tournaments. Special thanks to maniActu and Drakonia for their energy and continued support of ManiaPlanet.

We had a lot of fun meeting everyone during the event, and we hope that you all had a good time as well. Thanks again for your support!

We leave you with a commemorative video of the event, as well as a photo gallery from ManiaGala!

Alienware Arena

Registration: Open until April 29th
Tournament Dates: May 6th – 9th
Game Mode: Elite
Prize Pool: $3000 
Sign Up:
Europe: Event Overview / Registration
North America: Event Overview / Registration

PC Gamer

Dates: April 15th thru May 7th
Game Mode: Elite
Prize Pool: £800
Sign-Up: Here

Please note that while the tournament is open to all players, the servers will be located in Europe.

In addition to these larger tournaments, ShootMania Storm is featured in several recurring weekly and monthly events, for both North America and Europe:

Weekly Tournaments

Europe:

ESL
Game Mode: Elite
Prize Money: Weekly Tournament – €150 | Monthly Finals – €400
Sign-Up: Here 

Crusaders TV Pixel Cup
Dates: April 15th – May 6th
Game Mode: Elite
Prize Money: €100
Sign-Up: Here

Zotac Cup
Game Mode: Joust
Prize Money: Weekly Tournament – €100 | Monthly Finals – Up to €500
Sign-Up: Here

North America

NEW! National ESL
Game Mode: Elite
Prize Money: Weekly Tournament – $150 | Monthly Finals – $400
Sign-Up: Here

Know of any other ShootMania events, or interested in holding your own? Contact us at: Shootmania@Ubisoft.com – we’d love to help out! Whether your a local LAN center or major gaming league, we’re always willing to help support our ShootMania fans.

That calls for celebration don’t you think ? So don’t forget the ShootMania 4 All Launch Party happening all around the world today. Check out the various live events over there, and if you can’t join any of them, don’t forget to join us online on the O’GamingTV and FragDolls livestreams !

So, ShootMania is out of beta, and is now available for purchase on ShootMania.com, Steam, UPlay and other digital retailers. Spread the word and invite your friends to join the party.

If you took part in the closed or open beta events but have not bought the game before the April 10th, today your account will be converted to a trial account, and you will only have access to the Elite and Royal game modes. To gain back access to all the game modes and possibilities of ShootMania and ManiaPlanet, all you need is to purchase a full copy of ShootMania Storm and add the key to your account.

Note that for the time being, it is impossible for new players to create a trial account. All new players who would like to join the community need to buy a copy of ShootMania Storm. Free trial accounts with access to Elite and Royal will come back in the future along with more updates of the game.

This is only the beginning ! We have a lot of plans for future updates of ShootMania that we’ll expose here when the time comes. We thank you for the continued support you provided us through the alpha and beta phases of the game: enjoy the launch part, and see you in game !

Nadeo Live

After a great ManiaGala & Gamers Assembly, remember that we have announced the winners of the video contest as well as the community modes selected for the Launch Event.

Let’s start with the video contest. The winners are:

• For TrackMania² Canyon, “Escape to Canyon” by Adsun:
  
• For TrackMania² Stadium, “This is TrackMania” by Shortz:
  
• For ShootMania Storm, “Showmatch” by Sky:
  

All the three players won a $400 Amazon Gift Card! They’ll receive it in the coming days.

And now discover which gamemodes have been chosen by you, the community, to be used on the online ShootMania 4 All servers at the launch day, April 10th. The winners are Obstacle, a skilled Time Attack gamemode and Jailbreak, a dodgeball-like mode.

We hope that you’ll enjoy these modes plus Elite, Royal and Battle. If you are a server admin and that you want participate on the event, feel free to register your server and make sure to follow the rules.

Have a great time during the ShootMania 4 All and afterwards!

One year ago, I was explaining the concepts of titles, stations, map types, modes and objects. We still have things to do to support these functionalities,  however it is also time to start testing new major features for ManiaPlanet.

Matchmaking

When you connect to a matchmaking server, you will be added to a list of players who are also looking to play the same mode at that time. As soon as two individuals or teams are ready, the match launches and you are transferred to a server for the match. The result of this match will be used to determine your points required to advance higher in the rankings. Some key things will be taken into account, like the level of the players you played against and scores. We also may introduce points loss in matches with higher stakes to enable good players to progress even faster. Combined with the weekly loss of points in the higher ranks, we should keep the best players at the top. The system may also evolve by taking into account the number of matches played, if it seems necessary.

Teams

In 2006, we introduced team rankings in Trackmania. Soon we will be bringing them back, with principles based on simplicity and the ability to see rankings per countries and regions. By linking with the team creation system, these teams will lso be able to see their information directly inside the game, such as their logo right into matches. The team ranking system shall give an approximation of their level, enabling easier registration in regional or intermediary level ompetitions.

Compétitions

We will have a way to make the competitions available ingame, for the players, and for those who organize them. The players or teams looking to be part of official competitions will be capable of finding a direct link to the organizing sites, and to the people that are so crucial to the video games competitions environment ecosystem.

With an architecture enabling players to create custom titles, based on custom modes, with their own rankings, matchmaking tools, teams and competitions, the goal is to open the creativity of the players even more by bringing new ingredients for designing their own experiences and vision of fun.

Items

Map makers will be able to add items easily from the map editor. They can be different types, such as sets, generators, pick ups, turrets, teleporter or even bots! The idea is to enable and add interactive elements to solo or multiplayer experiences. Pathfinding will be included, while script functions will allow you to define bot targets. Items are a new file type, that will be linked with a later version of the editor, enabling players to define their editing and interactive properties.

Actions

Actions are sequences and consequences that players and items can do. For example, it can be to trigger a specific animation at a given spot in the map, or to make a sfx, or to launch projectiles with modified properties. The tool that will link to this file type will enable players to make animations, play sounds, define particle effects and script the consequences of the actions.

On a more global example, we have made a little FPS MOBA internally, with selection of champions, with each ones having different spells. Each champion can level up, and little creatures assist you while attacking the opposite team. Once  things are done, we will release the code samples, like the one of the upcoming Shootmania Storm title: Combo, based on 2vs2, items to pick up and switchable weapons on the 1-2-3-4 keys.

It will takes months for us to implement all of these functions, and we may have to put some other question on hold during this time. We think it is very important to open Maniaplanet soon, to bring more and more creative players inside the  system. We have worked 10 years on Trackmania about map editor, replay tool, skin import, regional ranking, dedicated server, script, titles, object import. Now, we think that we are reaching a new step in the opening to players. It may take time before the best things appears, but it is a goal to make the launch of Shootmania Storm, Trackmania² Stadium and Valley the start of something great for ManiaPlanet. The goal is to bring the power from our team to the players, with our support and yours.

Thanks to all players from before, now and in the future that participate in this fun adventure with a positive spirit.

The Nadeo team.

It’s finally here!

Beginning this Saturday at 10:00 AM PDT, the sixteen qualifying teams from North America and Europe will come together at last, and compete for their share of the $100,000 prize pool in our double-elimination Elite Tournmanet.

Bracket: ShootMania Launch Event – Elite Tournament

Free food and drinks [including an open bar!] will be available throughout the event, while supplies last. The first 600 to RSVP get VIP tickets, which gets you to the front of the lines and premium seating throughout the event.

RSVP: ShootMania Launch Event

For those of you in attendance, you will also be able to participate in four separate Royale Tournaments, each with a $500 prize pool.

Register: ShootMania Launch Event – Attendee Royal Tournament

For those of you who are unable to attend, the event will be live-streamed courtesy of the IGN Pro League. Streams will be available on Twitch.Tv, and the VOD’s will be posted on YouTube.

Twitch.TV Channel
YouTube Channel 

We hope to see you there!

For more details, check out the following article: IGN.com – ShootMania $100,000 Launch Event Tournament