Category Archives: Maniaplanet

Road to Gamers Assembly

From Paris to Poitiers!

After the presence of Trackmania & Shootmania at the Electronic Sports World Cup occuring at the Parc des Expositions of Paris, Nadeo announce several tournaments at the Gamers Assembly of Poitiers in April 2015 and several online tournaments by then on the famed competition plateform of the ESL.

The Gamers Assembly is at the heart of the esport in France, and is a privileged place for the Trackmania & Shootmania community to meet. Only racing game and FPS with the most number of teams, the 2014 edition has been the occasion to meet a lot of players around very high quality tournaments in a very good ambiance. With seven tournaments planned this year, Nadeo hope that the players will find a competitive and human experience stronger than before.

That’s why Nadeo launch the operation “Road to Gamers Assembly

  • From now, a free unlimited access to the Trackmania² Stadium & Shootmania Storm multiplayer until the Gamers Assembly
  • Prized online tournaments on ESL Go4 for Trackmania² Stadium & Shootmania Storm Elite
  • Prized LAN tournaments at the Gamers Assembly on at least 7 Maniaplanet titles

Online tournaments on ESL before the Gamers Assembly

  • Go4 on Trackmania² Stadium in December, January & February
  • Go4 on Shootmania Storm Elite in December, January & February

LAN tournaments at the Gamers Assembly

  • Trackmania² Stadium 1vs1vs1vs1
  • Trackmania² Canyon 1vs1vs1vs1 & Trackmania² Valley 1vs1vs1vs1 (one per day)
  • Trackmania² Stadium Dirt 1vs1vs1vs1
  • Shootmania Elite 3vs3
  • Shootmania Battle 5vs5 & Siege 5vs5 (one per day)
  • And more following the evaluation of others potential requests of the community

To get the demos, the players can go directly on the websites www.trackmania.com and www.shootmania.com

To get the free multiplayer access on Steam, simply install the demos on these address:

May the best gamers win!

Feel free to discut about it on the forums!

Hello Planet #4

This is 2014, and this is the 4th edition of Hello Planet.

Someone at Ubisoft said that something is defined by its top priority, because when you make a decision, you do it with this priority in mind and must be ready to make some sacrifice for others things. I believe that our priority at Nadeo is about the amateur, for creation, sharing or competitions, and that our motivation comes from that we believe into them to be great at it.

And to reach the amateurs, we are soon going to release the universal demo. For them, it will mean to be able to release their own demo, for their own title, and this is why I believe that it is Nadeo most significant release ever.

The universal demo

It all starts when a player is positive about a game and invite someone else to play it. And our role is to empower them to make it as easy, comfortable and interesting as possible to invite them, thanks to 3 pillars: the accessibility, the diversity and quality.

Accessibility

With Maniaplanet 3, we had to make the distribution platform with some known features, like the Store, but with less known like the Content Delivery Network that save the bandwidth and improve the players quality experience when they want to get an amateur title, or to update the inside files to help manage new versions by creators and decrease download size for players.

Now, with the demo, players will be able to play for free, on any title, on the first 48h after the registration on Maniaplanet. After, it will be unlimited for titles with less than 100 concurrent players or one hour per day for the others. The access includes all multiplayer servers, all solo white maps of campaigns and all editors.

In addition, players will even have access directly to the titles you would like them to discover thanks to the universal setup to give a single download link for a setup that will suggest to create two shortcuts on the desktop: One will be for the Title you wish that will automatically install itself; The other is for Maniaplanet, where the 6 primary stations (Stadium, Canyon, Valley, Storm, Elite and Siege) and 3 empty stations for custom titles will welcome any new player.

And thanks to all this, we are finally reaching, after years of work, the goal to enable to have on Maniaplanet, the «do it yourself Nations»

Diversity

With Maniaplanet 3, we made mixmapping, advanced items support, atmospheric settings or simply more blocks in Storm to enhance the mapping diversity.

With the demo, diversity is taking the biggest step in the last decade, since items will directly be usable in any title, as long as they respect some constraints, such as using the title materials or size limit. And with this, we expect even more items for title pack creators to have even more choices of items to add to their packs. And when a custom pack will add more textures, more items can pop up using them directly, since we are working to enable the mods of the custom items.

In addition, as with the mediatracker, it will be possible to edit directly the items parameters and so the actions inside of it.

Quality

Quality depends of many things like the maps, modes, titles, settings, network conditions, moderation, anticheat, services, interfaces, gameplay etc. But all of these depends mainly on 3 things: the system, the server and the game.

The game operating system has deeply improved with Maniaplanet 3. You can now reach the station menu directly from the home button in the system bar, you can browse servers from the overlay of stations or the buddy system keep your messages received when offline etc. These are works that required a lot of our time. For the demo, it was easier to go toward a more welcoming interface like a simple welcome frame and a more homogeneous interface style

The server is key since it is about a host that look to select quality, and part of the challenge of Maniaplanet 3 was to make the hosting of matchmaking simpler. It was a key step also to enable future expansion of Maniaplanet around the world, where others players can host in their country, in their own language, with their own choice of maps, with their own rules, server manager etc. And until then, for the demo, we will have a specific attention to host first servers where there is a need of an entry level of quality to welcome the players.

For the quality of the games, I expect both Trackmania & Shootmania to make gap thanks to the demo. For Trackmania, it shall greatly benefit from the accessibility to the Trackmania 2 title in demo, as well as track diversities thanks to the embedded custom items in maps, as well as the various great titles made by the community. And for Shootmania, which is still younger, a next big step will be to carry out an operation named “Power Up!” in memory of the first major update for Trackmania made for it’s international release.

Next Big Steps

Shootmania Storm “Power Up!”

This operation will start this week, with some key components such as gameplay update, competitions abilities to provide ladder points and works on major modes. After, it will be based on regular updates and adjustments up to next year. The goal is to have an indisputable FPS champion to welcome the noobs, gamers and competitors from around the world.

Others

It’s still too early to talk. I can only say that the Nadeo team is bigger and stronger than ever to bring you these next steps and that being at Ubisoft helps us a lot to reach our vision. It is a great company, and thanks to it, the whole project is more ambitious than ever to go forward and toward progression of the games, us, you and all the others we expect to welcome one day into Maniaplanet.

Some of the current more popular games in the world originally comes from amateurs passion for innovation. These are are the ones that we all wish to see contribute since “amateur” comes from « love » and to love is just cool: end of story!

Hylis

Maniaplanet 3 is available to everyone!

After 9 months (almost 10) of work, we are happy to tell you that the biggest update ever on Maniaplanet is finally out! A lot of things have been cooked and we’re now ready to give you most of them right now! Please note that this Maniaplanet 3 update is an early-release and all the content planned for this update will be fully released by end of June. Let’s see the major changes:

  • Maniaplanet as a better game operating system
    • Improved user interface for news, buddies & servers browser
    • A central store to easily explore & play user made titles
    • Improved support for custom data like 3D objects
    • Optimizations: CPU, GPU, loading times
  • Maniaplanet to allow more diversity for:
    • Modes: Thanks to many features for the script
    • Actions: thanks to a dedicated tool, the ActionMaker, including weapons fabrication AM_CustomProjectileTrail
    • Maps: Thanks to the ability to remove constraints from the editor (mix-mapping) MP3_mixmapping
    • Atmospheres: Thanks to mods or real time ambiance track
  • TrackMania upgrades
    • Multi-environments possible and a TrackMania 2 title with all modes (Canyon + Stadium + Valley)
    • Car-mixing possible in multi-environments title: select any TM² car in Canyon or Valley
    • Scripted mode all redone to open to even more custom modes
    • Solo: add ghost & medals to custom campaigns
  • Shootmania upgrades
    • Netcode: major improvement thanks to an innovative netvision layer
    • Gameplay: new freelook key (space key), progressive walljumps, more stamina, etc…
    • Many more gameplay blocks: teleport, force field & gates, slides, sound blocker, etc… SM_gameplay_blocks
    • Many more visual blocks: for bunkers, fences, woods, stones, walls, signs, etc…

And it’s just a part of what’s coming for Maniaplanet today, to read the full changelog, please  go to the forum. We want also to thank all the beta-testers for their great work, you’re awesome!

Stay tuned for more surprises in the coming weeks 😉

As bonus, here is some screenshots by the Community about the Maniaplanet 3 update:

The schedule of the Gamers Assembly

Greetings Maniacs!

This weekend (from 19 to 21 April 2014), the Gamers Assembly 2014 will be taking place for three days of competition and fun, featuring ShootMania and TrackMania.

ShootMania Storm was launched a year ago and it is a great privilege to meet you all to celebrate this first anniversary. Florent “Hylis” Castelnérac, Nadeo Managing Director and the ManiaPlanet Community Manager “Alinoa” will both be present.

This event includes:

1- Competitions :

  • ShootMania Storm : Elite, gathering 40 teams coming from all Europe
    The program is here playing the first match on Saturday at 1PM (French time) and the Grand Finale on Monday at noon.

  • TrackMania² Stadium : Time attack with 32 players
    The program is here featuring a first match on Saturday at 1PM and the Grand Finale on Sunday at noon (French time).

  • TrackMania² Stadium on Dirt : new feature for this edition of Gamers Assembly! For the first time, TrackMania will be played on Dirt environment. 24 players on the start line.
    The program is here featuring a Grand Finale on Sunday at 11AM right before the TrackMania² Stadium Finale.

All matches are live casted on Drakonia TV: http://tv.drakonia.eu

A big thank to Alienware and Sandisk for their support and prizes they grant the winners!

alienware-game-victorious-logo-lockup-vertical-black-20914alienware-x51SanDisk-logo

2- The gaming zone:

 

This year, Achat Mania and Nadeo have chosen to highlight ShootMania, featuring the 2 famous “Battle” and “Royal” gaming modes on Achat Mania booth.

‘Smoothie’ and ‘Tommy the Cat’, 2 members of the glorious Drakonia team and ‘Alinoa’ from Nadeo will be part on hand to talk with you about the game and give you small gifts.

3- Surprises :

At the opening ceremony of the Gamers Assembly, Florent ‘Hylis’ Castelnérac will take a few minutes to give you an overview of developments at Nadeo for ManiaPlanet!

Stay tuned on the GA web TV:


Live Gamers Assembly 2014 par gamersassembly

hop, hop ! Highly Saturday 🙂

See you there at Poitiers or line!

Nadeo team

ESL: Two cups on TM² Stadium next weekend: RPG Cup and Nascar Cup

RPG CUP 6

RPG Nightcup #6

ESL will be hosting a new RPG Cup on Saturday 15th Ferbruary at 20:00 CET. Signup open until 19:30 CET: http://www.esl.eu/eu/tm2_stadium/1on1/rpg/nc_6/signup/

In order to take part in this Nightcup, you have to install the Trackmania 2 RPG Title Pack! Type in the Maniaplanet browser: TrackManiaRPG and click on “download”.

Nascar1Stadium

Nascar Cup #1

The first edition of the Nascar championship is starting on Sunday 16th February at 30:30 CET. Registration is over but you can follow matches on ESL.

 

Maniaplanet Update #3: Information

 

Hylis, the Nadeo CEO, has given information about the Maniaplanet Update # 3 on the maniaplanet forums.

The schedule would be the following one:

  • In March, one update based on making the existing game & system more solid, quick fixes updates after and starting the beta for the Action maker.
  • In April, for the first anniversary of Shootmania, release the universal demo maniaplanet.

The update content should be the following one:

  • most popular titles listed & simply downloadable
  • a better navigation interface (quick overlays on all station & calling the stations menu from anywhere)
  • improved Maniaplanet UI (buddies, loading time, quit/minimize shortcuts)
  • mixmapping & new blocs for Shootmania
  • action maker & improved AI capacities
  • NetVision, a layer over the netcode to have maximum speed of vision of other players in Shootmania
  • a small innovation into Shootmania gameplay that can ask some more skill to master
  • a simple new mode for TM2, made for the only multi-environment title that will support Maniaplanet 3 atm.
  • more capacities for items (lights, checkpoints)
  • more capacities for scripting (playsound, minimaps, optimizations)
  • universal demo (basically play 1 hour of SM per day for free or 3×20 mn of TM2, but that may change over time)

The goal is really to empower the players and to open the access to Maniaplanet to increase the number of players.

You can read the full message of Hylis on the maniaplanet forums and share your feedbacks on the forums.

The ESL TrackMania RPG NightCup #5 Goes Live This Friday

social_assets-ESL-RPG-5_standard

 

Greetings Maniacs!

This Friday, 31 January, at 8PM CET / 2PM EST the fifth ESL TrackMania RPG Cup will be taking place. The race will be on the TrackMania RPG track Wounder by Basbaas and can be downloaded HERE.

Signups are still available on the ESL site, so head over there and compete in one of the most creative community built titlepacks.

It will also be live streamed in English on Team Acer’s frostBeule’s Twitch.TV Channel, so you can still watch it even if you’re not in game.

For more information on the community created TrackMania RPG titlepack and how to download it, check out this awesome write-up on Mania-Actu.

The TrackMania 10th Anniversary Winners

ingame-10years

Greetings Maniacs!

The votes have been counted, and we have our winners of the 10th Anniversary Contest! Voted by YOU the players and a select committee, we have had three rounds of voting and some AMAZING creations from this amazing community.

We want to personally thank everyone who submitted, voted, and raced on the winning tracks.

Track Contest Winners

  1. Tinderbox” by Basbaas

  2. Ausgeflippt” by Marius89

  3. Mixed Passions” by Remo

The Player’s Vote went to Harrison for the track “Lucky Day

10_main

You can download these skins by going entering in “ManiaPlanet-store” in the manialink address bar ingame.

Car/Skin Contest Winners

  1. “ManiaBlue” by Fantaribo

  2. “GreenBeast” by SuperP

  3. “SC_DirtyMP” by tombuilder

The Player’s Vote went to tombuilder for the skin “SC_DirtyMP”

Video Contest Winners

  1. The Journey” by DarkPuddle

  2. 10 years in video markers eyes” by Meuh

  3. Pure Awesomeness” by DaniXks

The Player’s Vote went to DarkPuddle for the video “The Journey”

Thank you for a wonderful 10 years!

mania exchange interview

Community Spotlight: ManiaExchange

Greetings Mania(c)s!

Today we continue our Community Spotlight with MrA from ManiaExchange!

We have been highlighting some of the most dedicated community websites and members all month long. These members and communities are the backbone of the ManiaPlanet family, and we are forever grateful for them and all of you out there.

Past Interviews:

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Community Spotlight – ManiaPark

As part of our continued Community Spotlight, we have today SadHik from ManiaPark!

For those of you who do not know, we have been highlighting some of the most dedicated community websites and members, all of which have been helping to promote ManiaPlanet and our players for years.

We started off our Community Spotlight series by interviewing ManiaActu for our first event, and we will be having more all month. Stay Tuned!

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