The new face of the Storm

Hi everyone,

Today is an eventful day for ManiaPlanet, with the launch of the ShootMania Storm Open Beta. Before we unleash the hordes on the servers, we wanted to introduce you another change coming today: a change of skin, and this time, it’s the websites and logos that are getting a facelift !

Let us introduce you the new ShootMania look:Packshots - SMS KeyArt 2013As ShootMania grows bigger and reaches new territories, this new identity will help us introduce the spirit of competition of the game to more gamers around the world.

You can already download the early version of the fankit to create your own content with those visuals! >> https://blog.maniaplanet.com/assets/

We hope you’ll like it, and see you in game !

Rocket Love!

Hello everyone,

This week, in addition to the start of Open Beta today, it is also the Week of Love!ValentineDayTo celebrate, we will be holding a small contest* from now until February 19th, 2013. The goal is simple: Immortalize your love for ManiaPlanet via a screenshot. Three winners will receive a free ShootMania Storm key and a swag bag valued at $20. Send your participation to shootmania@ubisoft.com with the subject “ManiaPlanet Love – YourName”, you can send as many screenshots you want. Remember to give us in the mail your name and your full address please.

Continue reading →

The Beta 3.0 RC1 is out!

Hello everyone,

A new patch for ShootMania is out now, the Beta 3! And there will be big changes.

Firstly a new gamemode is available is in ShootMania Storm : Realm. Realm is a team-based mode where the goal where the goal is to control the most part of the poles on the map to activate the timer (and to keep it activated). A team where his time reach 0 go to the finalist mode. If the team has the major part of the poles without one being contested, the team wins the round.

At the beginning of the next round, the spawns are inverted, the team having win the last round must win this one to earn a point. If both team win a round, then it starts all again but with a half timed timer. Take note that the respawns are more slower with the time.

Here is the others majors changes:

  • Gameplay: Instant reload of half an ammo when you +1
  • Land or water decorations, and 8 lighting moods instead of 4. Major textures update.
  • Elite matchmaking with lobbies.
  • In-game UI features, update and libraries. Markers can now be manialinks. Improved score tables.
  • Battle mode: Battlewaves renamed Battle. More information on atk/def score. Unique point of engagement.
  • Gameplay consolidation: more precise walljumps, more acceleration and constant jump from wetwood
  • The Charge Shot has been removed for the moment.
  • Updated autobalance function that takes into account the result of the last match.

On the Elite mode side, there is a major change, the defenders can now select their weapon between the rocket-launcher, the Nucleus and the Laser. If a defender chooses the Laser, the attacker will always locates him.

Following these changes, a new server option for the Elite Title is available for playing with the Beta 2.1 gameplay for the current competitions: Elite B2.

To read the complete changelog, please check the forum.

Enjoy this new patch and have fun!

Welcome to Beta 2.1!

Hello everyone,

As stated yesterday by Hylis, the Beta 2.1 is now out! As usual you only need to start ManiaPlanet to update it.

The Beta 2.1 update featured:

  • Improvements of the ManiaPlanet User Interface
  • ManiaHome is back inside each Title and will display the information about the current Title (for example if one of your friend beat your time in TrackMania, you’ll not see this notification on your ShootMania feed)
  • ManiaHome will have a featured news area at the top of the feed which will display the messages with medias (images or .bik (video))
  • Sounds improved
  • Change about +0 (+0 is activated after 400ms)
  • More blocks
  • TrackMania skins fixed

A detailed changelog is visible on this image:Have fun!

ShootMania opens its Beta

Hi everyone,

We know many of you are eagerly awaiting the official release of ShootMania, and that is why we are sorry to announce that we have decided to postpone this release until the 10th of April 2013, allowing us more time to polish the game and open it to even more players during the beta phase.

We want ShootMania to be a huge success for all of you who believe and support this project since the very beginning, and we want to take the time and resources required to reach this level of success. For this, we have decided to go to the players all over the world, and invite them in a grand open beta phase starting on the 12th of February and lasting up until the release date in April.This extra time, as well as the feedback of even more players, will give us the opportunity to work more on the tweaks and innovative updates in the planning for the game. During this additional time, we will work hard on delivering the best gaming experience to the passionated ShootMania and TrackMania communities.

I would like to particularly thank all the players who support the project since the very first alpha and beta phases, and hope that you will understand this difficult and important decision that we have taken.

More is coming on ManiaPlanet, but first, see you tomorrow on ManiaPlanet for the update to version 2.1 !

Hylis

Christmas Contest Winners announced!

Congratulations to all participants!

We received a ton of really nice and fun visuals for this contest!

We made a tough choice and here are the winners:

EUROPE:

1st Place: Ronald from Netherlands for his wonderful Christmas Tree and sockets

2nd Place: Nicolas from Germany for his cars in his garden3rd Place: Anton from Sweden for his poem:

Put on your Christmas suite, drive that dangerous route.  When you crash with that car, it might leave you a scar or even worse, you might just say.. Au Revoir.

It doesn’t matter anymore, because I just did my choir. I cleaned my room then stepped on the gas, and everything became totally bad ass.

I put on my helmet it all went so fast; my wreck in the canyon wasn’t my last.
I pressed spacebar and started it over, this time with a Land Rover.

After countless of tries; I couldn’t believe my eyes.
There it was, the finish line, the trophy was all mine!

I want to end this silly poem by saying thank you, you guys at Maniaplanet will always be my ground crew!

Happy holiday’s dear friends, after all those crashes, I hope that I can make amends.
Best wishes,
Anton

NCSA / AUSTRALIA

1st Place: Paul from Florida for his maps edited “Happy Holidays”

2nd Place: Evan from Minnesota for his ingame Santa Car

3rd Place: DanoDude from Australia for his Christmas screenshots

You’ll receive your swag bags worth of $50 and your free game copy in the coming weeks! Congratulations and we hope you had the best holidays!

Happy New Year! Check out your inbox for ShootMania.

Hello Everyone,

We hope that you had a good holiday. We wish you all the best in 2013 (2012 was not the end of the world)!

For ManiaPlanet®, 2013 ushers in the release of ShootMania®: Storm followed by two upcoming TrackMania2 titles.

To celebrate the New Year, we will be sending out ShootMania: Storm Beta 2 invitations to everyone who signed up via the official website before 7 pm GMT yesterday at www.shootmania.com!

Those who signed up after the deadline will be invited to participate in the final beta! If you’re interested in registering for the final beta, you have until 1/16/2013 to sign up at www.shootmania.com.

This will not affect TrackMania² BETA signups. TrackMania² Stadium and TrackMania² Valley BETA sign ups will still be open.

Remember, it’s still possible to pre-order ShootMania: Storm with a discount through this link.

Welcome, new beta testers!

ManiaPlanet Christmas contest

Hello everyone,

Depending on the country you live in, you might probably be freezing or snow might be falling by now, but what is true for everyone is that Winter and specifically Christmas is coming!

As we love the Chrismas spirit, we thought it would be awesome to have you guys win swag and ShootMania keys. Yes, a full ShootMania key my friends!

As such we have organized a Christmas event! To participate, you need to send an email to contest@nadeo.com (if you’re in Europe) or shootmania@ubisoft.com (if you’re in North America/Australia) with the title “Christmas Contest 2012 – *your nickname*” with any content related to ManiaPlanet and Christmas. You can use everything you want (screens, pictures, photos, videos, texts, memes, etc…), you can only send one email but you can insert maximum 20 submissions in it.

With your participation, please indicate your last name, first name, full address, phone number (to send you the package).

The contest begins today and will be over on Thursday December 27th at 11.59pm. A winner in each region will be selected shortly after the end of the contest and will receive one of the 3 swag package we have prepared for you and a full ShootMania key (which give access to the beta and release version)! Your participation may be also shown on the blog/Youtube/social networks!

You can find the full rules and list of prizing on the forums for the NCSA contest: http://forum.maniaplanet.com/viewtopic.php?f=458&t=15130&p=133024#p133024

Thanks everyone to be a part of the ManiaPlanet adventure and have a nice holiday!

ManiaPlanet / ShootMania Beta 2 now available!

Great news today, ShootMania Beta 2 is available!

After several months of intense work, we’re proud to release this new patch, the biggest since the launch of the Beta, which brings lots of new features inside ManiaPlanet and also in ShootMania.

Here are the major changes:

  • Partial revamp of the ManiaPlanet user interface (3D Menus, removal of the ManiaHome tablet)

  • Integration of a real time messaging system for friends

  • Addition of a team creation & official competitions system

  • Addition of a tournament system

  • TwitchTV integration (in Beta). To use it just open the ingame options -> “Broadcast” and fill in your TwitchTV credentials. Please note that this feature is in Beta, Your framerate may drop and you can experience a freeze at the disconnection.

There is also lots of changes on ShootMania Storm:

  • 60 new blocks including Castle, Wood, Aerial Power Path and Grappling Hook blocks.

  • New actions:

    • Grappling hook: it allows you to hook up on hook block and balance yourself in the air. To do it you must aim the hook block and right-click to activate it. You can’t use it from a Power Path but you can’t fire while hanging from the hook block.

    • Charge Shot: it’s an alternative fire mode of the Rocket Launcher which allows you to fire bouncing rockets (which bounce on any block type). To shot a bouncing rocket, you must stay still at least 6 seconds to load the Charge Shot. A Charge Shot bounces maximum twice.

    • Slide: only possible on the wooden blocks, it’s an action which allow you to gain more speed with right-click. If you release the button, you’ll jump.

  • New moves (like the WallJump, the progressive jump and lasers denying rockets)

  • Addition of a matchmaking system for 1vs1 (Joust mode only)

  • The Royal game mode is available as a Title Pack.

  • Addition of a Title Pack “Royal Exp” which will be used to test the next evolutions of the Royal game mode

  • The Title Pack “Elite Exp” will use the former gameplay for the current competitions

Of course many more changes have been made as well as bug fixes.

As you may have noticed above, a tournament and competition system is now in ManiaPlanet (in Beta). Thanks to this system, you’ll be able to easily create a competition with several parameters (competition open or on invitations, maps used, the rules, the number of teams, the area of the competition, etc… For more information about the competition system, please read this link.

Finally, let’s take a sneak peak on what’s coming up on ManiaPlanet before the ShootMania Storm release:

  • An Inter-ladder structure and simplified server level types (White / Green / Blue / Red and Black)

  • Simplified transactions to convert & purchase with your economical points directly

  • Improving the matchmaking system (the current one and open it for custom tools as well as doing X vs X)

  • Lan mode for ShootMania Storm and Lan mode back for TrackMania² Canyon

  • Several optimizations, polish and much more (new features for example)

ManiaPlanet & ShootMania are getting better and we hope you’ll like the new changes. If you want to read the full changelog, please go to the forums.

Have fun and see you soon!