The usage of Ghosts in Forever (Tutorial - part 2)

Written by Alcator.

In the first part of the tutorial, I explained what Ghosts are and how to import them into a clip so that the player gets some virtual opponents for Solo play. The tutorial continues with more details… Note: To see the images correctly, use the right-click menu function “Show image” or “Display image”.

Re-skinning and renaming the ghosts

As soon as you start using multiple ghosts, you may notice that having them all use the same skin is not very appealing. Trackmania is a world-wide competition game, and it’s great to promote this using skins. TM Nations Forever contains skins for almost all countries, so the obvious choice is to pick several of them and skin each of your ghost instances differently. United comes with at least 7 skins for each environment, which should be enough for most tracks.

The usage of Ghosts in Forever (Tutorial - part 1)

Written by Alcator.

Trackmania Forever (both the Nations and United version) enhances the MediaTracker Editor with a powerful new feature: “Import Ghosts”. This tutorial will provide you with all the information you need to successfully use this feature in your tracks.

First of all: “What is the ghost?”

This is not as simple as it may seem. All of you are surely familiar with “Replays” - the recordings of your attempts on TM tracks. You upload Replays to TMX to register a World Record or Personal Best on particular tracks, but Replays are just one version of Ghosts. The feature I’ll be tutoring you about here can use both standard Replay- and non-Replay- Ghosts, so you need to understand both properly.

Tmx downtime, again sadly…

As you may have noticed, TMX is down for about 3 days now. Again because of hosting problems. As MrA states on the official TM forums:

Yep, the host wants TMX to pay for a dedicated bandwidth due to what they are calling a high level of ‘acculated traffic’ … In other words we are busy…
However, we are not anywhere near our month limit (or close to it) from our own measurements and so at the moment we dispute this…
I’m quite annoyed that they choose to suspend the site, I don’t think its correct behaviour from them, but we will not be bullied by that…

As MrA states in an additional post, they hope to get access today. When they do get it, the site needs to be taken offline.

We wish the TMX-staff good luck in getting tmx back online.

Read more here

Trackmania Forever Review - Day Two

A while ago, you got the “Day One” review. Now here’s the follow up: Day Two.

Written by Alcator.

This time, I’ll review the in-game track editor and MediaTracker editor.

The track editor has been enhanced with a second, “simple” version. This one is very similar to the “Puzzle” mode editor: You only have the tiles groups available at the bottom; no mediatracking, no nothing. It’s much easier for complete newbies to work with the editor now. A thing that should be stressed is that during the loading of the editor on your first day, a big graphical hint image about the usage of mouse is displayed, so new users quickly learn how to work with it.

Eat My Dust - What’s your favorite typ of online track?

With Forever, I’ve started playing a lot more online (meaning I play an hour or two in the evening ). And I’ve realized that Stadium dirt is excellent for online play! I’ve always been on the “dirt is too random to be fun”-side, and avoided it online, but now I’ve changed my mind. A possible reason could be the fact that it’s now possible to play on Nations servers even if you log in to United. Thus, I’ve played on more “Stadium only” servers. Add to this the fact that Nations players can now use dirt.

Dirt isn’t all I play, though. Technical tracks have always been a personal favorite of mine, at least in Stadium. And it still is - it even beats dirt!

Now, my problem is that, since I usually play only in the evenings (23-01 local time, that would be 21-23 GMT, I believe), most of my online buddies are offline. I could solve this in numerous different ways: get more buddies, play earlier in the day (or later, not sure when people play, in fact), or perhaps I should point out a time and place (server) and invite all of you to come and play with me! (If that sounds like a good idea, please suggest servers and a suitable date and time - perhaps someone can even host a private server for us?).

For now, though, I’ll keep playing online with strangers, and perhaps meet a new friend or two. But for you guys, I have one final question: what’s your favorite type of online track?

TrackMania Forever Review - Day One

Written by Alcator.

Just a few hours after Forever became available, I downloaded it and installed it. This review - the first part of it - describes and comments on things that I experienced during the first 24 hours.

Forever?

So, you’ve all had the time to test Forever thorughly now. Now let’s hear your thoughts! Will Forever really last… forever? Or is it just the news that is appealing, and then it will die out? And how good did Nadeo succeed anyway? Did Forever meet your expectations, or did it leave you wanting more? Would you say Nado listened to the community, or did they just add their own stuff?

Come on, let’s hear it

Buddy List

TM Forever is out, but you knew that already. Since most of you guys who read this blog know each other, both from here and from TMX, let’s add each other to the in-game buddy list. You can add me (Jozii), and write your in-game login in the comments if you wish, so others are able to add you to their lists

You can never have too many friends, at least not in a game that has a buddy list

Screenshots

We have plenty of screenshots laying around, but I’m not publishing any So, got any suggestions/thoughts about what do to with these? All in one post? A contest using these screenshots? Anything?

I’d love to hear your ideas on what we should do with the yet to be published screenshots

Cool TM Vid

TimeBreaker has made a really cool TM video, through a special website called Animoto.com. The video features some of TB’s own screenshots (some even featured in this blog) and some nice music.

Check it out!