Article - Jaw-dropping TrackMania

Written by Alcator. 

In this list, I’ll tell you about the 10 TM moments that caused me to say “Wow” the most. I’ll start from the “least wow-ish” and end with the number 1 moment. So, without further ado…

Celebration!

Here at the TMU Blog we do celebrate when other players have a special day, such as birthdays, weddings or the funeral of a hated one. Whenever we are aware of one of these ”special days” coming up, we give these souls a post of their own, a place where the TM community can congratulate them.

Article - TrackMania United, or didn’t it? Part 2

Written by Djoszee. Part 2 of 2.

In part 1, some of the changes made from the previous TM games to United were listed. In this part we take things one step further…

The community

The community is spread on loads of different sites and places on the internet. A lot of clans have their own homes, and so do most of the active leagues. When we speak about websites, you can say that most of the community is to be found on TMX, the official forum and on the French forum. The biggest part of this community is French. Most of them are only shadows hiding on the French forum. They do not add tracks to TMX, play on foreign servers, or have an English conversation when you try to. Just look at the serverlist - at least half of the servers are located in France. They are more occupied then the servers in other countries (although Germany takes a good second place) The TMX I mentioned before is filled with what I call ‘nations-elite’. They are the people that loved TrackMania Nations so much, they spent money on TMU. Just have a look at the tracks - a huge percentage of them are Stadium.

Article - TrackMania United, or didn’t it? Part 1

Written by Djoszee. Part 1 of 2.

The goal of TrackMania United (TMU) was to unite different features of all the previous versions, combining them in a single game. This game features all the environments from the three previous games, adding some new features to the recipe. New features like different blocks, ManiaLinks, fame, online favorites and probably tons of other things I forgot to mention. The point of this article is to sum up what TMU is about, and to question the uniting element brought to us by Nadeo. I’m going to try and criticize TMU from a few points of view, these being:

• Introduction
• The community
• Online play
• Offline play
• Conclusion

I’ll start with a small overview on what’s new in TMU and I’ll end with a conclusion referring to this question: Did Trackmania United really unite?

Article - Screenmania Part 2

4th place in the TMU Writing Contest. Part 2 of 2. Written by JumperJack.

This article continues where part one left off. First read Part 1.

For this tutorial, I’ve made a screenshot with two cars. Now open your image-editor (Photoshop CS2 in my case).

Article - Screenmania Part 1

4th place in the TMU Writing Contest. Part 1 of 2. Written by JumperJack.

This tutorial will explain how to take the best screenshots, and how to make them look cool in an easy way.

The types of screenies

First I’ll explain the best way how to make the screenshot itself. The first thing you’ve got to think about is what kind of screenshot you want to take, because there’re different types of them:

• A track screenie: a screenshot which is made for a track, mostly used for Trackmania Exchange.
• A skin screenie: a screenshot which is made to show a skin, commonly used for Trackmania Carpark.
• An environmental screenie: a screenshot which is just meant to look nice.

For the first type, you’ve got to use the track you’re making the screenie for. For the second and the third one, you can also make a new track in the editor which isn’t a track at all, but only scenery.

Track Review - MiniMania 1

Written by T_Z_.

Track: MiniMania 1 (direct download)

Author: HeaH

Type: Race

Environment: Rally

Length: 15 sec

Mood: Day

First Impression

It’s a short track and it looks fun.

Article - Getting More Coppers In TrackMania United

3rd place in the TMU Writing Contest. Written by DABH.

Coppers are the in-game currency of TMU. They can be used to purchase nearly anything - tracks, skins, mods, 3d cars, you name it! Many people have found ways to sell their creations and make coppers. However, for many people, getting coppers is a serious challenge. This guide will hopefully make everyone get a little richer by discussing all the ways to earn coppers.

First off on the list of methods is, as boring as it sounds, patience. Every day you log in to TMU, Nadeo will give you anywhere from 50-80C (coppers). This only works once a day - signing out then signing in again doesn’t work! The reason that Nadeo gives different amounts of coppers to different players is one that you can take advantage of to earn extra every day. If you own TrackMania Original or TrackMania Sunrise, you can associate them with your TMU account to earn the copper bonus. If you register both games, you get 80C/day! To register your games, simply go to http://www.trackmania.com/tmu-registerkey/.

Article: Easy ManiaLink Creator, Part 2

Yesterday you read an article from the TMU Writing Contest, about the EMC: Easy ManiaLink Creator Part 1. Today we continue from where we left off yesterday with Easy ManiaLink Creator Part 2. Written by Cyberfrog.

Table of Content (Part 2)

• 2.3 ManiaLink Visualization and Direct Manipulation
• 2.4 Weaknesses
• 3.The Never Asked Questions (NAQ)
• 4. Sources

Article: Easy ManiaLink Creator, Part 1

2nd place in the TMU Writing Contest. Part 1 of 2. Written by Cyberfrog.

Illustration 1: The envisioned editor (click to enlarge).

About this article

This text is a vision of a piece of software for ManiaLink and ManiaCode creation. It does not describe software that currently exists, nor is it certain that this software will ever be completed and released. While the text may seem like a user guide in places, it is important to keep in mind that the software described does not exist, and so writing a user guide for it would be slightly difficult.

The article is meant to crystallize the thoughts and ideas of its author, while at the same time presenting a vision of a somewhat complex yet easy to use application for ManiaLink and ManiaCode creation.

For readers of this text, a minimum of knowledge about the game TrackMania United is assumed. Other terms will be explained throughout the text as needed, often by pointing to external sources, in order to keep focus as much as possible on the Easy ManiaLink Creator.