Things I learnt from TMU (Alcator’s kick-off)

“Things I learnt from TMU” (aka TILT) is a brand new wickedness for all you TMU fans. The rules are simple:

The person that receives the fuel barrel must add 7 (as is the number of environments) witty or funny facts derived from Trackmania, and then choose the next victim that will receive the fuel barrel (preferrably someone who’s registered on TMX and is still active there, because we need to contact that person and ask him or her to cooperate). That person will then have to add 7 more facts and choose another victim

I’ll kick this TILT with the first 7 facts so that you get the picture:

1. Cars can run for as long as you wish without needing to refuel.
2. Places where you can accelerate are marked with clearly visible yellow arrows.
3. There are Chinese-looking towers and Shaolin-like monasteries in the Alps.
4. Mediterranean folks love big lighting poles sticking from the ground and sea. Gotta be a Freudian thing or something…
5. If you strike water fast enough, the water strikes you back.
6. You can fly through windmill flaps if you are driving Cooper mini.
7. Running a cargo ship business in San Francisco puts you in danger of getting ran over by a minivan.

OK, that would be my run, and now I’m passing the fuel barrel onto… Mr. A! He’s got nothing to do anyway, right?

Pick a Track Contest – Winner

Alright, so the Pick a Track Contest is over and the results are finally here. Counting the two votes took its time, but I’m glad you could bare with me

Let’s get righ to it!

The Winner

So, the winner of our little contest is…

Artemis’ Arrow I, by JumperJack

The person who nominated this track was Heah.

This means Heah and JumperJack are our two winners in this contest! And, they’ll each get to pick a prize to be sent to them in the mail:

A BookCrossing book

A personal letter from me (Jozii)

A postcard from Sweden, possibly along with some other souvenirs

Anything else you suggest yourself (assuming it’s within reasonable limits)

I’ll contact the two personally. Hopefully they’ll pick something good

Now: congratulate the winners!

Pick a Track Contest – Voting

Alright, the voting of the Pick a Track Contest is now on Here are the contestants:

1. Smashed (Stadium)
2. Harakiri (Stadium)
3. Artemis’ Arrow I (Stadium)
4. Eye in the Sky (Desert)
5. Snow its hardest (Snow)
6. Aeroooo >> Sive (Coast)

So now it’s time for you to cast your vote. You may vote once only, and not on tracks you’ve nominated yourself. To vote, simply make a comment to this post stating the track name and/or number (1 through 6) of the track you vote for.

Deadline: Monday, 23rd of June.

Votes will be tallied, and the track with the most wins. The person who nominated the track, and possibly also the creator of that track, will win a prize of choice

Pick a Track Contest

This is partly an activity check post. I know I haven’t posted a lot lately, and I can see stats are falling (even though there are still hundreds of hits daily). So lets see how many take part in this little contest

Alright folks, it’s been a while since we had a contest here. So I propose a simple one: you all pick one or two tracks each (from TMX) and link to them here. Your own track or someone else’s, doesn’t matter. Later, everyone can vote for their favorite among the tracks the others have nominated (you can’t vote for your own choice, in other words).

The person who picked the track most voted for gets to pick a prize to be received in the mail (regular snail mail, that is):

• A BookCrossing book
• A personal letter from me (Jozii), complete with breadcrumbs in the envelope
• A postcard from Finland, along with some other souvenirs
• Anything else you suggest yourself (assuming it’s within reasonable limits)

Deadline for posting tracks (max two): Wednesday, 18th of June, 2008

Deadline for voting: Sunday, 22nd of June, 2008

The voting will be explained later. For now, nominate one or two tracks by commenting this post and including links to the tracks

TM in 5-15 Words

Got an opinion, experience, general fact or anything else to share with us about TrackMania? Then do so in 5 to 15 words only! Simply drop a comment. Be as funny or serious as you can and like. Here are a few as a start:

• “I thought, I built, I played.”
• “Stunts: Hop, bounce, crash, restart. Hop, bounce, crash, finish.”
• “3, 2, 1, hit the dirt!”
• “A track is the layout of the authors mind.”
• “I had to turn several times before I managed to hit the pole.”
• “The sign said left, so I turned left. Unfortunately, it was my other left.”

Let’s see how many we can collect

Question Quest #8 – Statistics (Results)

(Due to excellent nagging skills) Here are the results of the 8th QQ!

Sorry for slow posting, but no Insane, I’m not aslwwp

Question Quest #8 – Statistics

The Question Quest series continues, this time with focus on the blog itself, and statistics in particular!

Below you’ll find 14 questions for you to answer, some with multiple choice answers, others with open ends. Your job is to pick an answer for each question and send the answers using our contact form (or by e-mailing them directly to Jozii@pp.inet.fi).

In the end, the participant with the most correct answers is crowned the winner. In case of a tie, the 14^th question serves as a tie-breaker (closest to the real answer wins).

Prizes

Of course, there are prizes to be won:

• 100 coppers/correct answer (max 1300C)
• 500 coppers for being closest to the correct answer in the tie-breaker question
• 250, 500 and 1000 coppers to the 3rd, 2nd and 1st positions

In other words, you may win up to 2800 coppers total!

Questions

So what do you say we get this 8th roundof the QQ series started? Here are the 14 questions:

Mini Contest – Coppers Donations

…just for the heck of it!

Playing around with coppers is always great fun. It’s not like anyone got anything better to do with them Thus, let’s play a little game with one very simple rule: donate as many or as few coppers to the blog as you wish (send to “Jozii” in-game, mark the message “Mini Contest”). Based on this, there will be two winners:

• The Largest Single Donation - The person who makes the largest donation wins 70% of all donations made through this contest. If the largest donation size is the same amoung two or more people, the second largest wins instead.
• The Smallest Single Donation - The person who makes the smallest donation wins 10% of all donations made through this contest. If the smallest donation size is the same among two or more people, the second smallest wins instead.
• The final 20% go to the blog.

All donations must be in whole 5’s. That is: 5, 10, 15, … 1450, 1455, etc.

New Year Style Contest/Poll

Last year we had a little Christmas contest. This year no contest was started on time, but instead a slightly innovative New Year event is hosted. But, it’s not necessarily a contest – it’s a poll in which, in order to vote, you have to make a track representing what you vote for. The best tracks may get awarded on the side…

Basically, the idea is to find out what people want to see more of when it comes to tracks in the TMU community in the coming year. Full speed tracks seem to dominate the field, but what do you think deserve more attention? It could be anything from simply a specific environment, mode or mood to several detailed aspects referring to styles (technical, off-road, etc.), certain innovative areas (innovative transitions, unique stunts, etc) or specific MT stuff – just to name a few.

The possibilities are endless, and while you can only enter one track, the track in question may represent several aspects. Just be specific!

So, make a track and enter it to make your vote. As always, things happen at TMX, so check out this thread for the details. Good luck and have fun

XSTC, Season 2

I’m running out of time to post something bigger today, so a few quick notes:

• The Extreme Mini Track Contest, now known as the Xtreme Short Track Contest, has started its second round today. The first round is still in the judging phase, but hopefully results will be out before the tracks in the second round are to be judged.
• I know I’ve fallen behind on updating the forum contests lately, but I hope to have this fixed in a day or two. Just be patient with me.
• The TMU Blog’s birthday is coming up this week (22nd of November). I’m preparing a few extra treats to celebrate this
• The TMU Blog, the EMTC and the XSTC website are all linked to from the main menu in-game, thanks to RicardoRix. Thanks to that, the second round of the contest could become quite popular
• It’s cold outside.