A&G '12 TM2 Open Prelims Results Posted

Iceman tailgates Supra through the finish line
(Grand Canyon map)

We ran into some snags tonight with the tournament: stream fail, the tournament app choked on a double-quote symbol, some people got disconnected due to Windows automatic updates and other various things, and a few others... but we made it through and the results have been posted on the ManiaPlanet forums.

Thanks to MacDuffman for putting this together!  Despite the technical difficulties it was still a good time, and really fun to race against some of the best in the world.

When the tournament app choked, I went scurrying trying to find the cause, but by the time I found and fixed it, everyone wanted to just track it manually and save the app for next time.  Thus, I missed the first four races.  Once I got back in, I had a great time.

Thundr did pretty well too.  We being more casual TrackManiacs relative to the other competitors, I thought we did pretty well.  We had some good races with some good places, and we just had a ball racing with some really cool players.

It was an honor for us to host and despite everything else, it seemed most players' connections did well.  There were some complaints about checkpoint lag, but that comes with the territory when you have people competing from around the world.

Good luck to all that made it to the semifinals!  Hopefully they'll go smoother than the prelims!
GG!

The semifinals will be split into two separate tournaments, each being held on 04 February 2012 (two weeks from today) and the groups/race times will be posted later this week.  Watch the ManiaPlanet forums (link above) for details.

The semifinals track pack will be released one week prior to the event.  Stay tuned.

Watch the A&G 2012 TrackMania 2 Canyon Tournament

http://www.twitch.tv/aandgohio

If you would like more information about the event, you can get the most up-to-date information on the ManiaPlanet forums.

Prelims take place Saturday 21 January 2012 online, starting at 8pm Eastern.
Semifinals will take place 04 February 2012 online, time to be determined.
Finals will take place 10 March 2012 in Cincinnati, Ohio at the A&G 2012 LAN Event; time to be determined.

Best of luck to all the competitors; we'll see you at the races!

Freestyle in TrackMania 2 Canyon a la NitroGuY

Thanks to my good friend eyebo for pointing out this excellent video he made of NitroGuY's December 2011 freestyle run on "Flatland Yards" by TimaE in TrackMania 2 Canyon.

Watch in HD

If only I could have that much control over my car. Mad skills, Nitro.  MAD skills!  And to rub salt in the wound of my newbness even more, Nitro plays with the keyboard!

And an extra shout-out for eyebo's excellent MediaTracker prowess.  Well done on a high-quality video.

Now, for the rest of you FNGers, we'll have to track down some of these freestyle maps and give them a go.  I know SpeedMonger and I both enjoyed stunts mode in United Forever, and the prospect of playing stunt mode without a timer makes me giddy.

We'll have to try it out soon after the A&G tournament.

Evochron Mercenary - The next evolution of Freelancer?

My Steam news feed informed me today about the release of an Indie space-based action-RPG called Evochron Mercenary.  I watched the trailer video and it looked like what I would imagine a Freelancer sequel would look like.

If the entire universe looks like this... count me in.

A few of the Friday Night Gamers started playing Freelancer back in the day for a couple of months and had a ball with it.  I would love to see how this one is.

Like Freelancer, you explore the universe, take on various kinds of missions (both with and without combat), do trading, etc. to enable you to upgrade your aircraft and equipment, letting you further explore new places.

From what I understand, it also allows you to integrate your solo play with multiplayer (using your same character in both.)

I can't afford it yet, but I've got my eye on it for when I can... I'd love to hear from those that already own and play it how much you enjoy it or not.  Please feel free to leave some comments and let us know if it would be a good game to add to the FNG arsenal.

Also, FNGers, please chime in and let me know if you'd like to see this as one of the games we play as a group.

A&G 2012 TrackMania 2 Tournament - New Dates, Prelims Track Pack and Practice Server

Here is a quick update on the A&G 2012 TM2 Open tournament, sponsored by Ubisoft and Intel:
Prelims' and Semifinals' dates have been moved to the following:

Prelims: 21 January 2012 at 8:00PM Eastern
Semifinals: 04 February 2012 at 8:00PM Eastern

The finals will be held on 10 March 2012, live at the Animation & Gaming Ohio expo.

Read the A&G Ohio's TrackMania 2 Tournament Rules and Regulations for full details, including any future updates.

---

The prelims track pack has been released and is being hosted in the USA | Utah zone under the name:
A&G 2012 TM2 Open (practice)
The name may be changed to something similar -- we do that when we're testing mock tournaments there.

Click the link above to launch TrackMania and automatically join the server.
Mark this server in your favorites, as it will be the server we play the preliminaries on.

If you find the server is down for some reason, please contact me at trackmania@thatoneplace.net
so I can get it running again.

You may also download the prelims pack to practice on your own at home.

---

Best of luck to everyone!
GG

A&G 2012 Trackmania 2 Open - 2nd Official USA TrackMania 2 Canyon Tournament

Register for the Tournament!

I'm very pleased to announce the 2nd Official USA TrackMania 2 Tournament, sponsored by Ubisoft, Intel and DSGW.de; and hosted by Anxiety and Macduffman, two finalists in the GEEX 2011 TrackMania 2 Canyon tournament that were unfortunately unable to attend the finals.

The A&G ’12 Trackmania² Open will be even bigger than our GEEX tournament, extending to the entire world to participate!

Registration is free, and more details can be found by clicking on the registration link above or below.
The preliminaries and semi-finals will be held online, and the finalists will be invited to Cincinnati, Ohio in March for LAN finals at the Animation & Gaming Ohio convention.

Here are some quick details from what I know so far:
Prelims: 14 January 2012 (online) - The top 16 racers will be invited to the semi-finals.
Semi-finals: 28 January 2012 (online) - 2 sections.  The top 4 racers from each section (8 total) will be invited to Cincinnati for the LAN finals.
Finals: 10 March 2012 (LAN at the A&G event)

Like GEEX, competitors will be responsible for their own flight/lodging expenses, but prizes are rumored to be as good or better, so it will be worth it for the winners.  :)

So head on over to their registration page and sign-up to play.  It's going to be a blast!
See you at the races in a few weeks!

Register for the Tournament!

Steam Autumn Sale Kicks Off: Killer Deals on Portal 2, Dungeon Defenders and More

It's time for Steam's answer to Black Friday.

Portal 2
Bouncing turrets

They have slashed prices on a bunch of cool games, including Portal 2 at 66% off ($10.19 for one, $18.69 for the two-pack) and Dungeon Defenders at 50% off ($7.49 for one, $22.49 for a 4-pack.)

Dungeon Defenders
Is it me, or is that knight wielding a lightsaber?!

Both killer games at killer prices... pick them up if you haven't.

There are a ton of other games with slashed prices, so you'll have to check it out on your own.  Be ready to spend money...

Be aware, the sale goes from 23 November through 27 November, but the deals change every day, so the prices I listed above may not be there tomorrow.

I mention Portal 2 and Dungeon Defenders specifically because they're fun games to play during FNG when there are smaller numbers present.  My kids and I have enjoyed both (thanks in big part to DirtyD on Dungeon Defenders... many thanks my friend.)

Enjoy.

Ubisoft Releases TrackMania 2 Video About GEEX 2011 Tournament

Check it out and enjoy!  Ubisoft posted a montage one-minute montage video about our GEEX 2011 TrackMania 2 Canyon tournament.  The gameplay footage was taken from the internet stream, so the quality isn't the highest; but never fear... it's still cool (and has cool music!) 

Thanks Ubi for putting it together.  It will help preserve the good memories of the event.

Eyebo will be creating another one later out of the GBX replays he and I saved from both the prelims and finals.  I'm excited to see that as well.  Stay tuned.

Turkey Bowl 2011 Results

Since the snapshot was taken at the start of the Tomb Raider track, the dark mod makes it hard to read some of the names... so here it is:

1. ThatOneGuy - 497 points
2. SpeedMonger - 402 points
3. Thundr - 360 points
4. DirtyD - 351 points
5. Atholon - 256 points
6. EnderWiggen - 227 points
7. dGamefather - 212 points
8. Scarfire (the racer formerly known as Mando) - 197 points
9. thundr_jr - 195 points

Let it be known that SpeedMonger had to ditch for a couple of races, Thundr was late and DirtyD was handicapped with his keyboard (I say handicapped because he's used to playing with a gamepad -- not that playing with keyboard is a handicap; I get it handed to me by keyboard players all the time in TM!  *CACKLE!*)  

It was a fun competition and everyone did well... this was probably our longest Turkey Bowl yet... 20 tracks, including all the GEEX 2011 prelims and finals.

Thundr kept me from a perfect score by successfully navigating the cut on Geometric Fissure and obtaining the fastest time on that track (01:06.81).  I think I only finished once with a weak execution of the cut and 2 failed jumps after it, resulting in a 01:19.391 time; nearly 13 seconds behind Thundr.  It was almost a DNF for me, which would have set me back 22 points.  Well done Thundr!

Some other really close races worth mentioning (within milliseconds of each other):

Rank	Player	Time
Track: Bee Style
2	DirtyD	00:48.762
3	Thundr	00:48.981
5	EnderWiggen	00:51.385
6	dGamefather	00:51.487
Track: CHILLIES (b3)
1	ThatOneGuy	00:49.651
2	Thundr	00:50.300
4	atholon	00:52.768
5	EnderWiggen	00:52.906
Track: Compact & Complex
4	EnderWiggen	00:58.615
5	dGamefather	00:58.668
6	Thundr	00:58.687
Track: Dr!ft Crash Burn
2	DirtyD	01:02.095
3	atholon	01:02.193
Track: fizZ
3	SpeedMonger	01:19.408
4	dGamefather	01:19.679
Track: Fluid Motion
2	SpeedMonger	00:47.243
3	EnderWiggen	00:47.664
4	Thundr	00:51.522
5	DirtyD	00:51.556
Track: GEEX - Cradle of Speed
1	ThatOneGuy	00:40.058
2	Thundr	00:40.480
5	DirtyD	00:43.584
6	dGamefather	00:43.905
Track: GEEX - Tortilla Chip Raceway
1	ThatOneGuy	00:31.241
2	SpeedMonger	00:31.746
3	DirtyD	00:32.234
4	dGamefather	00:32.393
5	Thundr	00:32.418
6	EnderWiggen	00:33.238
7	thundr_jr	00:33.797
Track: Leap of Faith
1	ThatOneGuy	00:43.136
2	Thundr	00:43.875
Track: Raw Flash [beta]
2	DirtyD	01:03.070
3	Thundr	01:03.424
4	SpeedMonger	01:03.892
Track: Slider's Paradise
2	DirtyD	00:49.165
3	Thundr	00:49.548
4	EnderWiggen	00:50.625
5	dGamefather	00:50.971
Track: SlideShow [GEEX]
7	thundr_jr	01:37.088
8	EnderWiggen	01:37.401
Track: Tiger Blood @ GEEX
3	atholon	00:50.560
4	SpeedMonger	00:50.978

We missed Bomajoe, who was out with a nasty cold, and Beuchety who we're not sure why he didn't make it. Hope everything's alright with the both of you.

I hope everyone had a good time, and we'll try another fun tournament at the LAN party in March.

GEEX 2011 TrackMania 2 Canyon Tournament Finals Results

Rank	Alias	Points
01	Iceman	247
02	Fallout	221
03	KOFSKawa	198
04	nicknacknob	171
05	rudoneyet	166
06	FNG_Thundr	131
07	FNG_NapTime	110
08	ronnation	108
09	FNG_SpeedMonger	106
10	FNG_DirtyD	86

Iceman, who traveled all the way to Utah from his home in Wisconsin, battled it out with GEEX defending champion and Utah native Fallout in an incredible contest featuring rounds that ended sometimes with milliseconds making the difference.

Iceman pulled out the victory and dethroned the two-time winner Fallout, laying claim to the $2800 gaming laptop sponsored by Intel and Ubisoft. Fallout and Kawa went home with a brand new boxed i7-2600k processor from Intel; and we congratulate them on their fine performances.

Two of our competitors, Iceman and nicknacknob flew in from out-of-state. We were grateful to have you here. We hope you enjoyed your stay and your experience at GEEX!

We missed a few players that weren't able to make it... Anxiety (Canada), Besus (Texas), Alderon42 (Utah), and macduffman (Ohio). The missing contestants' slots were filled in by NapTime, SpeedMonger, ronnation and Thundr (all from Utah.)

We had a great time at GEEX and thank Ubisoft, Intel and MediaOne for making this awesome tournament a reality.

I personally wish to also thank ATP Havoc, Dengel, Eyebo, GanjaRider, LineAddict, NitroGuy, smok3y, sol666 and tmjonas, some of the greatest TrackManiacs around the world, for building the tracks for our finals (and some of our prelims!)

Great job to all contestants!  We hope to see more tournaments like this start to emerge across the entire United States and again thank Ubisoft and Intel for sponsoring our tournament and prizes.