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.

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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.

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Best of luck to everyone!
GG