ShootMania at PAX Prime 2012

SpeedMonger's "Cliff Jumpers" map,
bigger than life
on 9 monitors at the
Ubisoft ShootMania booth at PAX

Ubisoft was kind enough to allow me to snap this shot of SpeedMonger's map on the huge spectator screens they have at their ShootMania booth at PAX.

I can't wait to see what's in store tomorrow.  Rumor has it there will be some big news for ManiaPlanet fans revealed sometime tomorrow.

Stay tuned!

TrackMania 2 Canyon Nominated for Best Racer

Hey TrackManiacs!

Nadeo's freaking awesome racer, TrackMania 2 Canyon, has been nominated for Best Racer on the Golden Joystick Awards.

We can help vote it in as the winner at the Golden Joystick Awards web site.

The other nominated games are:

• Dirt Showdown
• Driver: San Francisco
• F1 2011
• Forza 4
• Need for Speed: The Run
• Need for Speed: Unbounded
• Twisted Metal

We all know who the winner is... Vote TrackMania 2 Canyon in as Best Racer today!

Steam: Mirror's Edge for $4.99 today!

For those that haven't played it yet... Mirror's Edge is on sale for $4.99 on Steam today.

The fantastic thing about buying it through Steam is that you don't have the EA DRM with it.  As far as I know it's the ONLY version that doesn't have it (I haven't heard of EA pulling it out of their own digital distribution yet; but I will happily stand corrected if someone will let us know.)

Anyway, run get it today if you haven't.  It's a fantastic concept and I hope they'll release a sequel with multiplayer tag.

There is a lot of mild language in it, so be warned there, other than that, it's a riot to play.
Enjoy!

ManiaPlanet (TrackMania and ShootMania) Servers Going Down Temporarily

Hey all ManiaPlanet players that play on our Team FNG servers.  I need to take the server computer down for a little while today while I rearrange the office the server is located in.  It should only be down for an hour or two at the most.

My apologies for the inconvenience.

Blizzard User Account Breach

Blizzard announced recently that their "security team found an unauthorized and illegal access into our internal network".

North American players are being urged to change their passwords, secret questions and Mobile Authenticator serial numbers.

You can find more information at their Important Security Update FAQ.  I wasn't notified by them yet, I tripped on an article reporting it while looking up something else video game related.  I hope others of you found out earlier about this from Blizzard.

Hopefully those of you actively playing Blizzard titles have been notified in-game.  I launched Starcraft II to confirm, but was met with patches that require an "installation optimization" that will take 15-60 minutes.

At the very least, Blizzard should send email notifications to the addresses listed on your account, but I don't know when they will do this.

Regardless, it will be in your best interest to log in and update your account's security info.

ShootMania Map Competition for PAX Prime Starts Today!

Ubisoft announced today on the ManiaPlanet blog that they are holding a map creation competition to generate maps for the ShootMania tournaments that will be held at PAX at the end of the month.

Up to 25 maps will be selected for play during the tournament in 5 different game modes that will be shown off to the attendees of the expo.  The game modes include:

• Siege
• Elite
• Battle
• Heroes
• Speedball

Each participant may submit up to 10 maps (ALL need to be submitted together in one email to Ubisoft!!!  See official rules for more information.)

If your map(s) is/are selected for PAX, you will be recognized at the show when your map is played.  The one most interesting map (first place winner) will be brought to PAX to help show off his/her map!

These maps are being made exclusive for PAX, and thus, Ubi has set some specific rules, including making sure your playtest group only includes the author and enough people to max what the mode supports.  For example, if you decide to make an Elite map (which is 3 vs. 3) -- your playtest group will consist of the map author and 5 other players.  Play on a passworded server, and the author and all playtesters agree to be under non-disclosure agreement; meaning you won't discuss or share the map in any way.  (This includes not posting to ManiaExchange until after the PAX tournaments take place.

So wait no more... go check out the rules and start pumping out the maps... Good luck!

(I will post more about the tournaments themselves when I get more info... in case some of you out there want to try to play in them!)

This Contest is open to legal U.S. residents (excluding residents of Rhode Island and residents of Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam and other United States territories) and to legal residents of Canada (excluding residents of Quebec), who are thirteen (13) years of age or older at the time of entry.  Other restrictions apply; see official rules for more information.

TrackMania 2 Canyon: That One Platform Fail

When life hands you lemons...
you won't be finishing that race with zero respawns.

Those of you that have played "D01 - Narrow Minded" know exactly what I'm talking about.