Team FNG's ShootMania Royal server goes 90k

Fans of the Friday Night Gamer's "Royal (old school)" server on ShootMania will be pleased to hear that we have obtained permission from Nadeo (according to the rules for Royal dedicated servers) to bump our server up from a 60k to a 90k.

More points points with your pew pew

The reason I waited so long is because we run a special script that makes our server play by the pre-Beta 2 ruleset (where the storm comes in closer to the pole and lasers are a one-hit elimination.)  We enjoy those rules better than the rules post-Beta 2.  Also, we have classic maps that we don't ever want to get rid of (like JumpStart, CliffJumpers, etc.) that were built around the old rules, and break somewhat if played on servers with the new.

Be mindful that this will only affect your score on the Storm ladder, not the Royal title pack ladder.  Because we run a custom script, we are required to run on the Storm title pack.  This is another reason I held off on trying to go more than 60k on our server.  The rules are a little different when not doing Royal and I didn't think our server qualified.  I'm grateful today to say that we do qualify and have bumped the points limit on our server to 90k.

Enjoy!

TrackMania Turbo Goes Open Beta for Xbox One and PS4

See the announcement on GameSpot

(Thanks to Bomajoe for this news!)

Those that own Xbox One and/or PS4 are in for a treat.  Get an early glimpse of the wonderful world of TrackMania a few days before its release next week on 22 March.

Links to access it on your consoles are provided at the GameSpot article.

Enjoy!

TrackMania 2 Canyon screenshot featured on Intel's XMP site

Talking tonight with Thundr about a new gaming desktop he'd put together, we got on the topic of Intel's Extreme Memory Profile (XMP) technology.  If you follow the link, you'll see one video game screenshot at the top of the article ... and one only (the rest of the photos are of gamers.)

Of all the video games chosen to be represented for this article about gaming RAM, guess which one was chosen?!   That's right, one of the best gaming franchises ever made... TrackMania!

This mega-awesome screenshot of TrackMania 2: Canyon was a fantastic choice for the Intel site; and one I use as a desktop wallpaper.

I really wish this game was more marketed in North America.  It is so awesome and many North Americans still don't know about it.  Yes, it's on Steam, but it's rarely highlighted except for once or twice a year when it's on sale on Steam.  Unfortunately it usually goes on sale when more well-known titles are also on sale.  We had one time when a surge of 10,000 new North American players came to TrackMania 2: Stadium when it was on sale for $1.99.  I hope we'll see more of that so we can get more North American TrackManiacs!

Anyway, back to the XMP story... I run TrackMania on a machine with XMP RAM and it runs as fast as I drive in TrackMania.  If you're using XMP RAM in an Intel motherboard, make sure to set the XMP profile in your motherboard's BIOS so you can take advantage of this great technology.

Then get into some TrackMania and come race with the Friday Night Gamers!