GEEX 2011 TrackMania Canyon Tournament 10th Anniversary

 

https://friday-night-gaming.com/geex-canyon-10th-anniversary/

Attention all TrackManiacs!  The Friday Night Gamers (Team FNG) are proud to announce the 10th Anniversary of the first LAN tournament after the release of TrackMania 2 Canyon on the ManiaPlanet platform.  On 14 Oct 2011, Ubisoft in partnership with Intel, sponsored a TM2 Canyon tournament hosted by the Friday Night Gamers at the Gamers and Electronics Expo (GEEX) in Sandy, Utah at the South Towne Expo Center.

It was an incredible collaborative project involving many of the top map builders of the day, Nadeo, Ubisoft, Intel, the Friday Night Gamers and the awesome finalists who competed in the local live tournament.

We invite all to join us for a trip down memory lane as we play the 10 final maps on the:
Team FNG - Canyon: GEEX 10th Anniversary server in TrackMania 2 Canyon on:

Saturday 16 Oct 2021

1:30pm Mountain; 9:30pm CEST

This will be a "for-fun" tournament and will be tracked using the TournaMania software I built for the original GEEX tournaments.  Our server is set to hold 80 players and we hope you will help us fill it up.

We look forward to reliving the excitement of the original GEEX tournament and enjoying some legendary classic maps built by the amazing TrackMania community.

Ubisoft Brings ManiaPlanet to Salt Lake ComicCon / GEEX

Ubisoft will be at the Salt Lake ComicCon / GEEX with a booth of several game stations showing off TrackMania 2: Valley and ShootMania: Storm from the ManiaPlanet universe!

They will be holding some casual competitions with some fun TrackMania swag to give away!

Make sure to stop by their booth and see why the Friday Night Gamers have been long-time TrackManiacs and ShootManiacs!  You may even catch some of us at the booth.  DirtyD, ThatOneGuy, dGamefather, MinecraftManiac, KimPossible, Firecracker and PewDrew will be at the expo at various times on the various days, so make sure to say hi to us if you see us at the ComicCon!

If enough gamers stop by the booth, it might help us get a bigger and better Ubisoft booth at future GEEX/ComicCon expos, including the return of TrackMania tournaments with prizes like the TrackMania 2: Canyon tournament at GEEX 2011; the first official USA LAN tournament for Canyon!

Please make sure to show your support at the Ubisoft ManiaPlanet booth while you're at the event!

Ubisoft Releases TrackMania 2 Video About GEEX 2011 Tournament

Check it out and enjoy!  Ubisoft posted a 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.

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.

GEEX 2011 TrackMania 2 Canyon Tournament Finalists and Prize Updates

Some our finalists unfortunately had to cancel their plans to compete in our GEEX 2011 TrackMania 2 Canyon Finals.  We had to fill 4 slots and are happy to announce the final lineup of competitors (in order or ranking):

Iceman
Fallout
KOFSKawa
nicknacknob
rudoneyet
FNG_DirtyD
FNG_NapTime
FNG_SpeedMonger
ronnation
FNG_Thundr

We wish everyone the best of luck in the competition.

The Intel sponsored tournament PCs are running Intel i7 3.3GHz processors and NVIDIA GTX570 video cards in them!  Needless to say, TrackMania 2 settings are maxed out and ready to show off.  :)

Intel came in with another win by upgrading our prizes from boxed i5 processors to boxed i7-2600k processors!  We've been extremely fortunate to have Ubisoft and Intel co-sponsoring our GEEX TrackMania 2 Canyon tournament and want to thank them profusely again for everything they've done to make this tournament great.

See you all at GEEX tomorrow night for the exciting TM2 showdown!

Remember, if you can't attend the event in-person, watch the live stream from GEEX tomorrow night!

GEEX 2011 TrackMania 2 Canyon Finals - Track Pack Available Now!

After several months of collaboration with some of the best track authors around the world in the TrackMania community, I'm proud to present the GEEX 2011 Finals track pack.  (Download and extract to your "My Documents" folder ... it will put the right files in the right places.)

It is a well-rounded mix of many of the track styles available in TrackMania.

This pack is extra special; made with TrackManiac passion by the following authors:

ATP Havoc

Dengel

Eyebo

GanjaRider

LineAddict

NitroGuy

smok3y

sol666

tmjonas

Now, I have to say something.  These track authors are some of the finest people I've ever met.  I have loved playing their tracks over the years, and I am honored that they were willing to help make this tournament a success, by granting their talents to designing tracks specifically for the GEEX tournament.  These incredible tracks really show off the different aspects of TrackMania that make it great and each author has a style all their own.  You'll enjoy racing their tracks even if you're not in the tournament!

I have become friends with each of them over the past several months, and some of us even enjoyed watching the prelims together on the Team FNG Mumble server.  All of these extraordinary people voluntarily took a lot of time out of their busy schedules to make this a reality, and I want to publicly thank each of them for their participation.

TrackMania is a fantastic game on its own, but what really makes it stand out as the best racing game in the world is the community that powers it, and these authors are a testament to how great the community is.  You'll see it in their tracks.

I wish you all could be here in Utah with us Friday.  Some of the authors will be watching the stream, and if you're lucky, you can chat with them in the Twitch.tv chat room (Eyebo was kind enough to participate some there during the prelims... thanks Eyebo!)

GEEX 2011 TrackMania 2 Canyon Prelims
Competitors take flight on the epic jump which starts the
Tortilla Chip Raceway

Not only have these incredible authors packed their tracks with awesomeness, but they've added a special touch... GEEX billboards in each of the tracks, custom intros, outros and podium blocks.

GEEX 2011 TrackMania 2 Canyon Finals
"Life Elevated"

Combined, it's going to make the GEEX 2011 TrackMania 2 Canyon Tournament Finals an incredible production at this Friday as our 10 finalists compete for a $2800 Gaming Laptop and some sweet Intel i5 processors; courtesy of Ubisoft and Intel

The outros make for some incredible replay cams that will be broadcast on the big screen and streamed on the internet, shoutcast by GEEX own LeGrande Jolley (GXRoyale) -- who did a fantastic job streaming our preliminary tournament last Friday.

Those that can attend GEEX, come watch our skilled finalists drive their hearts out as they compete for the laptop!  We will have some TrackMania 2 Canyon t-shirts to give away so be sure to be in the audience during the finals!

GEEX 2011 

TrackMania 2 Canyon Finals

South Towne Expo Center

Sandy, Utah

14 October 2011

6:00pm

Those that can't be with us locally, be sure to catch the stream online and cheer on your favorite competitors!

GEEX 2011 TrackMania 2 Canyon Preliminary Results

Rank	Alias	Points
01	Iceman	250
02	Anxiety	204
03	Fallout	204
04	KOFSKawa	158
05	Besus	152
06	ALDERON42	137
07	macduffman	137
08	nicknacknob	130
09	rudoneyet	122
10	FNG_DirtyD	105
11	FNG_NapTime	87
12	FNG_SpeedMonger	85
13	STAIINLES	76
14	ronnation	63
15	FNG_Thundr	56
16	FNG_EnderWiggen	55
17	wholly	20
18	lilrobot	8
19	TheBobFather	3

We had an awesome time with our GEEX 2011 prelims for TrackMania 2 Canyon tonight.
The competition was intense and the wrecks on "In Dust We Trust" were very entertaining.  :)

We congratulate all who played and thank everyone for being good sports.  We're looking forward to an intense and exciting competition in one week on the GEEX tournament stage in Sandy, Utah.

Finals maps will be posted tomorrow night and we will be setting up our GEEX server with those maps for all to come play; and more importantly, for our finalists to practice.  Come race with them.

Royale did a great job streaming our tournament and we wish to thank him for sharing his time and talents with us to make the tournament available for those that wished to cheer on their favorite racers, and to introduce this wonderful game to many who had never heard of it.

I'm excited to reveal the finals maps... Stay tuned for tomorrow!

GG!  And good luck to all GEEX finalists!

GEEX 2011 TrackMania 2 Canyon Tournament Registration Closed - Good luck competitors!

Registration is now closed for the GEEX 2011 TrackMania 2 Canyon tournament, sponsored by Ubisoft and Intel. Team FNG wishes the best of luck to the 25 official competitors from around the United States:

droodski        : Yorba Linda, CA  
StarBazer       : Miami, FL  
jeffreylb94     : newborn, GA  
Keenny_v3       : Tbilisi, GA  
1D3R            : dillonvale, OH  
MacDuffman      : Niles, OH  
Anxiety         : London, ON  
nicknacknob     : Portland, OR  
besus           : Cedar Creek, TX  
Fallout         : Clinton, UT  
KOFSKawa        : Kearns, UT  
LilRobot        : Layton, UT  
dGamefather     : Riverton, UT  
rudoneyet       : salt lake city, UT  
RonNation       : Salt Lake City, UT  
Staiinless      : Salt Lake City, UT  
FNG_EnderWiggen : South Jordan, UT 
NapTime         : South Jordan, UT  
SpeedMonger     : South Jordan, UT  
DirtyD          : St. George, UT  
ALDERON42       : Taylorsville, UT  
Wholly          : Taylorsville, UT  
DeadlyBobble    : West Jordan, UT  
Thundr          : West Jordan, UT  
Iceman          : Madison, WI  

This is the first offical TrackMania 2 Canyon tournament since its release on 14 September 2011.

Remember that the preliminaries happen tonight at 9:00pm Mountain time and will be streamed on the GEEX website. Go watch and cheer on your favorite racers!

Make sure you're there for smok3y's track "In Dust We Trust" -- it's sure not to disappoint.  Those of you that have raced it know what I'm talking about.  :)

Good luck TrackManiacs and GG!

GEEX 2011 TrackMania 2 Canyon Tournament Internet Stream

I'm pleased to announce that GEEX will be streaming both the preliminary and final competitions of the 2011 TrackMania 2 Canyon tournament!

Watch the tournament

Prelims: tonight at 9:00pm Mountain time
Finals: Friday 14 October 2011 at 6:00pm Mountain time

GEEX 2011 TrackMania 2 Tournament open to legal Canada residents

We have received official word (sorry it's so late!) that legal Canadian residents are allowed to participate in our tournament.  Unfortunately there are only 2.5 hours left before registration for the tournament is stopped, but we welcome Anxiety of the ESL as one of our participants.

The official rules have been updated to reflect the change.

Good luck all!  We'll see you tonight at the GEEX 2011 TrackMania 2 Canyon preliminaries.

GEEX 2011 - TrackMania 2 Canyon - 1st Prize Laptop Specs Revealed

Hey all!
I got official word back about the specs for the 1st Prize custom gaming laptop!

Customized shell with GEEX 2011 and TrackMania 2 Canyon logos
1920 x 1080 15.6" LED Backlit Glossy LCD Screen
2GB GDDR5 ATI Radeon HD 6970M
Intel Core i7-2720QM Quad-Core Processor (2.20GHz), 6MB Cache
8GB Kingston HyperX Dual-Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1600MHz - 2 X 4GB
250GB Intel 510 Series(Elm Crest) - Solid State Drive
6X Blu-ray Reader/8X DVD+/-R/2.4X +DL Super-Multi Drive with Power DVD 7
Integrated High-Definition Audio with 4 Channel support
Intel PRO Wireless Advanced-N 6230 + BT Wireless LAN Combo Module - up to 320Mbps -
Built-in 2.0 Megapixel Video Camera
Windows 7 Home Premium

The laptop retails around $2800.00 so it's definitely a prize worth signing up for!  :)

I'm not sure which boxed i5 processors 2nd and 3rd place will receive, but they'll be worth it as well.

Register for the tournament today (if you haven't already!) 

Entry is free, but you must sign up before 07 October 2011 5:00pm (Mountain).

The top 10 after the prelims will be invited to compete in the finals on the GEEX tournament stage on 14 October in Sandy, Utah (finalists are responsible for any travel/lodging/food/etc expenses.)

We again express much thanks to Ubisoft and Intel who are sponsoring our tournament.

GEEX 2011 TrackMania 2 Tournament Prelims: Track Change Notice

Hey GEEX TrackMania 2 Canyon contestants!

I need to let you know of an update I had to make to the official track pack for the GEEX prelims on 07 October.

The atphavoc map called "Spare Parts 2" has a Push Forward (PF) start and we had a lot of contestants practicing on the Prelims server that the PF wasn't working correctly on each start/respawn.

I discussed this with atphavoc and he provided me an alternate track that doesn't have a PF start.  We ran it on the server tonight and have decided to use it instead of Spare Parts 2.

The track is called "Cradle of Speed" and I have made the change in the official prelims pack.  The GEEX Prelims server also reflects the update.

Download the GEEX 2011 TrackMania 2 Canyon Tournament official prelims map pack.

Good luck!

GEEX 2011 TrackMania 2 Canyon Official Rules Update

Attention all TrackManiacs in the USA that are planning on or thinking about participating in our TrackMania 2 Canyon tournament at GEEX 2011!

I have made a change to the official rules regarding the scoring system.
The scoring system, originally based on Motocross Madness 2 (2000) tournament scoring (which I believe to be based on AMA Pro Racing MX scoring (or something similar)) has been updated to match the 2011 AMA Pro Racing MX scoring (See section 2.20 Championship Rules).

As always, make sure to read the official rules document for any updates, but here is how the new points system will work:

Points will only be awarded to those that finish the track during a round  (that hasn't changed.)
Points will be awarded to finishers in the following structure:

Finish Position	Points
1	25
2	22
3	20
4	18
5	16
6	15
7	14
8	13
9	12
10	11
11	10
12	9
13	8
14	7
15	6
16	5
17	4
18	3
19	2
20	1

I tested this last night on the GEEX prelims server through 2 runs of all the tracks and an average of 13-20 people on the server.  It worked well and everyone seemed to like it.  I hope it will feel more fair to all participants.

GEEX 2011 TrackMania 2 Canyon Tournament Details Finalized

I, along with Ubisoft, Intel and GEEX am proud to officially announce the first USA LAN event TrackMania 2 Canyon tournament since the game was released on 14 September 2011.  We're excited to be one of the first to help the United States get introduced to the ManiaPlanet universe.

We have finalized all details except the map pack that will be used in the finals.  This is because I have some of the best track authors in the TrackMania community hard at work creating tracks special for this year's GEEX tournament!

It gets better...

This year's tournament is free to enter and open to EVERYONE (just make sure to read the fine print below...)  We will be holding an online preliminary event on:
07 October 2011 9:00PM (Mountain time.)
Online - GEEX 2011 TrackMania prelims server


All details can be found at the official GEEX TrackMania 2 Canyon Tournament website.

The top 10 contestants in the online prelims will advance to the finals, which will take place:
14 October 2011 6:00PM
GEEX - South Towne Expo Center - Sandy, UT
Tournament stage


Ubisoft and Intel really came through for us.  Intel is sponsoring some really killer prizes... including:
1st place: Customized GEEX 2011/TrackMania 2 Canyon gaming laptop
2nd place: Boxed Intel i5 processor
3rd place: Boxed Intel i5 processor
(All finalists will also receive cool TrackMania 2 Canyon t-shirts)


We expect this to be an epic event and hope to see a ton of you there.  And if you're not in the competition or aren't fortunate enough to make it to the finals, come cheer on your friends and have a blast at this special event.

Register Now!!!

And now the fine print...
Note: All finalists are responsible for any travel/lodging necessary to permit them to participate in the GEEX 2011 TrackMania 2 Canyon tournament finals.


DISCLAIMER:
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), who are thirteen (13) years of age or older at the time of entry. Employees, officers, and directors of Sponsor, and each of their affiliated companies, subsidiaries, licensees, franchisees, distributors, dealers, sales representatives, their advertising and promotion agencies, and any and all other companies associated with the Contest (collectively, the "Promotion Entities"), and each of their immediate families (i.e., parents, spouse, siblings, children, grandparents, step parents, stepchildren and step siblings, and their respective spouses, and those living in the same household, whether or not related) are not eligible to participate. All eligibility is subject to all federal, state, provincial and local laws and regulations.

GEEX 2011 TrackMania 2 Canyon Tournament Registration is Live

Register for the GEEX 2011 TrackMania 2 Canyon tournament

Registration is $35.00 and includes admission to the LAN party.

The competition is not team-based but the registration form allows to put your Team Name; so if you are registering and are part of a TrackMania racing team, make sure you and all of your teammates but the same Team Name (either acronym or full name - example: "FNG" or "Friday Night Gamers") so you'll all be grouped the same.

We hope to have participants from all over and from many different teams to come help us show off to the USA how great this game really is.  Come one, come all... Sign up now so you can come join us in one of the United States' first official LAN event TrackMania 2 Canyon tournaments, brought to you by Ubisoft!

GEEX 2011 LAN Registration is Live - Tournament Registration Coming 08 Sept 2011

Register for the GEEX LAN party (price includes show admission/weekend pass)
First 50 people get EVGA t-shirts and lanyards.

$35.00/person
Only 100 seats this year - so sign up SOON!

EDIT: I guess it helps to mention that GEEX 2011 is happening Friday and Saturday, October 14-15, 2011!!!  :)

Tournament sign-ups start tomorrow and will include the following games:
(according to the GEEX tournaments page at time of this post)
PC Tournaments
League of Legends
Starcraft 2
Team Fortress 2
Trackmania 2

Console Tournaments
Call of Duty: Black Ops
- TBA -
Halo: Reach
Super Street Fighter 4:AE

You read correctly.  This year, Ubisoft presents the first official USA LAN TrackMania 2 event, right here in Utah!

More details to come in the near future... so if you're interested, make sure you register early for the tournament!  If everyone that wants to participate is able to register for the LAN, we'll do our prelims on Friday at the LAN -- if not, we'll consider doing prelims online prior to the event and having the finals only at GEEX.

(Everyone interested in entering the tournament should go pre-order the game on the official website.  Pre-purchasing (only $25.00) gets you into the Multiplayer Beta going on right now; so you can start practicing before the release in a week!)

We're looking forward to an exciting TM2 tournament this year and can't wait to show America how awesome the new TrackMania is.

See you at GEEX 2011!

GEEX is back for October 2011

I was under the impression that GEEX wouldn't be happening again until 2012, but it's back and slated for October 2011.

Team FNG has been a part of GEEX in both of its prior years. 

The first year we competed in a TrackMania Nations tournament, put on by Protocol 42; and DirtyDan and I came home with some swanky new GeForce 9800GX2's that provided us some SLI goodness.

Last year, GEEX and Team FNG brought a TrackMania United Forever tournament to the stage (2nd row, 2nd column photo features our own Thundr, DirtyDan and Atholon); with Atholon and Thundr coming home with a GeForce GTX480 and a 27" Asus monitor (all thanks to LANDesk Software, who also provided a super-sweet Asus G73JH-X1 laptop to the reigning champion "Fallout".)

Fun was had by all, and I hope it can be even bigger and better this year.  I had an extra good time because I got to write a tournament tracker application that integrates with TrackMania United Forever's XMLRPC server and got to do my first podcast (thanks again LeGrande and Kurt!)

This year, GEEX is partnering with the Pushbutton Summit conference which will bring a host of panels and workshops for those in the digital media industry.

Big name sponsors for this year's event are already lining up, including Epic Games, EA Games and Disney Interactive Studios (which, while looking up links for them all, I discovered EA has Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit on sale for $17.97 this weekend for those of you that don't have it... we're still holding out hope that Criterion and EA will work out the connectivity issues... but I digress.)

With these already on-board, I'm excited to see what other game developers/publishers will sponsor and have booths at the expo.  Maybe we'll enjoy the presence of Valve/Steam or Blizzard.

Team FNG would like to wish Media One and the Pushbutton Summit the best of success with GEEX 2011.  We look forward to tracking its progress and seeing what kind of event this will shape up to be.

"Epic" Win for GEEX!

Epic Games signed on as a sponsor for GEEX 2010!
More details can be found at the GEEX website.

I'm stoked to see big names like Epic, Intel, Nvidia appearing at our event; and look forward to seeing what they bring to the expo.

I have to do a shout out to Geekbox Computers who has been busting butt to sponsor the LAN Party and some of the tournament prizes.

We hope the show will be a smash hit this year and even more fun than GEEX 2008 was.  Team FNG had a riot at the first GEEX, and we'll looking forward to some serious good times at this one.

We'll see you all there...

GEEX 2010: TrackMania Tournament Dedicated Server is Live!

The Team FNG practice server for the GEEX 2010 TrackMania United Forever tournament is officially live, and will remain so until GEEX is over.

Play TrackMania on the Team FNG Server

(up until 16 July 2010)

Mind you, it's still a test-bed for the tournament tracker app I'm writing to keep score during the GEEX tournament.  This won't affect your gameplay, except for seeing scoring at the end of each race (and being able to type /rank at any time to see your current tournament standings.)  Note that this will only work when I have the tracker app running... which will only be when I have time to work on it. 

We may or may not run some mock tournament runs with the app if I have time to do so; but most of the time when you see it running, I'll be making tweaks and fixing defects with it, so you'll have to bear with me when the scoring keeps resetting, etc.

Tonight, I'll be making the scoring reports show the players' aliases instead of their logins and working on a couple other things.

Feel free to practice on the server whenever you wish.  If it's not up, come back here and leave a comment so I can be notified about the outage.  I'll get it fixed as soon as I can.

I look forward to seeing you all at GEEX and spending some time racing with you before the tournament.
Register for the GEEX LAN Party
Register for the GEEX TrackMania United Forever Tournament

I'll hopefully be getting the in-game news submitted this weekend.

So go practice away and let's make this a spectacular tournament!

Win a Copy of TrackMania United Forever!

Last night I had the opportunity of making an appearance on the GEEX podcast, to talk about the upcoming TrackMania United Forever tournament.

We decided to give away two copies of the game.

To get yours, see the GEEX news entry, go watch some videos, and leave your impressions about the game on the site.

So don't delay... go enter for your chance to win, then register for the GEEX LAN Party and TrackMania tournament!

GG