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.

ARK Racing Presents the Cyprus Cup - August 2014

Last November during our TrackMania 10th LANniversary Celebrat10n party, we had an epic online tournament spanning all of the TrackMania environments.  Some of the ARK racing team participated in that tournament.

Now, for nearly the entire month of August, the ARK Racing team proudly presents the Cyprus Cup.  Each weekend in August they will be racing 3 maps in Time Attack mode in the TrackMania 2 Canyon environment.  120,000 planets will be awarded in this competition; the breakdown can be found below.

Full details can be found at the ARK Racing website.

Corrected TrackMania 10th LANniversary Celebra10n Scores Posted

Hey all!
I think I've got all the players with different logins combined together so the corrected results have been posted.  Please let me know if you notice any others that are still separated in the list and I will be happy to correct them.

There is a change in the winners:

1. WLV.ES Minato
2. NITROGUY
3. WLV.ES Røbert

GNPaul was bumped to 4th place after combining WLV.ES Robert's two scores together; and will be awarded the prize for being in the top 3 instead of GNPaul.  

Check out the updated stats (those with dual logins are combined) and compare to the original stats (those with dual logins separated) to validate the results.

Thanks again to the nearly 50 players that participated in our tournament that spanned the entire decade of TrackMania!  Make sure you also participate in the many festivities that will happen on 14 December, the official celebration day of the 10th Anniversary of TrackMania.

GG!

Team FNG TrackMania 10th LANniversary Celebra10n Stream

Hey TrackManiacs!

Thank you so much for an incredible night last night.  We had 16 Friday Night Gamers attend in-person and 1 from home.  We also had around 50 people participate in part or in full with our tournament that spanned every TrackMania environment across 3 servers.  It. Was. Epic.

EDIT: For those interested, check out the Tournament Results on the Friday Night Gamers website!  (Note that some participants have different logins between TrackMania and ManiaPlanet (TrackMania 2) so they will show up twice in the list until I have a chance to combine their scores and fix the list.  It's accurate enough to see who the top 3 were.

We really enjoyed playing with all of you and I will be posting a recap web page in the next week or so as time permits.

For now, I leave you with a link to the recorded stream hosted by SiREN of the Frag Dolls and Johkr, our new TrackMania Community Manager for North America.  We thank them for spending their Friday night with Team FNG and all of you as we celebrate the 10th anniversary of one of the greatest racing franchises ever made; and we thank them even more for spending an extra 30 minutes longer than scheduled to meet some of our crew and bring on some special guests into the stream, Nitroguy and Bush Monkey!

We missed the Friday Night Gamers that couldn't be with us... it was a blast and we hope to see you next time.  Make sure you catch the stream on the Illumniate channel of Twitch.tv (moved from the former Frag Dolls channel) to see what you missed (including my making a complete fool out of myself referring to Minato as a girl when he's not!)  Here's a massive shout out and "GG!" to him, especially for taking first place in our tournament!

A huge thanks to Nadeo, Ubisoft and the Frag Dolls for their support of our party.  I can't wait to see what other fun we have in store come 14 December when the official celebration happens.  Stay tuned in-game, on facebook, twitter and the ManiaPlanet blog to catch the other events surrounding the 10th anniversary celebration!

And one final thank you again to the many players around the world that shared in our celebration of TrackMania!  You are what keeps us coming back for more.  GG!

(more to come later!)

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.

ShootMania E3 Tournament Prelims Stream

For those of you interested in getting a preview of the ShootMania Alpha test, Nadeo set up an invitational tournament that was broadcast online at Twitch TV to determine which teams would be invited to E3 next week to play in a Finals tournament live at the event.

They're playing in "Elite" mode, which will be explained when you watch the stream.  It's a fun concept and a fast/intense way to play for this tournament.

I can't wait to see Nadeo's ShootMania reveal at E3 (which I  imagine will happen during Ubisoft's big keynote, or whatever it is called, before the main expo begins; and where all their new games are revealed/demonstrated.)

Enjoy!

Watch live video from shootmaniastorm on TwitchTV

Best of Luck A&G 2012 TM2 Open Finalists!

Wish I could be there tomorrow to witness the awesomeness of the finalists competing in the A&G 2012 TrackMania 2 Canyon tournament.

I wish you all the best of luck... and have fun!
Can't wait to see the results.

GG

A&G '12 TM2 Open Semifinals Results Posted

"SmellOfTires" map: Synchronized Ski-Mode

See the A&G '12 TM2 Open Semifinals Results

"WHIPLASH" map: All Group 1 racers

Well, the semifinals were a blast; and thankfully went off smooth, unlike the prelims.  There was some close racing in both groups.  I wasn't much competition, but was happy taking 5th place, only 2 points between Dr.Rock and Anxiety who were tied for 3rd and 4th.  It was a pleasure and an honor racing alongside these pros and cool guys.

I was the outsider, pitted against six racers from team AMP (Amplified Gaming).  They were all very cool and we had a great time.

My TournaMania app performed well and successfully tracked both groups semifinal rounds.

Group 1 saw Laurens and Anxiety fighting neck-and-neck nearly the entire round, but Laurens clinched each map in the end, sweeping the scoreboard and securing his victory.

Laurens, Anxiety, Demko and Dr Rock from the AMP team are the finalists from Group 1.

Group 2 had equally exciting racing, with Iceman and FrostBeule duking it out for 1st place.  Supra gave some fierce compeition as well.

Iceman, FrostBeule, Supra and Besus are the finalists from Group 2.

See the full results at the link near the top of this article.

I would again like to thank Macduffman and Anxiety for organizing this tournament... the 2nd official TrackMania 2 Canyon tournament in the USA; and would also like to thank Ubisoft and Intel for their support.

I would also like to thank FNG_Thundr for his support spectating me while I played my semifinal round.  He provided the two fun screenshots in this article.  Hopefully Team FNG can run the A&G tracks in our own tournament at our next LAN party or sometime online.

I wish all of the finalists the best of luck.  Many of the finalists hail from other countries, so I also wish them success getting travel arranged to visit Ohio for the finals in March.  It is guaranteed to be an exciting set of races.

Maps are being custom built by top-notch TrackMania track authors from the TM community.  I'm excited to see them.  They will be released closer to finals time (a week or so before the event.)

GG all.  Let's do it again sometime!

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!

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!

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.