Atholon, Tsam, Thundr and myself had a really great time tonight with TrackMania Forever. We played on a Nations server since someone, we won't mention names (Atholon), hasn't ponied-up for TrackMania United Forever yet. :)
We played on a crazy server called "RF Playground" that had wild tracks to solve that reminded me of the good ole days in TrackMania Nations ESWC when we used to play on the 440 Mods and Boost server that ZHaDuM/MoXLeY used to host (later renamed to a KOFS server.) We used to get our game on there because the tracks were incredibly challenging and uber-creative. Our passion for those tracks was the fact that the first set of fun for it was to learn how to "solve" the track. Then it was time to figure out how to nail a flawless fast ride on it. Good times.
Anyway, the last track we played on it tonight was the one you see in the image above. It was incredible. No one finished it the first time. The second time only one did. The third time the same driver finished twice in one round.
I told the group I hadn't had this much fun being owned by a track in a LONG time. After the third round and no one from FNG finished; we jumped off the server and started our own to practice that track. There was no way I was finishing the night off with a track owning me.
Thundr and I were the only ones left by then, so we played it til we nailed it. I was fortunate enough to have 3/5 finishes during my final round. I told Thundr, "It's official; this track no longer owns me. It now only has a time-share."
The "TMX City Nights" mod Crusard made is incredible. I'm going to have to seek out more of his, because we were impressed with the "Sweet Dream" track (which included a candy world mod Crusard also created) - one of the most creative mods we've seen. Crusard has a gift; a gift I wish I possessed. So kudos to you, Crusard. Thanks for a killer mod that made a great track better.
I'd post the link to the DealBreaker track, but I couldn't find it on TMX. If anyone reading this can find a TMX link, please add a comment!
It's all just further proof that we all need more TrackMania goodness in our lives. See you at the races.
If you click the image and see it in its original size, you'll notice a staple at lan parties... a bunch of Mountain Dews residing next to a gamer's computer. :) The party was packed and it appeared everyone was having a good time.
Team FNG was represented by the following:
Dan Wetzel (Tsam), back-row left; Jeff Litster (That One Guy), back-row right; Nick Gold (d60dfath3r), front-row left; Jarin Blackham (Thundr), front-row right.
Most of us arrived at the party around 11:00am and jumped right into the TrackMania Nations Forever Tournament practice server to try to feel out what we were up against (both track-wise and competitor-wise.)
The competition was good. There were some good racers on the practice servers. Team FNG took turns being on the podium (sometimes sharing) and by the time we went to get lunch around 2:00pm, we felt confident at least one of us would come home being one of the tournaments victors.
We knew we wouldn't win first place because WAT_Fallout was there, and well, some of have been served by him before online. That guy has got some seriously "mad foo" TrackMania skills; the kind that push you to be a better racer.
There was a near tragic scene when TrackMania ceased working correctly for Fallout's computer around lunchtime; but fortunately after some system configuration tweaks minutes before the competition started, the game began working correctly again.
The tournament started a little after 4:00pm with 30 racers rearing to race to success (and a free video card.) Fallout took first on all but two races, of which Tsam and myself were first. The rest of the time, many of the racers were taking turns in 2nd or 3rd place. Some racers gave up during the tourney; and by the time we finished, the count was half of what we started with.
Points were given for first through third place each round... first place earning 3 points; second place earning 2 points and third place earning 1 point.
Tsam and I were elated to find that we were in the top 3 when the tournament ended. Here are the stats: (laugh hard because Fallout got more points than Tsam and mine combined!)
We each won a new ATi Radeon 4870 ... which, from what I hear, is the best model ATi card on the market today. We're pretty stoked.
In the mayhem of another tournament that started at the same time being conducted on the stage; they quickly interrupted the shoutcasting of the match to announce the winners of our TrackMania tournament... and rushed us up for some pictures before they excused us back to the lan party. Thundr was kind enough to snag my camera and try to take a picture while the other guy was trying to take his second shot. So, we may look a little dorky and disoriented; but we were stoked to be taking the podium in such a fun tournament.
(Left-to-Right: FNG_tsam, FNG_ThatOneGuy, WAT_Fallout)
We again want to thank Media One, Protocol 42, Palit Multimedia and all the other excellent sponsors that made GEEX such a great experience.
Rumor has it that plans are already underway for a GEEX 09. We're looking forward to it if it materializes.
We're also looking forward to Protocol 42's annual shindig in November where another TrackMania Nations Forever tournament will be held; and maybe this time we can learn some of Fallout's moves and give him a better run for his money. :) Congrats Fallout for taking us all to the cleaners.
See you all at the next GEEX!
We wanted to use the 3D blocks from the United logo, but we figure that won't work too well with embroidery... we'll see. We'll probably save that for the website.
Thanks to B_Rock and Atholon for working with me on the design.
My bro-in-law Keith did make us some shirts for GEEX (under short notice) that are pretty cool. Thanks Keith for the back-up there; you rock!
So, this will be my first big tournament for me since the Nintendo PowerFest came to Salt Lake when I was 17 (over half my life ago...) - I can't wait for the adrenaline rush.
Make sure to head to GEEX if you can and show your support for the Utah Gaming Community!
We raced on "Floyd's TM Nations Fun House" server with a host of fun racers. The server had anywhere from 23 - 30 people on at any given time.
We took turns on the podium and earned a lot of ladder points tonight (which we normally don't care about; as we get on these servers to have a good time racing people...) It was just funny to see us start with so little points tonight and walk away with so much.
For instance, I started with somewhere around 700 points when we began racing tonight; I left the server with 4073.
We all had a blast and played from 10:30pm to 1:00am.
We're getting more and more stoked for GEEX Show. I'm going to see if I can get a logo designed with my TrackMania car and FNG in it for an embroidered shirt. If it goes well and we like it; we can wear it to the GEEX Show LAN party (especially the TrackMania tournament.)
