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.

Platform Comes to the Canyon

Today Nadeo unveiled Platform mode for TrackMania 2: Canyon.  Platform existed in Canyon's predecessor, TrackMania United (and TrackMania United Forever.)

I'm super excited to see how they pulled it off, especially considering the way the Canyon car handles differently than the Island and Stadium cars from United.

To get it, do the following:

• Launch ManiaPlanet
• Download the update
• Restart ManiaPlanet
• Click on Canyon and download its client update.
• Restart ManiaPlanet one more time.
• Click an empty station (TV with clouds on it) and select the Platform title (see screenshot above)
• Click on the newly loaded Platform station and enjoy!

A new dedicated server will be released tonight or tomorrow to support the new mode.  It will be fun to see how it goes online!

Enjoy!

ShootMania Pre-Order Video

Epic.  Can't wait for the new blocks they're showing in the video.
Buy now to get instant access to ShootMania while they finish beta-testing.

Then come play it and TrackMania on the Friday Night Gamers' servers!

ShootMania Pre-Order Available Today! Discounted Price and Access to Beta

ShootMania Storm

The wait is over!  Nadeo's epic new game, ShootMania has gone into Open Beta.
Even better, they've discounted the price on pre-orders and allow purchasing 3 and 5 packs so you can get all your friends in on the action!

The game will retail for $19.99 USD, but you can pre-order now for the following prices:

1-license: $15.99
3-pack: $39.99 (3 for the price of 2!)
5-pack: $63.99 (5 for the price of 3+)

Those that know me know that I'm anti-FPS for the most part, but this game is a hoot.  It's like an epic game of freeze tag with a bunch of fun modes.  And with Nadeo's outstanding technology for custom content creation, this game will expand into an even more incredible game than it already is.

(And I REALLY REALLY REALLY hope that Nadeo will do something like this when the next TrackMania environment comes out... *nudge..nudge*)

Included in this release is the new and improved ManiaPlanet 2.0, Nadeo's one-stop-shop for all your Mania games, which allow quicker connection with your friends so you can spend more time playing than searching.

Quit reading already and come join the fun.  Get your copies of ShootMania ordered today while the price is discounted!

ManiaPlanet 2.0

ShootMania goes Beta; and FNG goes with it!

Near the end of last week, ShootMania went Beta.  Several Friday Night Gamers recevied keys thanks to the generosity of Nadeo, both in their beta signup and with those of us that played through the Alpha.

We spent last Friday's session playing together in the game and only had one beta key holder missing.  In attendance were:

ThatOneGuy

Mando/Scarfire

DungeonsMaster/d6Amefath3r

SpeedMonger/FragMonger

DirtyD

Ender

Joshterizermizer (which gracefully set up an alternate Mumble server for us so we could save That One Bandwidth for the ShootMania server.)

Thundr

Thundr Jr (played by Thundr)  *CACKLE!*

Atholon

DirtyD brought a friend, whose last part of his alias is "blase" but I can't remember the first (we were calling him by first name)... and ThatOneGuy, Mando and DungeonsMaster had a guest named "jared".

We hope they will join us again.

Those in attendance were scattered throughout the night, but our server was filled with the maximum 16 players for the majority of the night, and we all had a blast.

We took a short break from our server to join an Elite server and try that mode out.  It was fun, and I hope to set up our own private Elite server so we can give it another go with solely FNG to see how it plays out.

Our beta access is only good for a 7 days, so I hope all of you that have keys will join us as much as possible throughout the week, even if only for short sessions.

We might get an extension, but we're not sure how/when yet.

I will take some screenshots of us in there sometime this week.  We will give you a sneak peak of a couple of maps FragMonger made during the alpha, and are getting some nice attention from players around the world.

For those of you waiting for beta access, each week Nadeo will be giving new players beta keys, in chronological order of when they signed up on the site.  Sign-up is closed now, but those that made it in before closing should get a 7-day key before the open beta comes... so hang tight!