That One Car - TrackMania 10th Anniversary

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See it tonight at the
Friday Night Gamers' TrackMania 10th Anniversary Celebra10n!

Starting at 7:30pm Mountain on the Frag Dolls twitch.tv stream!

Team FNG Celebrates TrackMania's 10th Anniversary

The Friday Night Gamers are proud to announce our TrackMania 10th LANniversary Celebra10n party!

Party Details (all times are in Mountain Time Zone)

• Friday 22 November 2013
• 6:00pm - 2:00am: Friday Night Gamers LAN Party
• 8:00pm - 9:00pm: FNG Annual Turkey Bowl tournament (for-fun - ALL are welcome, both LAN and Online - see details below) Download the Track Pack
• Join the Team FNG United Forever server
  (World | United States of America | Utah zone)
• Join the Team FNG - Canyon: Time Attack server
  (World | North America | United States of America | Utah zone)
• Join the Team FNG Valley Forge server
  (World | North America | United States of America | Utah zone)
• 7:30pm - 9:30pm (roughly) - Twitch.tv stream, hosted by the Frag Dolls own "SiREN" and Ubisoft's "Johkr", North America's new TrackMania Community Manager

Tournament Details

We will be racing one track from every environment (Stadium will be handled in TrackMania United Forever) and will begin in TrackMania United Forever, then TrackMania 2: Canyon, then TrackMania 2: Valley.

Special Considerations:

Friday Night Gamers will be taking 20+ slots on the server, but we will open our servers to 100 people (given bandwidth will allow -- if not, we will be required to restrict to 50.)  We will do our best to accommodate as many as possible, because we want to share in this celebration with you!

Please note that this is our first attempt at pulling off an online, multi-server tournament.  This means we will all be required to jump servers when it's time to play each of the TrackMania 2 games.  Since there are limited player slots on the servers, please be aware that there may not be an open slot when you try to switch servers.  We ask that those that end up joining us for the majority of the TrackMania United segment of the tournament be allowed to join the TM2 servers when that time comes, so they can complete the tournament with us.  We also ask that Friday Night Gamers take priority.  We will take a few minutes whilst switching servers to try to make sure as many as possible continue on with each segment, but to honor time constraints and the Twitch stream that is highlighting our tournament, we will begin the race as soon as all Friday Night Gamers are present and accounted for in the servers.

Also, you are under obligation to respect Ubisoft's terms and conditions while playing on our servers, including keeping your language clean and respectable, being courteous to other players, and refraining from using any vulgar, pornographic or otherwise offensive language, avatars or nicknames.  Team FNG reserves the right to kick or ban you from our servers to make room for players who are willing to comply with the terms and conditions.  Basically, be cool and have fun.

You will also be required to own all of the TrackMania titles found in the TrackMania Complete Package, which can be purchased right now for $29.99 (normally $79.80) from the ManiaPlanet store or from Steam; namely: TrackMania United Forever, TrackMania 2 Canyon, TrackMania 2 Valley.  (TrackMania 2 Stadium is not required, but you might as well have the newest one ... it's great!)  A TrackMania 2 complete package is also available for those that own United Forever already, and the individual games are discounted if you just need to fill in a 1-2 titles you don't yet have.  Be aware that these prices are for a limited time only, so snag them now while the getting is good!
Links to purchase can be found on our "Best. News. Ever." post.

You may also demo the TrackMania 2 titles before you buy, but I'm not aware of what restrictions are in place, so be aware that you may or may not be able to join us on 22 November with the demo versions.

Track Authors:

Tracks were selected from some Friday Night Gamer favorites, as well as a new one from Valley with a fun theme.  The selected tracks feature some legendary map authors, veterans of the TrackMania community, many of which are good friends of Team FNG, and includes: 

• Eyebo
• GanjaRider
• hawk_ger
• jumperjack
• nitroguy
• pfm
• scottmc
• sm0k3y
• tmjonas

Tracks (order in the tournament may vary):

• TrackMania United Forever
• Alpine: Snow Park (tmjonas)
• Bay: [GR] Poco Loco (GanjaRider)
• Coast: FlowCoastUnited (nitroguy)
• Desert: Scotts Bluff (scottmc)
• Island: Etherlight (hawk_ger)
• Rally: Celt!c Sp!r!t (smok3y)
• Stadium: Artemis Arrow I (jumperjack)
• TrackMania 2: Canyon
• GEEX - Life Elevated (eyebo)
• TrackMania 2: Valley
• Bat Fight! (pfm)

Download the Official Track Pack:

Extract the pack to your "My Documents" folder, unless you have changed the location of your game's data from the default.  If you have you will manually need to extract the files using a zip utility application like 7-zip.

Once extracted, you may open TrackMania United Forever, TrackMania 2: Canyon and TrackMania 2: Valley and will notice a "TM 10th LANniversary" folder under your "Downloaded" folder when you browse for single maps/tracks in-game.

Corkscrew to Wallride
Track: "DealBreaker" by dill

Party with the Friday Night Gamers

We hope you will join us for this celebration of the best kept secret in America.  Whether you play with us on our servers or follow the party on the Twitch stream, come discover why TrackMania is one of the best racing game franchises ever!

History

TrackMania has been a Team FNG staple for 7 years, starting in 2006 when we discovered TrackMania Nations ESWC.

We dropped two other new games because we were enjoying TrackMania so much.  After learning TrackMania Nations had predecessors, some of us quickly purchased them and began to enjoy them too.  Soon after, we were blessed with news of TrackMania United, which coupled all of the old environments in one epic game, and added revamped lighting and dirt blocks to the Stadium environment.

In 2008, the Gamers and Electronics EXpo (GEEX) was announced; a new expo in Utah that would feature a TrackMania Nations tournament put on by Protocol42.  Four of us participated in the tournament, and DirtyD (then tsam314) and myself (ThatOneGuy) took 2nd and 3rd place; DirtyD beating me by 1 point.

DirtyD (tsam314), ThatOneGuy and Fallout
winners of the GEEX 2008 TrackMania Nations tournament

In 2010, GEEX approached me and requested that I volunteer to organize and run the TrackMania tournament.  I agreed if we could make it a TrackMania United tournament, not just Nations.  It was an enjoyable tournament with some of the tracks you'll see in our pack for the upcoming tournament.

GEEX 2011 was scheduled to happen right after the release of TrackMania 2: Canyon.  I saw this as a unique opportunity to really do something special to help introduce the USA to the world of TrackMania, since it had never really been marketed here.  Nadeo connected me with Ubisoft and they partnered with myself, GEEX and Intel to make an epic First Official USA LAN tournament for Canyon.  Many of the track authors listed above participated to make it extra special by creating a bunch of tracks specific for our GEEX tournament.

GEEX 2011
First official USA TrackMania 2 Canyon tournament

Check out this video on YouTube.
GanjaRider provided a lot of cool other links about GEEX there.

I have since kept in touch with Ubisoft and we have worked together on several projects, including the A&G 2012 Canyon tournament hosted by Macduffman, Ubi's ShootMania: Storm booth at PAX Prime 2012, an awesome ShootMania launch party on its release night and now our TrackMania 10th LANniversary Celebra10n.

nitroguy (far left) and ThatOneGuy (right next to nitroguy)
with Ubisoft and Nadeo
at PAX Prime 2012

Team FNG wishes to express our thanks for all the efforts Nadeo and Ubisoft make to stay connected and support the TrackMania community!  It is, by far the most friendly and fun gaming community I've had the pleasure of playing with, similar to the Motocross Madness community of days past.

We also wish to thank the great members of the community whom we have created wonderful memories with, and hope to continue to do so for another 10 years!

Best. News. Ever.

If you don't own TrackMania, or only own part of the entire franchise, listen up!!!
Today, Nadeo/Ubisoft announced several items of awesome:

• You can now download a TrackMania 2 Free Multiplayer Demo
• You can purchase a "Celebra10n TrackMania Complete Package" which includes EVERY TrackMania environment to-date for $29.99!!!!!!:
• Buy from ManiaPlanet.GamesPlanet.com (sometimes that will send you to the French URL.  Here is the USA ManiaPlanet.GamesPlanet.com link if you need that instead.)
• Buy from Steam
• TrackMania United Forever
• TrackMania 2: Canyon
• TrackMania 2: Stadium
• TrackMania 2: Valley
• You can purchase a "Celebrat10n TrackMania 2 Package" which includes EVERY TrackMania 2 environment to-date (in case you already own United Forever) for $19.99!!!!!!:
• Buy from ManiaPlanet.GamesPlanet.com
• Buy from Steam
• TrackMania 2: Canyon
• TrackMania 2: Stadium
• TrackMania 2: Valley

EDIT: I'm having a hard time finding where to buy the "Celebra10n TrackMania Complete Package" ($29.99) and I'm trying to see if the pack is available outside of Steam.  I will update when I know more.

EDIT 2: I finally found the Celebra10n TrackMania Complete Pack!!!  And what's better, it's being sold on the ManiaPlanet store, so you won't be forced to be tied to your Steam account (Steam lovers can still activate their player keys with Steam so you can have it in both places if you really want.)

EDIT 3: Found Steam link for "Celebra10n TrackMania Complete Pack"

Please don't miss out on this deal.  To get the entire TrackMania franchise for $29.99 is a STEAL!  There has never been a better offer than this, and I doubt we'll see another like it until a 20-year anniversary.  This is especially crucial for those who will be attending this year's Friday Night Gamer's "Turkey Bowl" -- which will be our TrackMania 10th LANniversary party!

We are unfortunately unable to host our party on 14 December like everyone else, so we have opted to host our celebration early.  It is going to be awesome, even better than our ShootMania launch party, including our annual for-fun TrackMania tournament to see which Friday Night Gamer will be this year's champion.

Our servers will be open for the night so TrackManiacs around the world can join us for some epic fun that night.  I will be releasing the official track pack soon, so stay tuned!  For now, go buy the Celebrat10n TrackMania Complete Package so you can play with us on 22 November!

A HUGE thanks to Nadeo and Ubisoft for creating such a great opportunity for everyone to easily and inexpensively discover why TrackMania has been a Friday Night Gamer favorite since 2006!  (Wish I could say 2004 but we can't help it, we didn't discover it until 2006.)

Thanks for 10 years of awesome, Nadeo!  Looking forward to the next 10!  TrackMania Forever!

MX vs ATV Reflex on Steam for $4.00 This Week

MX vs ATV Reflex, the closest thing we have to the FNG favorite "Motocross Madness" series, is on sale this week on Steam for $4.00!  While not quite as fun, it is a working alternate to MCM.

Things to note:

• You must have an Xbox Controller if you want to play with a gamepad
• Getting into games by joining via Steam friends list is klunky sometimes.
• It's an awful lot of fun to go into practice mode and just go tear up the environment with your bike.  The graphics are pretty and the dirt physics are kinda fun.

It's definitely worth the $4.00 if you have it to spare... and will add one more game in your arsenal for potential FNG games.  Check it out if you don't already own it!

Classic Racing Restored! Re-Volt Released on GOG.com

The classic game Re-Volt from 1999 was released on GOG.com recently, and so far, it looks to be a fantastic implementation!  I'm not sure if it is a sale price or regular, but it's a nice one right now.  You can pick up Re-Volt for just $5.99 today!

I fired it up twice today and played for a few minutes each.  I had no problems, no crashes, just good R/C racing fun.

The game is letting me run it at 1920x1200, with 16x Anti-aliasing, Anisotropic Filtering and VSync -- and enjoying 60fps while doing so.

I'm excited to see how well it will work with networking online, so I hope some of you Friday Night Gamers will pick it up and play with me sometime.

Will a Games for Windows Live shut down take its toll?

I'm a little behind on this news, but Microsoft announced in August that, in process of them switching everything to Xbox branding, they will be closing the Games for Windows Marketplace. At the time of that announcement, they said Games for Windows Live would continue to function. However, also in August, they briefly displayed a support message on the Age of Empires Online page:

Games for Windows Live will be discontinued on July 1, 2014. Although it is available through Steam, Age of Empires Online requires features of the Games for Windows Live service. You can continue to enjoy all the features of Age of Empires Online as the service will remain 100% operational until July 1, 2014 when the server will shut down.

Now, I hadn't heard anything about GFWL shutting down until today, when a friend pointed me to this Kotaku article about Bioshock 2 being updated by Digital Extremes (who originally handled the multiplayer aspect of the game) which, in addition to other changes, removed GFWL from the game. A player's Bioshock 2 GFWL key can also now be activated in Steam, and all players now own the DLC, including the single player expansion, Minerva's Den.

So, it's great to see a developer taking the time to update a slightly older game to remove the dying GFWL, while also adding better support for controllers, and giving all players more content. However, that brought to mind other games which also use Games for Windows Live. What will happen to those games if/when GFWL does shut down?

As noted on ghacks.net, developers who do not update their games may be locking users out of minor features (leaderboards, achievements, matchmaking, etc.) or, in the case of games that use GFWL to manage save games, the players will be locked out of their saved games. Other games, like Fallout 3, would lock players out of any paid DLC, as it uses GFWL for authentification. With Fallout 3, modders have taken steps to bypass GFWL because of the issues players were having with it.

I hope that more developers will take the effort to update games when the authentification servers/services are going offline. I hope they will update games to not use GFWL, especially in the case that Microsoft does terminate its service July 1, 2014. Fortunately, if the data from PCGamingWiki is accurate, some developers are listening.

One last note (personal wish), I REALLY hope that if Steam ever does shut down, they find some way to make our games accessible. I've heard many claim that Valve has promised that would happen, but I've never seen an official source.

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!

TrackMania 2: Canyon, Stadium; ShootMania: Storm 50% off this week!

Nadeo made a wonderful announcement yesterday that all but one of their ManiaPlanet titles are 50% off at Ubisoft's uPlay store and their own GamesPlanet store this week!

That means you can get the following:

• TrackMania 2: Canyon for $9.99 (normally $19.99)
• TrackMania 2: Stadium for $4.99 (normally $4.99)
• ShootMania: Storm for $9.99 (normally ($19.99)

If you're missing any titles, snag them now!  

Please note that the discount isn't being applied to the multi-packs on the GamesPlanet site as of this writing, but hopefully will be before the week is up.  If not, purchase each license individually so you can get TrackMania 2: Canyon/ShootMania: Storm at 3 for $30 or 5 for $50 instead of the normal 3 for $50 and 5 for $80; and TrackMania 2: Stadium at 3 for $15 or 5 for $25 instead of the normal 3 for $30 or 5 for $50.)

I will update this post if anything changes!

TrackMania² Valley: Ninja Jumps

Download the original AVI

The video above is a fun reminder of one of the major reasons I fell in love with TrackMania... transition jumps that the Friday Night Gamers endearingly refer to as "Ninja Jumps".

TrackMania.
Best.  Game.  Ever.

TrackMania 2 Canyon Video - [PF] ///ADRENALINE (Trailer)

The car skin used in FunZack11's video trailer of his upcoming track "[PF] ///ADRENALINE" for TrackMania 2 Canyon bears an uncanny resemblance to the Island car from TrackMania Sunrise and United.

After seeing this fun video I say, "Nadeo, bring on TrackMania 2: Island!"  :)

Enjoy.

DISCLAIMER: Nadeo has not made any announcements about Island or a similar environment being brought to the ManiaPlanet family, but it would sure be cool.