You've massively downloaded and installed Nadeo's new update for the TrackMania franchise on the first launchday. As you have explored the game by yourself, there's no doubt that you have discoverd a few obvious new updates already.
But to close off this first launchday, we would like to present a comprehensive changelog which illustrates nearly all TrackMania Nations / United Forever changes and updates so you can see for yourself what you can really expect from this latest installment and appreciate that - like Florent hinted in october 2007 - this update is about making this franchise the most complete and rich TrackMania experience to date.
Beta testers have collaborated in this topic to help compile this list and you know what? It's not even finished. We'll be adding bits and pieces because there's even more under the hood!
General game changes:
- All new Nations skins for Stadium cars
- 3D stereoscopy feature
- Starforce removed.
- Fast loading of game when under NTFS file system (XP and vista)
- Fullscreen resolution, AA and AF can now be changed ingame
- Windowed resolution dynamically changes when resizing window.
- Menu will dynamically change mood as the day/night cycle progresses
- Exclusive keyboard capture.
- Help menus and dialogs are more informative now.
- 3 customizable and Mood-following avatars that will be displayed according to the smiles you type in server chat.
- bi-directional buddy system. You are aware of buddy addittion and deletion
- you can invite a buddy
- You can one-click join a buddy on the server where he/she is playing on.
- Accounts of TMNF (with its limitations) and TMU-F are usable in both games.
- TMNF accounts upgradable (full or with a time limit) to TMU-F accounts
- Third party can be invited to play TMNF/TMU-F via ingame e-mail invite feature, (Registration and join process can be monitored)
- Inviting a friend (via email) results in release of some campaign tracks.
- TMNF: An incredible new solo Race campaign (was a smash hit amongst betatesters!)
- TMU-F: A new stunt campaign never seen in any other TM game.
- TMU-F: A new Puzzle campaign.
- TMU-F: A new Platform campaign.
- Conditions for unlocking the solo tracks are displayed clearly (and include a few surprises)
- Possibility to delete user tracks ingame.
- Play official on custom campaigns.
- Option to show medal ranking of buddies only
- Favorites server menu
- Suggested servers (new for TMU-F)
- Cup mode: In this team flavor mode, your score will span across the batch of maps that you select for the server. (great for competitions)
- Warmup time, A server admin can now opt to let you warm up for a while befor the real match is started.
- You can now display opponent names as their avatars for multiplayer games
- Message when buddy connects (while you are playing on a server)
- New ladder system to avoid boosting See details inside.
- Stronger anti cheat and protection measures.
- /internet is redundant now and will be a default startup state
- /lan will be the alternative for the default internet launch state
- /autoquit is now redundant, and will be a default state. If you still want stopserver state, you need to issue /noautoquit at launch
- Respawn at checkpoints can now be disabled/enabled at serverlevel for Stadium (TMNF) and all other environments (TMU-F only)
- Many new methods that concentrate on further streamlining competition experience, reflect game updates and boost interactivity for scripts. Live method listing (by Phhere - new are highlighted)
- File Upload
- new predefined styles / substyles - Global template example by Smurf : Use Copy Shortcut and paste this adress in TMU-F/TMN-F 'explorer' menu adress bar to watch everything you can use.
- customizable background menu music and images
- Manialink / PHP integration.
- Option to disable and replace multiplayer GUI elements like chat and avatar
- new tags like <quad> <label> <frame> (can be compared to div in HTML)
- <entry> <fileentry> which allow a real interactivy with the user
- a new positioning system (posn one) which includes a z-index value.
- Integration of png image (partial) [on tmu manialink only dds, tga and dds were accepted]
- Automatic translation system based on game language with the include tag and textid
- Timeout system which allows dynamic manialinks with the same adress (on tmu if the adress was the same, the manialink was directly taken in cache and not updated)
- Partial update of manialink with manialink's id (used on dedicated servers)
- Added Simple editor. This editor is a basic version of the track editor and includes basic blocks and a rough scenery for beginners to get used to track building. It's included for all environments.
- Passwords are now more secure and encrypted.
- Further relaxed building freedom.
- TMNF: Stadium now has Sunrise, Evening and Night mood!
- TMU-F only: TMO/TMS environments have all new road textures, redone trees and several other graphical improvements.
- Car can now be monitored and driven trough underwater conditions in every environment. (But in Stadium and bay you still will get water trapped due to vertical walling)
- Under water view (in cam3) now possible for all environments.
- addition of cyclic intensity boosters (100% to 200% oscilation) on all environments. All blocks of this type that you place on a map will be syncronized to the same cycle.
- New Blocks: Stadium: GP-like planes, (get horisontal and angled GP experience and create more organic curving).
- New Blocks: Stadium: Booster in dirt
- TMUF only: New Blocks: Desert (speed) : Industrial suspended roads,
- TMUF only: New Blocks : Desert (speed) : water and waterside roads
- TMUF only: New Blocks : Desert (speed) : Long normal road slopes (never seen in Desert before!)
- TMUF only: New Blocks: Snow (alpine : Great wall of China construction set
- TMUF only: New Blocks: Rally: Farmlands
- TMUF only: New Blocks: Rally: Fences
- TMUF only: New Blocks: Rally: Hayrolls
- TMUF only: ew Blocks: Rally: Forest
- TMUF only: New Blocks: Rally: Hillside versions of previously mentioned new rally blocks that enable you to create the most beautiful countryscapes ever to behold this environment.
- TMUF only: New Blocks: Rally: Hillside winding field-crossing dirt and tarmac road.
- Possiblity to shoot and to take a screen when editing a replay
- Use of 2D triangles to form figures
- Trigger conditions, AlreadyTriggered, when Greater than / Smaller dan certain speed, At Race time.
- You can shoot videos directly from the mediatracker
- camera edit speed is now intuitively relocated on the - and + key of numpad
- keys now have real authority over movement of editor cam, to facilitate intuitive positioning and montage workflow streamlining
- preview replay
- preview 3D : switches 3D to either anaglyph or full colour
- most blocks no longer exclusive to tracks, can create most blocks on any track
- new type of block : stereo3d : allows manual ajustment of stereoscopic parameters
- Ghosts now have blocks that determine their visibility (still buggy at the moment)
- Ghosts can be imported straight from the replay editor interface
- Ghosts can be imported multiple times
- New parameters for ghosts : delay : offsets the ghost time from the reference time
- Possiblity to shoot and to take a screen when editing a replay
- new keyboard shortcut : numpad +, numpad - : adjust camera movement speed
- preview replay
- preview 3D : switches 3D to either anaglyph or full colour
- most blocks no longer exclusive to tracks, can create most blocks on any track
- new type of block : stereo3d : allows manual ajustment of stereoscopic parameters
- new type of block : 2d triangle : draws 2D polygons on HUD
- Ghosts now have blocks that determine their visibility (still buggy at the moment)
- Ghosts can be imported straight from the replay editor interface
- While shooting: animation in biks is now rendered according to their true animation speed.
- Ghosts can be imported multiple times
- New parameters for ghosts : delay : offsets the ghost time from the reference time
- the size of skins are twice the size of TMU's
- shooter can be called straight from replay editor interface
- new shooter option : stereo 3d : allows stereoscopic 3d rendering in Anaglyph Red/Cyan mode and 2x Full colour side-by-side mode
- New main menu music
- The sound system now uses openAL insdead of Direct Sound
- Ability to mute horn spamming from others in your game
- Game detects enclosed spaces when building a track and will add reverb.
- Horns are now placed in the /skin/horns map in the tm forever folder in your standard documents dir. You can choose a horn as global horn or you can choose to hear every horn which is provided by the skin.
- Parental lock
- Option to choose Stadium water reflection of geometry sepparately from other environments
- Option to choose between high quality trees (usefull if dense woods are created within the new rally environment)
- New high quality lightmaps selectable (4x2 and 8x2)
- Ability to choose display properties for ingame opponent names and avatars
- Ability to hide opponent cars in solo and online modes (default 'O' key)
- Rumble feature on gamepads
- TMU-F only: Tags: A system of community recognition where Organisation groups use their coppers to buy a bronze, silver or gold plaque for comunity players. It's the new maniastars.
- TMU-F only: Skin editor
- TMU-F only: Manialinks.
- TMU-F only: Messages between players.
- TMU-F only: Extra Solo modes: Stunt, Platform and puzzle modes.
- TMU-F only: Skill points
- TMNF and and TMU-F players can play together on servers that are hosting Stadium only maps
- Users of both games will rank together.
- Users of both games can be eachother's buddy.
- TMNF users have no ingame (or otherwise?) player page
- TMNF users can win no coppers
- TMNF users have one environment: Stadium
- If TMU-F accounts connect with TMNF, they will get exclusive access to TMU-F features within said game except for physically missing features like groups and environments.
- The game recognizes start with a map
- The game recognizes launch with a replay
- When the game is running, both features will override any ingame activity you are doing and load the map you open on your desktop. Very handy for quick TMX map inspections.
- TMTP protocol: join a dedicated server. tmtp's ability to connect to a server without knowing it's address (just use the logon), means the people can have desktop shortcuts to their favorite servers even if they're on dynamic addresses
- TMTP protocol: Permit to send records to friends with a simple link (you need to have the map installed).
- Shell extention allows for picture preview of trackmania challenges (tracks) inside windows explorer.
[*] tmtp://#addfavourite=serverlogin Alows you to add a server to your favorites list from an external link
[*] tmtp://#invitebuddy=login allows you to invite a buddy to be added to your buddy list
#join=
[*] tmtp://#joinasreferee=serverlogin Join a specific server as refferee
[*] tmtp://#score=scoremeta (generated by the game) Link is generated in game to send scores that one can challange on another computer
[*] tmtp://#spectate=serverlogin logs you into a server as spectator from an external link
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Some change log from Nadeo
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I have decided to put here a modification list we had before starting the alpha tests. This list is even only a part of the job done, but it may explained a little why this is the biggest work ever from Nadeo.
General
001-New: there are now medals scores shared between players to have non-officials rankings.
002-Modification: players are now grouped per zone, so there are no more steps to climb (Washington -> United States of America -> World).
003-Modification: new scores manager. For campaigns (except 'Custom'), we get scores only once per day (this may change) and we computes all changes on the client program. For the 'Custom' campaign, we use old system because we don't know the list of challenges.
004-New: we display champions of a zone for the skill points ladder.
005-Correction: a player cannot be anymore in a zone that is not a leaf. If this is the case, we ask him to change his zone and he will not be able to be online before that.
006-Correction: Camera going underground when car on back removed
007-New: High shadow quality
008-New: Lightmap size of 4K and 8K
009-Correction: Grass light from oustside linked with inside
010-New: Stereoscopic functions (some disabled now)
011-New: when a United player doesn't have played since 1 week, he receive a coppers bonus at his next connection. The same thing with a duration of 1 month.
012-Correction: when we create a new profile connected to an existing online account, we do not receive all messages anymore, but only messages received since the last check of the player.
013-Correction: we do not ask coppers for a group that doesn't exist.
014-New: new management of buddies with invitations by e-mail.
015-Correction: display of rankings improved for players that do not have rankings or for players that we don't know rankings.
016-Modification: connection to the master server accelerated.
017-Correction: shutdown of the game accelerated.
018-Correction: now we disconnect correctly the player on shutdown of the game, so we do not lose informations.
019-Correction: the messenger cannot be under menus or interfaces anymore.
020-Correction: 2 different groups cannot have same name.
021-Correction: globaly, best use and optimisations in scripts and in the manner we use them.
022-New: relayed master servers to host more and more players!
023-New: Possibility to link an anticheat client to the program
024-New: option to display avatars instead of names above the cars
025-Increase of display timeout from 5s to 10s for the dialog boxes during the race
026-Debugging of the parsing of the blacklist file if it has been downloaded from an url
027-Hidding of the car of another player that has given up in round/team/cup mode, instead of keeping its car where it was when the player gave up
028-Improvement of network code (faster, more reactive)
029-More security in game network protocol
030-No more disconnection at race start if the server has watch a long mediatrack
031-Increase of the size limit of challenge that can be sent by the server (up to 512kB)
032-More security in web protocol (between game and masterserver)
033-More security in coppers tranfers
034-P2P code has been rewritten
035-Preload of klaxons by P2P as for skins
036-Display of P2P infos in the analyzer (press key '0')
037-Correction of the replacement of the default game panels by downloaded custom panels
038-Improvement of the game cache (faster, more efficient)
039-Https and custom ports support for the urls used in locators or in manialink/maniacode
040-Ip of private servers only comunicated after a check of the password. (private in the sense "has passwords for both players and spectators")
041-Modification: Rewritten sound engine.
042-New: Rumble support for game pads.
043-Modification: Horns are customisable independently from the skin. Add sound files in "Skins\Horns"
044-New: Avatar variants, cf VariantesAvatars doc
045-New: Run from a usb key: use /userdir to change the default "My Documents/.." location. /userdir="exe" -> the exe directory /userdir="c:\wherever\I\want..."
046-Modification: Challenge headers now contain url of the dependencies
047-New: Manialink everywhere: browser can now be displayed during the race. links in chat / ui clickable. you can close and resume browsing
048-New: Disk scanning cache. (faster start time) limitation: when a file is modified, the date of the containing folder must be updated. While this is done by windows when you add, remove or rename a file, it is not when you just change the contents of a file.
049-Correction: P2P related crashes.
050-Correction: Incoherence check.
051-Correction: already connected error fixed.
052-Correction: mods bug
053-Correction: Odd behaviour in laps mode (now it's more like rounds).
054-Correction: timer more robust on linux. (no more invalid times when setting the clock)
055-Correction: ForceSpectator() fixed
056-Correction: The manialink page is now also displayed on the server (if it's not a dedicated server...)
057-Modification: a server give more ladder points (a percentage) when there is at least one referee that has participated to the match.
058-Modification: referee mode revised and corrected. A referee need a password to connect. Referees and the server communicate. The server will be warned when a non-validation will occured. In this case, the server can choose what it want to do with the faulty player: nothing, log, log/reset, log/reset/ban, with log = a message will be displayed in the chat, reset = player's score is removed.
059-Correction: problems with the selection of scores to display informations about players are corrected.
MediaTracker
060-added trigger conditions for clips :speed lower than value, speed greater than value, race time lower than value, racetime greater than value and clip x already triggered
061-fixed display and tooltip of reference frame
062-added ghost blocks, that can be moved in time easily.
063-added 2d triangles blocks, to create 2D animated shapes composed of triangles
064-added keyboard bindings to move camera faster / slower (+/-)
065-added a keyboard binding to add a key (Enter)
066-fixed a bug that caused camera problems during end race clips or merged clips.
067-fixed a sound bug when in inside cam view during clips.
068-fixed the bug of car not hidden when in inside cam view during clips.
069-fixed the bug of bad name size above cars (small names were displayed bigger)
070-fixed the car jittering problem when dragging the timeline cursor
Manialink / ManiaCode
071-New: manialink access during the race, and from any menu (except when a dialog is already open)
072-New: a manianet resource type (redirect) after manialink and maniacode, that allows to force redirection to another ressource of url or manialink/maniacode type (e.g : <redirect>Nadeo:Home</redirect> )
073-New: url parameters in manialink (e.g : 'http://www.site.com/test.php?id=entry1' where entry1 is the name of an entry in the manialink page. in that case, the content of the entry will replace 'entry1' in the url)
074-New: parameters for manialinks et des maniacodes : just like regular urls, you have to add '?param1=...¶m2=...' at the end of the manialink/maniacode in order to pass theses parametres to the url (e.g: if Test => http://www.site.com/test.php, then Test?id=1 => http://www.site.com/test.php?id=1)
075-New: text or file Upload via Manialink, e.g for the link: $h[POST(url,entry1)]Upload$h in a page, clicking on the link will upload the content of entry1 on url
076-New: maniacode <install_track_pack>: installs a track pack in a sub folder of "Tracks\Challenges\Downloaded"
077-New: maniacode <get_skin> : downloads in the cache a data that can then be used for a track or a replay retrieved by par play_track or view_replay
078-New: maniacode <goto> : redirects the game to a manialink page at the end of the maniacode execution
079-Modification: a maniacode that installs serveral tracks doesn't ask for each if you want to play it.
080-New: possibility to associate a transaction to a manialink or to a maniacode (that are not already paying) and to pay this transaction to get this manialink or maniacode (you just have to add 'transaction=idtransaction' to the manialink or maniacode for using the transaction which id is idtransaction to do the payment)
081-New: display of paid users of a maniacode payment
082-New: possibility to define the 'noconfirmation' attirbute for a maniacode, which indicates we don't want a "maniacode complete" dialog at the end of the maniacode execution.
083-New: <music> manialink tag to define ambient music
084-New: <frame> manialink tag to define a component container, wich yo can position easily
085-New: <fileentry> manialink tag to choose a file in drive to uploader via POST
086-New: <entry> manialink tag to input a character string and to upload it via POST ou to transmit it as a url parameter.
087-New: <include> manialink tag to add to the manialink xml code the content of another xml file from another url.
088-New: <timeout> tag to define the time after what the manialink (or the maniacode) will have to be downloaded again from the associated url
089-New: new manialink tags format, new tag attributes (precise positioning, access to main menu styles)
112-New: PNG support
Dedicated server
090-New: Kick, Ban: Kick() Ban() with messages, added BanAndBlackList(), GetIgnoreList() now returns a list in the same format as guest list and black list.
091-New: Warmup phase: SetWarmUp(), GetWarmUp(), SetAllEnableWarmUp(), GetAllEnableWarmUp() enable automatic warm-up phase
092-Modification: Voting system improvements (unanimous votes work, you can adjust settings for each type of vote, ...) cf CallVoteEx(), GetCurrentCallVote()
093-New: Tunnel for client side monitoring / plug in cf: TunnelSendDataToId(), TunnelSendDataToLogin()
094-GetCurrentChallengeIndex() now always returns the correct index, and -1 when the challenge is no longer in the list.
095-GetNextChallengeIndex(), SetNextChallengeIndex(), GetNextChallengeInfo() allows to change the next challenge to be played.
096-CheckChallengeForCurrentServerParams() to know before hand if the challenge will be allowed by the server
097-SetServerPackMask(), GetServerPackMask() to set which environements you allow on the server. (for instance "nations" only or "original"... any challenge not matching will be skipped)
098-GetChallengeInfo() now also works with challenges not in the playlist.
099-Modification: Authentification levels: lowered some functions from superadmin to admin, and if the "user" has a non-default password, the calls from unauthentificated connections will now fail.
100-It is now possible to only update parts of the manialink page.
101-It is possible to hide parts of the race ui, by adding a <custom_ui> element.
102-New: Referee parameters: SetRefereePassword(), GetRefereePassword(), GetRefereePassword(), SetRefereeParams(), GetRefereeParams()
103-AutoSaveValidationReplay(), IsAutoSaveValidationReplaysEnabled()
104-SaveBestGhostsReplay(): will make a best of replay, containing the best races of all the players.
105-New: EndRound() callback
106-New: Chat routing: 1. you need to enable callbacks 2. call ChatEnableManualRouting() 3. and use ChatForwardToLogin() when you get the callback PlayerChat().
107-New: customizable round scores SetRoundCustomPoints() ForceScores() can now be used silently.
108-New: Cup Mode SetCupPointsLimit(), GetCupPointsLimit(), SetCupRoundsPerChallenge(int), GetCupRoundsPerChallenge(), SetCupEnableWarmUp(boolean), GetCupEnableWarmUp()
109-New: we now know if a player is authenticated.
110-New: we know the duration since the inscription of the player in his zone.
111-New: private/private servers cannot be join before giving the right password in the multiplayer menu. With this verification, we protect servers against massive attacks. (clients do not know IP:Port before giving the right password)
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