Hi there,
hm, so this is a blog. I've never written one before. So what do I write?
I can tell something official, the personal story of my track and give a little advice for (new) trackbuilders, to give this any relevance.
I've started a contest on my new track:
500 Planets for the ten fastest replays (1000 for No 1) until monday morning.
Post your login on the trackpage to participate!
CONTEST CLOSED!
During the last months I hadn't much time for playing TM. But when I had a little free time I wanted to built something.
In many racing games I've played, after you finished the game, you had the option to drive the tracks from finish to start, to get some "new" tracks. Most of them where pretty hard, beacause the tracks weren't built to drive them that way. Because of the limited time, I decided to do a backwards-track of my previous one. I've did that before in TM1. But like I did in TM1, I wanted to modify the track to provide the same fun the original track has and not just turn around the CPs and change start and finish.
So my premise was to built a fast fullspeed-track that is playable for everybody, only use smooth transitions and try to keep as much of the original track to save some time. To tell in advance: I didn't save time by using the old track, it became the same work as building a new one.
Pretty fast I finshed the first backward-version by just turning the track around and adding some little modifications. Some parts worked great, with others I wasn't satisfied. For example: I simply changed the wallride to an arena-part, but the transition from offroad to arena got a bit buggy. So I rebuilt a bigger part to make a cool (and for me new) transition: a twisted road as ramp and a curvy arena part to land. The transition was totally awesome, smooth and much fun to drive. But after some time I realized that this cool transition is only super-smooth if you drive it like I do, but the premise was do make it nice for every driving-style. The parts before and after the transition where finished and I loved them. I tried to change the three blocks that where the transition was, but couldn't built anything better.
(I'm approaching slowly the advice-part...)
Then I thought: This isn't what I wanted, but it's so cool; so drivers have to drive my line, that's how it is.
(Excursion:)
Everytime building a track or something else I (and maybe you too) come to the point where I can't do any better and just say to myself: "Dann ist das jetzt halt so!" It's a german term that could be translated as: "Than it has to be that way!" For example: You're assembling your new closet bought at Ikea and the doors just don't want be symetric. You try hard, change the settings... then you say something like "Sh**, fu**hgs, moth***jgh door. OK, I'll leave like that, than it has to be this way (Dann ist das jetzt halt so!).
What did I do? The closet: I just don't look at the door. The track: I deleted about 5-10 seconds before the transition (pretty long way at speed of 600), built a new, not so fancy transition at another place to provide nice driving for everyone.
So here comes my advice full of wisdom:
If you come to the point where you are not totally satisfied with the track, and you think you couldn't do any better, don't say Dann ist das halt so / Than it has to be that way! and release the track. There are always possibilities to improve the track and get what you want, but you have to let go some parts you love. Sometimes it's sad, but if it helps the track as a whole or allows you to realize your vision, start the bulldozer and slaughter your track without remorse!
Thank you for taking the time to read and please excuse me for being a smartass.
I would be happy if you drive the track.
See you in my rear-view mirror
Hans Holo
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