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Location: Home  Blogs  Valley fail, Canyon comeback 
More Posts by pfm
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Valley fail, Canyon comeback
Valley fail, Canyon comeback 03 Sep, 2013
 pfm (8 comments, 2498 views)  
I was looking at the stats over at the excellent ServerViewer website and noticed something interesting.

This chart struck me particularly:


As you can see there's an initial frenzy of players playing Valley in the first few days of its launch which coincides with a small drop in the number of Canyon players, that's simple enough.

However notice what happens next, Valley stays in steady decline while Canyon recovers a lot of its player base.

In fact looking at the actual numbers what seems to have happened is:

Most Canyon players and some new players tried Valley when it came out and a few have stayed, while others returned to playing mostly Canyon, the slight drop in the average Canyon players corresponds roughly to the number that still plays in Valley.

So I would conclude that Valley failed to bring any significant number of new players to Trackmania and that the existing community is getting more fragmented between environments.

Also I didn't include stadium in my analysis but you can see for yourself in the chart that it shows steady decline.

Obviously this has to be taken with a pinch of salt because it only reports to multiplayer activity, and there might be seasonal cycles at play.

Would like to hear your opinions about what you expect for the future of the TM community...
Comments
8 comment(s).
 erikfzr writes ... 06, Sep, 2013  
Sure, there are more online Canyon players, but statistics about map uploads (and downloads) would be quite useful to get the whole picture.
 MrSunshine58 writes ... 05, Sep, 2013  
Same here, I just bought Valley out of cusiosity...I love Canyon with its cool drifting stuff, and was afraid Valley would gonna dissapoint me....but it doesnt....in fact, as a mapdesigner i find it even more challenging to build a full speed map now...

I like the 'glued to the road' idea ALOT....and the fact that every 'zzzzzz sound' of any not intentional drift makes you worry, as a player, since you want to avoid that.

I am not a rally fan, therefore the stuff in the Woods are at no interest of me....too slippery, and pixel-dependant to get out of it alive...
However, having this all said, if we expect to be able to go FS all the time, then we WILL fail.

Valley is about speeding up and slowing down, at the EXACT right moments. This idea is better implemented than in Canyon, imo...the 'old road' stuff in Canyon was too much opposite to the 'concrete' physics....
Thats at least is how i experienced it , and avoided that environment in my own maps.

Valley offers a bit more security somehow, in that...i think.

But anyway, in the end ...a good map will always be a map that gives you fun....to me that is a map that is not to much stressfull, making you try and try endlessly over again. Some learning curve is ok, but if a map takes an hour to get used to, then i often wonder why it is put on a 5 min. server.
 wormi writes ... 04, Sep, 2013  
... says:
Anyway, Valley being a non-drift environment might be a reason why many didn't continue playing it, considering both Stadium and Canyon are drifting-environments.


I do call it as a drift environment. It's still a way closer to canyon and stadium than bay for example. However, it's also a noslide environment, but not in that meaning that we use it with bay, island etc.
 frostBeule writes ... 04, Sep, 2013  
For Stadium, most people are still playing TMNF, although that one is also declining in numbers. But worth noting I think.

With Valley, when I tried it I immediately felt that this was not my type of racing so I haven't played it much since then. I generally prefer racing with drifting, which is why I liked Canyon (despite being a massive Stadium fanboy). Although I didn't like how sensitive the drift was, especially at low speed. Anyway, Valley being a non-drift environment might be a reason why many didn't continue playing it, considering both Stadium and Canyon are drifting-environments.
 Racho writes ... 04, Sep, 2013  
One of the reasons might be that lots of builders jumped onto transitional tracks in Valley. Fun to race offline, but can be a pain in the ass online as you run out of time quickly.

Also intresting to note that Stadium bounced back almost immediatley (1-2 days) of the Valley release.
 wormi writes ... 03, Sep, 2013  
However, in TMX valley is the most awarded environment atm. Why? Many players play it offline. That diagram shows only online stats.
 Alcator writes ... 03, Sep, 2013  
Well, I bought Valley, but the car does not suit me. I just can't seem to grasp the handling, it's not reacting naturally to inputs. It plays like the formula car with even stiffer handling and smaller steering range.

And, while the environment itself looks amazing, the car is a big graphical failure -- the wheels don't even touch the road, ffs!
 Superal.nc writes ... 03, Sep, 2013  
Personnally I can't play online very well cuz of big lags problems...
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