On TMU-X I had very few downloads of my tracks, and I can understand it since I wasn't exactly a good track maker.

But now, I get a new start with more experience under my belt and a new username, and I still get buried under the regulars. How can I be competitive with track-making when it seems that the author name is more important then the track itself?

I'm not complaining about "so and so is just getting more downloads just because he's a popular author" or anything like that, I just don't understand why people seem to ignore less known authors.

I haven't made many tracks (I'd rather concentrate on making good tracks instead of mass-producing them), but I feel like I'm being ignored just because I'm not Bootfighter or Jet777.

You already answer to your question: you're less known.
But, the real question is: how do i get "more known"?
In TMX, there's beta area, playpal, and playpal online. Atm these services aren't avaible, but soon fastforza and the team will enable them for sure!
Then you will have for sure chanses to get known

Go on some servers and ask if they can play your track Always worth a try and if there are many tmx users there you could expect an award or two

Don't worry, I believe at least half of the community has same kind of thoughts. This is why I suggested "Try these" box for the front page. That would balance things a bit. Ultmately solving this problem is impossible IMO.

Welcome to the club Windows !

I'm feeling p pretty much like u actually. I've been in this community since Q1 2006 or something like that. I've created mods, a few skins, and tracks obviously. And look : spent hours making a track, focusing on the objective to make it easy and funny, to be original and all, and it remained like 3 hours on the home page before being totally forgotten, probably for ever.

The way TMX works makes the "famous" authors become more and more famous, and lets the less knowns authors like us in oblivion...

Take the famous "Tiger Blood" track for exemple. Of course this is a nice track ! It is funny, easy, and good for online. But in what way is it 50 times better than some other maps we can find on TMX ? This track was probably download 1000 times by now. Does it still need to be on the homepage ? Shouldn't this track leave it's slot to other tracks ? This is totally ridiculous.

We do have some 'new' ideas to try and help with this, I dont want to reveal them now incase we dont't do it for some reason, and then we are worse for breaking promises, but its actually in our minds that helping the smaller guys get on is part of our job.

Everybody started as an unknown person, just by the way
So it's up to you to get some more attention, not matter how. Maybe you are more active in the forum, ppo,pp or online. The are many different ways.
But you're right, unknown people doesn't get many awards or downloads (attention) but just because it's nearly impossible to check every track which was released somewhen. Even if it's sad...especially if you're able to build high quality maps

This is what helped me all the time
LINK TO CLICK

I looked at the PlayPal system a while ago on TMU-X, I'll try it here once it's online. The beta area didn't really help me, even though I both posted and tested tracks there.

The try these section wouldn't help my RPG track Deserts of Taros, which has 45 downloads simply because I mentioned it on an RPG server. Which brings me to the fact that most server owners seem to be reluctant to add tracks to their list.

As for activity, I'm usually very active in the off topic pit, but I don't otherwise have much to say.

Okay, let's tell it: RPG maps are unpopular. You can't put them on PPO, neither in PLay Pal, and no one will beta test it of course.

And I fully agree with oliver, nice post.