With the release of the embargo concerning the NDA of ShootMania, we're going to interview Insomnia, the ET-Manager to know more about his projects on ShootMania & Trackmania.
 

Mania-Actu : Hello Insomnia, could you please introduce you? 
First of all, thanks a lot for your interest. I'm Chris, 27 years old, and in my life outside of Trackmania I am IT Consultant, operating Germany-wide, for multiple clients of diverse fields of activity, from software development to database/application management in different sections of industry and economy. I love inline skating, hockey, swimming, squash, and badminton, such as board games and movies.


We know that you got an Alpha Key, could you please give us your feedbacks about ShootMania?
It's a bit two-sided I think. On the one hand, I think, it's pretty well done, it's a fast-paced gameplay, lot's of action and the game modes are pretty creative and new. The graphics are very nice and there's a lot of potential in the game, because like in TM we will see tons of different mapping styles due to the large editor and the many possibilities in it. On the other hand, I am personally not so much into shooters. It's hard for me to find the motivation to play it, because I am more a team player than a solo gamer, and there are still a few restrictions compared to other shooters. The reloading time for the weapons is very long, so you cannot shoot very often in a fixed time interval, and also I don't know yet what to think about having only 2 lives and the lacking opportunity to sneak. It's probably still good for competitions, but I guess, there will be people who like it, and call it innovative and revolutionary, and others, who will lack a bit the freedom we have in other shooters.

You're the Electronic Tournaments Manager, what has ET been preparing for ShootMania & ManiaPlanet?
We will launch some beta cups soon to try out a few of the game modes in competitive conditions. We plan to have a few cups before starting a major league, but as usual at ET, there will probably be more team competitions than solo ones. ShootMania competitions will be completely independent from Trackmania, as it's a different genre, so these two competition types will probably overlap a bit. That's all then about ManiaPlanet I think, as we know, Questmania will not be a multiplayer title (just online sharing). And of course, all our competitions will always be extended to the new environments coming up, very unlikely there will be Canyon or Storm only competitions, as soon as the next TM/SM environments are out.
 

What is the feeling between ESL & ET? Have you some plan in common in the future (ex: calendar)? 
We sometimes agree on a common schedule, but most of the time it's not nessecary, as the major competitions at ET and ESL are normally always at the same time during the year, so we respect those timespans for each other. There's not so much planning together needed, as it might look, and it will work out for ShootMania aswell, I'm sure.
 

Will you offer some prizes to the winner in the future?
This has never been the philosophy of ET and it's not planned aswell. We are not an organisation like the ESL, which has money and earns money with commercials, TV, etc. We are volunteers, do it for free and so people play for it for free aswell.


We released the beta of Mania-Actu.com, what do you think of the website ? Have you got some suggestions for the staff?
If you keep up the good work of tm-actu, it will be a great coverage website for ShootMania too :)


Thanks for sharing your time with us, I give you the last word
Thank you. It's worth keeping an eye on the ET site in future. We still have a few great concepts, which we're going to try out next, such as sequels of successful cups in the past (Crazy Worldcup 2 incoming!). We will follow our demand to be the number 1 league site for Trackmania, with full engangement and supply the community with great new cups and leagues for the hopefully coming next environments in Trackmania 2 and also Shootmania. Stay tuned!