Well after some days and hours of configuring and tinkering with the blog and theme. I now present to you, a much better looking blog!

I think I'll call this Blog 2.0. Some notable changes are the sidebar, post view, comment view and now the ability to use all 40 TMX Smiles in comments!

If you think it's nice, why not leave a comment or two. We'd love it if you could let us know what else can be improved, just add your comments to this article.

Thanks, and enjoy!

Well the post title says it all...

To get the TMX Community more involved in the TMX Blog. We feel that we should approach you guys, the community, and ask you one question:

What would you like have appear here?

Keep in mind that our slogan is "For the Readers, by the Readers!". Which is why we have approached you guys to suggest some ideas for some great reading material. Your suggestions can be anything related to TMX or TrackMania, whether it be more videos, tracks, tips tricks or guides, interviews or just some general community news. Don't hesitate to take a vote in our current Blog Poll.

You should also not forget that you are free to send in your own articles to the TMX Crew!

With TrackMania 2 arriving in just over a years time, many players have speculated on what the game will have. One thing not many players have speculated on, is whether or not a brand new TMX will arrive. In response to that, all we can do is speculate on this idea.

If a new track exchange were to built or rebuilt. What would you like to see? E.g. - User Customizations, improved track manager. Your ideas and suggestions are welcome and will be added to the list below.

• Further user customizations.
• An improved API with documentation.
• Online recommendation.
• Easier sort functions for track searches (Sortable quicklists).
• Multiple Authors
• Multiple Versions
• Improved Overall Site Design
• Multiple Screenshots
• User Favourites
• Optional Taging System
• Blog Edit Comments (lol)
• More Track Style Options.
• Live User Status (Online / Offline)
• Quick Track Pack Grouping
• Copper Count
• Multiple Language Chatrooms
• Improved or changed Awards System
• Cross linking tracks
• Individual User Stats
• Filter/search by'actual' file name, inc .GBX extension (GameBox)
• Batch downloading, select multiple tracks, group them and download many tracks with one click.
• Send multiple PM's to a group of users.
• Multiple user PM chat. (Chat with more than one person)
• Front Page news Comments.
• TM-Tube Video API.
• Certain player download only list.
• YouTube like Account Customizations.
• User Accoun Page Voting.
• Copyright protected tracks.

Just remember that this is pure speculation and no official word has been said.

With TrackMania eXchange (TMX for short) being the best and most visited community website in TrackMania at no cost, there are a few things you could do in return of this free community service. I’ll explain them and how below.

An image or text based link

This type of support is similar to an advertisement, but is sometimes kept on a page, roughly at the top. Linking back to TMX provides further traffic to TMX, and shows that we as a community value its service and in exchange for that service, we’ll (the community)  put a viewable or readable image or text based link on our site linking back to TMX.

Copper Donations

Copper donating can come in handy when TMX has a few upcoming events. On a regular basis TMX may host an event or contest which may include coppers for a prize, donating coppers is another great way of supporting a TMX event or contest.

Money Donations

In this dark economical downturn, we must all be there for one another and provide support. You should follow this and donate some spare change to TMX to keep its service and community going, because without TMX there is no TrackMania. All donations made are put towards the hosting of TMX and give MrA a little break on the payment of the hosting. Donations can be made by clicking the PayPal button on the homepage of TMX, or click here.

Other Ways to Support TMX

- Being active in the TMX forums.

- Downloading tracks.

- Awarding and commenting one another's tracks.

I hope you consider a way to support TMX. :)

I know I’m supporting TMX, how about you?

As already posted in the front page news on the United exchange, this month’s MTC – Monthly Track Contest – has become larger than ever before. And now the contest is officially closed, so we have a final track count: 139 entries.

The MTC has existed for several years already across multiple TMX sites (the first being the old TMX Nations site, before Forever was released), but the previous record was only around 60 entries – less than half of what we have this month! Except a long judging period this time 

The reason for this new record, however, might be quite simple: an easy and unusually liked theme. The objective was to build tracks no longer than 15 seconds long – on any environment and of any type. No other limitations.

But still, the fact that 139 people pulled together and submitted a track is quite interesting. Who says the TM community is getting smaller?

To celebrate the record-breaking MTC, we’ve got more prizes to hand out than usual. Here’s what the 139 people who prticipated in the Unted MTC are competing for:

• Overall winner: A showcase and a mug or teddy bear from the TMX Shop.
• Top scoring in each environment: A mug or teddy bear.
• Three random participants: 5000 coppers each.

On the Nations Forever exchange, where the MTC has only existed for a few months, we saw quite a good user participation rate too. We reached 40 entries this month, and that on a theme which was perceived as quite challenging (bouncing five times on water).

In July, the MTC will take a break on both sites. But we’ll be back again in August, and I hope to see you all enter the contest once again when that time comes. In the mean time, feel free to suggest new themes in the Suggestions threads (United and Nations) 

Our wonderful Beta Area (United version and Nations version) is a place I’ve hardly ever visited – until now! And even though I’ve always thought the idea to be decent, it wasn’t until now I realized its potential.

For those of you who don’t know, the idea is that you upload an unfinished track that you’re working on and start a forum topic. Others can then download the beta track and leave feedback in the forum thread. My original thought was that you can just ask a friend to beta test, but what if you don’t know a suitable person, or they say no? And even if you do, it turns out that there are some other nice ups to using the Beta Area.

First on the positive side, and most obvious, is the fact that you get feedback for your track. Potentially from several people with several different preferences and viewpoints. When I tried the area, I uploaded a track and started a topic (if you really want feedback, starting a topic is necessary – it’s not enough just to upload a track), and it didn’t take long at all until I had a response from someone who had tried the track and had comments on it.

Most active TMX users have already made friends on the site, and many ask others in person to beta test their tracks. However, this should not mean they shouldn’t use the Beta Area too. It’s likely that a third person will enter the picture and give feedback from a different point of view, or confirm the feedback of the original friend(s). The more the merrier!

Additionally, if several people comment on a track, having a thread in the Beta Area would be useful to start a discussion where several people can be involved, rather than doing everything one-on-one via PM.

A second positive aspect is the potential gain of an extra award or two. By uploading to the Beta Area first, more people are likely to play your track since the track is “new” twice, and thus award it once it’s actually released for real. If no one else, at least those who gave sincere feedback and whom you have talked to and discussed with during the building process are likely to leave an award in the end (unless they really don’t like the track, of course).

And thirdly, I really like the design of the Beta Area page – quick and easy access to everything, from uploading and downloading beta tracks to the forum threads in which to discuss the tracks, all in one convenient place.

On the downside, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of people commenting Beta Tracks. Odds appear to be good that you’ll get a comment at all, but getting it from several people might not be as usual. But then again, one person might be enough in most cases.

Last but not least, I’ve been trying to look a bit into why some tracks in the Beta Area haven’t received any feedback at all. I can’t really find a single common factor, but two things have come to my mind: those who have received no feedback at all have either uploaded several beta tracks or are fairly new to the website. In the first case, I guess people are put off by one person having several tracks. For the second case, I believe that if a track is too bad – a newbie track of the kind we’ve all built once upon a time – people won’t, for some reason, bother to leave a comment even if they’ve tried the track.

In any case, the Beta Area has some nice benefits, and any serious author should use it to make any new track as good as it gets. I’d love to see more people there as it allows us to collectively make our tracks better yet 

Where I live, it’s holiday time! That means guests, fun, two crazy people behind me singing ABBA songs, and a lot of interesting stuff to do. But, it also means less time for games! And writing for TMX.

So, what do you say about bringing more of you reader’s into the “by the readers”-part of our tagline? I’m sure most of you have an idea for an article, guide or anything interesting you’d like to share with the rest of us.

So why not put your idea(s) into writing and e-mail the result to jozii89@gmail.com? A chance to be heard by the TM world. And don’t worry about grammar, spelling and such – that can be fixed! It would be thrilling to see what you can come up with :D

Here’s something you may not have expected: there’s almost exactly the same number of tracks on the United exchange as there are on the TMNF exchange. If you find that too hard to believe, just look at these numbers:

• TMNF: 77,487
• United: 77,894

So does this mean that United is equally as popular as Nations Forever?

Well, not quite. The reason for this apparent equality is that the United exchange has already been running since TrackMania United was released, where as the TMNF exchange started with the Forever update. So what this means is that the number of TMNF tracks is about to soar past the united level at any moment, like the track express train that it is. (You could add the 130,000 or so TMN tracks onto the TMNF total if you wanted a true Nations total).

The TMX weekly upload stats show this more clearly:

• TMNF uploads This Week: 2,315
• TMNF uploads Per Day: 330
• United uploads This Week: 904
• United uploads Per Day: 129

Still, that United is recieving 1 upload for every 2.5 TMNF tracks isn't actually a bad activity rate, considering that TMNF is a free game for all to download. And, if after reading this you still feel that your tracks are just not getting the attention they should when you upload, try to be consolidated by the thought that only 10 of the 2,315, or 904 tracks eligable, can ever be in Best of the Week at once.

Another way to look at it, if you are a TMNF player and you upgrade to United, then you have just increased your chances of being noticed at TMX by 250%.

Food for thought! - If you believe statistics, that is.

Five years, and TMX continues to grow. It all started as an idea between two fellow TM players, and it has become what you see today. Throughout the years, the exchange has increased not only in the number of sites – one for each game in the TM series – members and uploaded tracks, but in contents and features, all there to make your experience ever so enjoyable.

From the announcement of the Showcase feature and the inclusion of a built-in forum that most of us today take for granted, to the more recent ideas of PlayPal and leaderboards for the individual environments. TMX has evolved, and today yet another feature is born: the TMX Blog!

With a blog, we’ll now be able to offer a new dimension to TMX, with articles reaching from in-depth how-to's and interviews, to light and fun entertainment. However, the TMX Blog is a blog that depends on you for content, just as TMX itself depends on you for tracks. Because this blog is not to be written by one individual, it’s a blog to be written by the readers, for the readers. Writing articles, discussing sensitive topics, reviewing tracks, sharing your expertise on various areas concerning the game we all enjoy so much – these are all things that no one does better than the people who are involved with the game. And this is why you are invited to e-mail your own articles to us, to contribute to the content of the blog (jozii89@gmail.com).

In short, welcome to the next step in the increasing development of the TrackMania Exchange, and welcome to the next big source of TrackmMania-related entertainment and useful resources.

Happy fifth birthday TMX!