Nadeo made an announcement which consists of good news and bad better news...

Sources
Forum discussion on ManiaPlanet
Blog post on ManiaPlanet

The good news
Anyone and Everyone has free unlimited access to the Trackmania² Stadium & Shootmania Storm multiplayer until the Gamers Assembly.

The better news
Gamers Assembly isn't until April 2015, its the best part of six months free access.

Share
As you are here, there is a reasonable chance you already have access, but your friends or buddies in other communities may not know. Its easy to invite them by sharing the links below...

Stadium
Homepage: http://www.trackmania.com
Download: http://download.maniaplanet.com/Maniaplanet_Setup_TMStadium.exe
Steam DL: http://store.steampowered.com/app/232910/

Storm
Homepage: http://www.shootmania.com
Download: http://download.maniaplanet.com/Maniaplanet_Setup_SMStorm.exe
Steam DL: http://store.steampowered.com/app/229870/

Maniaplanet Universal Demo is now available at http://maniaplanet.com/

Free access to TrackMania² Stadium, Canyon, Valley, ShootMania Storm and all community-created content. Unlimited play for 48h after registration. Limits apply after that.

The blog post at blog.maniaplanet.com explains, but below are the key details that you need to know...

Shootmania
o 3 multiplayer ranked modes: Battle, Elite & Siege
o Full multiplayer experience (Nadeo and user-created gamemodes and Title Packs)
o Access to all editors (Map, MediaTracker (Video), Actions & Weapons, Items)
o Custom Titles: solo & multiplayer innovative modes

TrackMania
o 45 white solo tracks
o Access to the TrackMania² multi-environment title (Canyon + Valley + Stadium at the same time!)
o Full multiplayer experience (Nadeo and user-created gamemodes and Title Packs)
o Access to all editors (Map, MediaTracker (Video), Actions & Weapons, Items)
o Up to 3 user made solo & multiplayer experiences

All these features are available for free the first 48h for the environments you don’t own and then for an unlimited amount of time for titles with less than 100 concurrent players OR one hour per day otherwise.

Download the setup on http://maniaplanet.com/

Nadeo have made a blog post, Hello Planet #4 at http://blog.maniaplanet.com

I have put it into this thread, http://sm.mania-exchange.com/s/ft/246

The headline for Shootmania players is that the demo allows people to be able to play any title as a demo for 1 hour per day, while titles with less than 100 players will be unlimited play for free. Meanwhile, Nadeo will be working on a project 'Shootmania Storm Power Up' which is expected to include many updates and new things....

Take time to read it and let us know your thoughts.

Below are the links for the maps currently in the playlist. Each week there are 3 new map selected, if you have thoughts or recommendations, please find the link at the bottom of this news...

Map Pool Week 27 (22nd July)

3 New Maps:
"Elite - Breakdown by   racer simon
"Elite - Transformers by   Mr.DVD
[Bad Track/Map Link]

3 Previous Maps:
"[Elite] Zygarde by   Snake55wildcat
"Elite-Microforce by   fdfire
"Mentallica by   ChillyBilli

Map Saved:
" Elite - Village by   Reahx


If you have played these maps online, please take a moment to leave comments (or awards with comments) for the builders, they will surely appreciate your feedback. You can also use the "-- / - /-+ / + / ++" system on the match servers to give karma votes.

Suggest Maps Here

"Hylis" says:
Hello,

It's time to release!

If you launch your Maniaplanet, it will ask you for a first update of around 100MB. Then if you enter a station that is link to one environment, it will update the environment. Expect around 1GB for any, or 1.5GB for Storm.

It will update on Steam as well.

Here is a list of some interesting things of this update.

Keep in mind that a lot is done for expert users that will then be capable to make more interesting things themselves!

See you soon online \o/

Main changes:

Maniaplanet as a better game operating system
- Improved user interface for buddies, news & servers browser
- A central store to easily explore & play user made titles
- Improved support for custom data like 3D objects
- Optimizations: CPU & GPU

Maniaplanet to allow more diversity for
- modes: thanks to many features for the script
- actions: thanks to a dedicated tool, including making of weapons
- maps: thanks to the ability to remove constraints from the editor
- atmospheres: thanks to mods or real time ambiance track

Trackmania upgrade
- Multienv possible and a Trackmania 2 title with all modes
- Carmix possible in multienv title: Select any TM² car in Canyon or Valley
- Scripted mode all redone to open to even more custom modes
- Solo: add ghost & medals to custom campaigns

Shootmania upgrade
- netcode: major improvement thank to an innovative netvision layer
- gameplay: new freelook key, progressive walljumps, more stamina etc.
- many more gameplay blocks: teleport, force field & gates, slides, sound blocker etc.
- many more visual blocks: for bunkers, fences, woods, stones, walls, signs etc.

Upcoming
- the universal demo

Have you ever seen anything like this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJw-KENqkJc&feature=youtu.be

Go ahead and impress us with your own 'Press Nothing' Creations

Below are the links for the maps in the Community lobby this week, if you have played these maps online, please take a moment to leave comments (or awards with comments) for the builders, they will surely appreciate your feedback.

Map pool - Week 15

3 New Maps
"Elite-Eazholme by   Filo
" elite - Zowoe by   BiGINoZz
"Elite: Such a nice place by   ericsn

3 Previous Maps
"Elite - NO VACANCYY by   Shhook
"Elite - Nijura by   sleepw_lker
"?Elite - Wøppa by   Jodebra

Map saved by Karma vote
"[Elite] Sunrise by   Snake55wildcat

Suggest Maps Here

Nadeo are to have a new 'free to play' Elite matchmaking lobby with a selection of community built maps by Mania Exchange builders/players.

Each week the maplist will be rotated, which means we need to find 3 new maps each week.

The rotation will produce a playlist as follows

o The 3 new maps of the week
o The 3 maps of last week
o +1 map voted to stay by karma (so this map is 3 weeks in play)

So this means that typically there will be 7 maps on the server, with the oldest set of three making way for a new set of 3 each week, with one of the oldest saved for 1 further week by the karma vote.

Please use this thread to recommend maps for the playlist.

Gradually we will be looking more at newly built maps than the back catalogue, but initially we are just looking for fresh, fun maps that are good for players of all skills.

The lobby should go live in the next day or so with an initial selection to get us going.

Join in this project by building or recommending suitable fresh, fun, new maps which are suitable for all players.

News coming from the maniaplanet blog

Nadeo says:

We are pleased to announce that the ShootMania: Storm Elite Demo is now open to everyone. The demo can be downloaded here: http://maniaplanet.com/shootmania/elite.

Moreover, to celebrate the release of the demo, Nadeo is running two competitions until October 31st: Players who play ShootMania demo can win one PlayStation 4 and many ShootMania Storm VIP access per day.

You can get more details about the rules of the competitions here :

-PS4 Elite
-VIP Access Elite

Finally, interested gamers can take advantage of a special 50% discount in ShootMania’s price, until the 31st of October.

Enough talk, go have fun with all your mates on ShootMania and maybe be the lucky one who will win the PS4 ^^

Good Luck & more than anything Have FUN!