Hello everyone in the Trackmania community.
After careful consideration in the last months I have decided to step down from my role as Lead Developer at ManiaExchange. I will remain owner of ManiaExchange until further notice. This will ensure a smooth transition internally as we scramble to find helping hands to maintain and push forward the new sites. As ManiaExchange has been my last remaining connection, I will also say goodbye to the Trackmania community, which I've been a part of since 2008.
Why I am leaving
Life progressed fast for me during these last years. In 2023, I have finished my masters degree and went to work immediately after as a full-time research engineer in metal additive manufacturing. It was a year full of change during which I also had to manage working on ManiaExchange projects, with the highlights of the year being the ManiaPark release and the ManiaExchange booth at the XPEvo event, where I met a lot of amazing Trackmania people. Although I always had fun working on projects that benefit the Trackmania community, unfortunately the additional work made less and less sense for me.
You see, I've not (properly) played the game for at least two years. If I hadn't been pinged to add SnowCar compatibility to TMX, I wouldn't have noticed this cool update. That was one of the many moments where I realized how much the game and I grew apart already. I'm happy with the general direction the game is going - next to Ubisoft Nadeo improving their communications, the community keeps churning out amazing content and tools. It's really me not really engaging with the game enough, as I have found many other things in life to prioritize over my Trackmania contributions.
I am fortunate to have worked with an amazing crew in the last years at ManiaExchange. Together we achieved a lot and gave hundreds of thousands of players new platforms to share Trackmania content. I'm very grateful for the collaboration and I wish the crew all the best. If you wish to be part of this, please keep reading!
With the way my life outside of ManiaExchange has been going in the last years - in a good way - the only thing that makes sense for me today is to leave Trackmania behind.
Here's a rough list of achievements I collected in my 15 years in Trackmania:
- Created 300+ videos on Youtube, with "We Are Trackmania", "POLYCHROMAT1K" and "The Real Shootmania" among my best ones
- Built and participated in building 100+ tracks, accumulating ~250 awards across all Exchanges
- Hosted multiple mapping competitions like "One Block Story", "MX Monthly Track Contest"
- Won my only 2 ManiaExchange KOs on the same day in Lagoon, against Players like Marius89, riolu and Lars
- Hosted and managed large scale projects, like the MX Adventcalendar 2015 and KO POOP 1-4
- I'm responsible for the creation of ItemExchange, the TM-Tube Archive, TMNews (which ceased to exist) and the copy of TM².MX, TMX
- As Lead Developer significantly helped to bring back TM1X and ManiaPark
What will I do after January?
I'll be more inactive, but I also wanted to build some tracks again in Trackmania - maybe something like one track per environment across all games. I'm moving again soon into a proper flat and will be busy building a cozy nest. After that, I will start some long-term DIY projects. I'll keep you posted about the more exciting ones!
What will happen to MX?
Nothing will change short-term with the sites - they'll remain online and operational. My absence will however impact our development and troubleshooting abilities in the future.
We are always looking for experienced developers and moderators who would like to participate in the large and fulfilling community project that ManiaExchange is. We still have big plans that require a lot of helping hands. ManiaExchange (and TMX) 2.0 are still in development and we want to revamp our hosting architecture in time for their release. The existing sites always require some maintenance work and new features as well.
If you see yourself in our crew please don't hesitate to send us your short introduction over Discord (PM @ eyebo) or admin(at)mania-exchange.com. Thank you!
Last words?
Thanks for reading! Thank you for supporting me along the way. Special thanks to the OK Bois and MX Crew, who I really spent most of my time with in these 15 years!