Hey guys,
it's likely that most of you are new here or don't know who I am, so I'm sorry if what I say doesn't really make sense to you, but I wanted to get this out there. This is gonna be kind of long, so let's see if I can do it without being too much of a drama queen...
I've been playing this game for what feels like forever now, so, as lame as it may sound, it means something to me. I found TMO, the first installment of TrackMania, in an elementary school book-order in 2004 (I was eight at the time) and loved it from the start. I've been through a whole slew of nicknames since then. Johnnyboy. Pteradactyl. 013 for a little while (that became my permanent TM United login name so i kind of regretted it  ,) Maniac after that, and finally Jet777, under which I published my first track in 2009. It was then that I finally started to become a real part of the TMX community. I've met a lot of cool people on that site.
As much as I like the TM-series, there would always be times where I lost interest and stopped playing a few months. My point here is that right now feels a lot different than those times in the past. The difference between my old TM-breaks and this one is that everyone else is TM-breaking too, and I'm not sure if it will stop...
For a while I really enjoyed playing Canyon. I bought the game as soon as it came out, and even was lucky enough to be one of the 10-or-so people in the US who played in the closed beta of the game. There was always something that concerned me about the release of TM2, though: TM1 would suddenly become old news. And it did - after the release of Canyon the United TMX got a lot less popular.
What I hadn't considered was that a lot of the community would get lost somewhere between TM1 and TM2, and that's exactly what happened. Through the final months of last year, all sorts of old TMU guys made posts just like this one, about how things didn't 'feel right' in TM2 and didn't want to stick around to see the game decline. Back then I ignored them, commenting that that can't be true, because Nadeo was flawless, right? And now here I am... haven't released a track since October. At this point, if you look at the recent tracks in the 'Find Tracks' section, the front page dates back to nine hours ago - this is far longer than normal. Less people are around now, both at TMU and TM2. There was a time where hunting for that best-of-the-week slot would've been enough for me. As entertaining as that is, I'm left wanting a bit more than that...
tldr: I've always said that Trackmania is nothing without TMX, and now TMX is a lot quieter. I'm a little concerned about the future of the game.
If I know you from before (you know who you are) I'd love a quick PM. I do check into this site a lot, although I haven't made a post in forever. Maybe if you come back, i (and some others) will too ^^
peace + keep on tracking,
jet 
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,) Maniac after that, and finally Jet777, under which I published my first track in 2009. It was then that I finally started to become a real part of the TMX community. I've met a lot of cool people on that site.
