TrackMania Limiter

TrackMania Limiter (known in development as Project1_Limit.sln) is a TrackMania Nations Forever enhancement tool developed by team Brain member Thia_. The tool puts an emphasis on imposing limitations onto players, as to force them to unleash their more creative side.
=== Features ===
Not much information is available about the tool due to its closed nature and overall secrecy of most projects developed within the Brain team. The following features of TrackMania Limiter were confirmed by Thia_ themselves and showed off in the form of screenshots:
==== Simplified game interface ====
Buttons to play on LANLocal Area Network, access the ManiaLink Browser, access the in-game mail, exit the game and several others across the board are removed to not distract players from useless in-game features.
==== Limited skin choice options ====
The choice of carskins is limited to just 3, those being: "POL_2012.zip", "BrainSkin.zip" and a rather controversial choice - "OTH.zip". Should the player launching the game with TrackMania Limiter lack any of those skins (integrity of the archives is validated via hardcoded MD5 hashsums), they will be prompted to either install them, or delete the game completely. Performing a PC hard reset while the window is displayed will erase TrackMania Nations Forever on next boot.
==== Limited map editor ====
Various changes in the map editor include:
File:Tony.zip.jpg|tony.zip
File:Afhsfjsf.zip.jpg|afhsfjsf.zip
File:BrainPowa.zip.jpg|BrainPowa.zip
# Only the Night mood is available.
# The total number of blocks in the editor is reduced to 6: the start block, the finish block, the long curved road block, the tilted blue wall block, the inflatable palm block and the blimp block.
# The build area is decreased from 32³ to 12³.
#The paint bucket feature is disabled for all blocks besides the blimp, for which four preset textures are available: "Default.zip", "BrainPowa.zip", "afhsfjsf.zip" and "tony.zip".
# Blocks can only be placed on Y level greater than 2, but lower than 10, despite the limit being 12.
# In the toolbar, the only available buttons are to validate and to save the map.
# Leaving the editor without validating and saving the map is now impossible. Attempting to exit via Alt+F4 will first prompt the user whether they are sure, and upon positive response TrackMania Nations Forever is wiped out in its entirety from the user's computer.
# Saved map name cannot exceed 9 symbols. Renaming the map via tools that can write the GameBox engine format will result in the game being deleted from the player's drive after a hashsum check.
==== Limited singleplayer ====
The official mode is cut from the interface as to not encourage gambling in any form amongst the TrackMania Limiter users. The campaign is limited to just 1 track, A04-Acrobatic, with the story mode being completely inaccessible.
==== Limited multiplayer ====
Only 5 servers are available in the online server selection: "brain-hq", "l4bomb4serv", "miniloool_freezone", "bcr_nosebug" and "jjjjjjjjjjjjjjj". Trying to join other servers using a direct link will result in your "/Users/%user%/Documents/" directory being erased.
==== Other known limitations ====
# Logging in with a free (Nations) account does not work.
# Copper donations only work on the servers "brain-hq" and "jjjjjjjjjjjjjjj".
# Replays can only be saved if they beat the gold medal.
# Checkpoint respawns are removed. Many trial players have voiced their concerns over this, however, Thia_ stated: "is ok c:" [sic].
# In-game friendlist is limited to 15 slots, as opposed to vanilla game's initial limit of 60. If the player had more than 15 friends before launching the game with TrackMania Limiter, those above the threshold are removed automatically.
# Only 2 accounts can be added to the login screen. In case the user had more accounts added prior to the installation, those will be deleted with all their data wiped from the computer.
# Changing your in-game nickname more than once a month will delete the game. This cannot be mitigated by launching vanilla TrackMania Nations Forever.
=== Quirks ===
# Uninstalling TrackMania Limiter without uninstalling the main game with all its content stored in the Documents directory is not possible. Removing the files required to run the tool manually is potentially dangerous, as the developer mentioned it would be a "very bad bad idea haha c':" [sic].
# Uninstalling TrackMania Limiter does not uninstall its core part, which is instead moved elsewhere on the PC. Upon reinstallation of TrackMania Nations Forever, those files are moved back in automatically.
# After installing TrackMania Limiter, it is virtually impossible to run the original game without knowing the special key combination required. The key combination is entered on the login screen and reportedly has close ties to the infamous Cam 11 combo, that is still being investigated by the Brain team.
# TrackMania Limiter is known to send enormous amounts of telemetry in the encrypted format developed by Gutman and Thia_. According to the latter, the data gathered is only used to improve the stability of the tool, however the actual reasoning is under disputeMany people speculate that the data is stored in the central Brain database for later use.
Category:Tools