[Mayo]

So I have been told that Quake live pro's are moving over to this game (Shootmania), there have already been some tournaments and show matches floating around (mainly in France as that is where the development company is located) and some local eSports Managers in Australia are looking to trial it here.

Thanks to Mick from 4seasonsgaming.com.au (Aus/NZ Quake Live Community) I have now got a shootmania key, so I thought I would share a sneak peak into the ALPHA (just like I did with CS:GO).
The images below follow the basic menu's and ingame play with my captions below.



The Launch Menu



Here you can see some of the basic configuration options for the game



You are directed to a 'home page' and from here you can connect with groups, buddies, friends etc. Also view announcements on the game



In this menu you can view servers accross all 'mania' game titles that you own



Once you click on the server you want, it shows you who is in the server and their world ranking



If you are getting the alpha (~800mb) beware of the 2 patches it forces you to download also. One at around 60mb and this one at 214.58mb.



When loaded in you can check the rules (whilst iname) - I have no idea what bb means when they say "bb and gg"


And here are the currest server rules



In-Game options menu



Honestly, I'm not sure if this is a different menu or the menu after an update. But from here you can pick which Mania game you want to play. You will also notice there is "LOCAL PLAY"! LAN!! The local play was unclickable though, so I father Alhpa doesnt allow it yet



Just a random option when I tried to start playing (I had to lower res to 1024x768 and it looks a little stretched. My monitor WAS set on 4:3)



You can search each Zone from around the world. In this zone it displays the players who play in each country/state and their ranking.



As you can see there are 3 players for victoria (4 now that I play)



Here you can see each zone and what servers are available in each. Unfortunately there is only 1 server in France and 1 in Germany at the moment. You can also see your world ranking and the amount of players signed up worldwide.



When loading into a server this is what it looks like



This then popped up (no idea why)



Then I was in the server!



There are currently 2 weapons in the game. The rocket launcher (you can see my round coming from left of screen) and a rail gun.
The rocket launcher takes two direct hits to kill an enemy, your life is displayed as the top bar.
The amount of rocket shots taken to kill varies from game type to game type, this mode is just FFA frag city.



More in-game (lowest graphics and 1024x768 res)



When you are hit twice, you freeze and become transparent and then respawn.



The in-game score board.



Crosshair settings



I can't really test the gameplay until I get home. From my short experience at this stage, the server is very laggy (as it is in France/Germany) and it's hard to move efficiently (let go of A and still keep strafing ingame).
I will post up some more screenshots and thoughts tonight.