I recently made this flow chart.
To clarify, within the context of the flow chart I am referring to Unlimiter being used for something that you can’t do in tm2, of course. This will be fairly irrelevant for the following, however.
Before continuing, you may want to familiarize yourself with the following dings: TMNF, TM2, titlepacks, custom items, tmnf Unlimiter/Infinity, freemode,
Basically what I am saying in the flow chart is that most tmnf maps/mappers would be better off in tm2. I say this because the tmnf editor is much worse than the tm2 editor in terms of qol. There are “no” car bugs in TM2 (it’s comparable to tm2020 in that regard). TM2 has a newer version of directx, openplanet exists, there are a few more vanilla blocks, custom items exist, titlepacks exist, and tm2 has higher fidelity graphics in a very similar art style. Notably nothing stops you from doing literally the same things in tm2 as you can in tmnf, the vanilla tm2 editor has about the same restrictions as the tmnf editor, and said restrictions are opened up through titlepacks and openplanet similar to how tmnf restrictions are lifted by the Unlimiter (a mod that allows for blockmix on all maps, and more features similar to freemode and custom items which only work if the player has the unlimiter installed).
The reason I care is that I believe the vast majority of tmnf maps are made worse to drive as a player because they exist in the game with landing bugs and randstein bugs. I am happy to go back to play tm2 maps, but I rarely if ever go back to play tmnf maps for this reason. The main reason tmnf mappers are mapping in tmnf rather than tm2020 (or any other game, although as I will demonstrate, their reasoning does ont apply to tm2) is the blockset and restrictions on building. You can only use vanilla blocks in tmnf, and all blocks must be placed on grid (unless both the mapper and player mod the game).
Most arguments against mapping in tm2 relative to tmnf are in reality just arguments against mapping in tm2020, where there are so many tools available in the vanilla game for mappers & players that most mappers end up with their own unique made up rules/restrictions for mapping. TMNF mapping has a culture of pushing the game forward and doing new, unique, and interesting things within the same restrictions (blockset & grid), namely creating new transitions, tricks, and features.
It is worth noting that I am not familiar with trial mapping and the trial mappers seem to have legitimate reasons for wanting to stay in tmnf, and the unlimiter can do things which are impossible in tm2. For most other forms of mapping, I believe the maps should be built in tm2 (assuming the mapper already owns the game or is willing to spend the 5$ or whatever for it on sale). As far as player numbers go there are currently many more in tmnf than tm2 stadium, although I would consider both to be effectively dead games relative to tm2020. This is a real problem with the suggestion to build in tm2, as despite the map being better to drive fewer people may play it due to the game not being free. If this is your only reason for not building in tm2, then I don’t really care much to argue against it. My only suggestion at that point would be (jokingly) for mappers to collectively quit tmnf and only build in tm2, forcing players to move over. For reasons related to the games themselves however, I think there is almost nothing for tmnf mappers to stand on, and in particular, I would like to push back against the following:
This line of reasoning from simo (which is shared by most tmnf mappers) is nonsense. Tm2020 is the game with made up restrictions, not tm2. If the tm2 restrictions are made up, then so are tmnf’s.
There are no restrictions that exist in tmnf that you can reasonably define as real while simultaneously considering the corresponding tm2 restrictions to be made up. Both games must be modded by both the player and the mapper in order to push beyond the restrictions of the blockset and grid, which is shared by both games.
Any attempt to look beyond this and find a difference in restrictions between games leads to the discovery that the restrictions are social in nature and don’t have anything to do with the games themselves. TMNF mappers (at least the ones relevant to this particular argument) care about how impressive it is to build within the restrictions of the game, and seem to pretend that they must do so in tmnf for others to view their work as impressive. The thing is, everyone involved is either knowledgeable enough to be able to distinguish different restrictions themselves, or are inexperienced enough to simply not care or appreciate building within the restrictions of the game in the first place. You have to pretend that everyone both understands enough to know that building within the restrictions is impressive, but are simultaneously so clueless they cannot tell which maps were made with and without said restrictions. If everyone who is currently building in tmnf were to move to tm2 they would still be able to tell which maps were made in vanilla titlepack and which weren’t, in the same way they can tell which tmnf maps were made with unlimiter and which weren’t. In tm2, mappers would have the option to only play in vanilla titlepack, and have the option to only build in vanilla titlepack.
Oh, and by the way, a ton of tmnf maps use blockmix, which Simo doesn’t on most of his tracks. This sure does seem like a made up restriction to me. Anyway, I obviously don’t mean to say that anyone is a bad mapper, Simo especially builds some incredible things in all of the games. I do, however, wish that many of these tmnf mappers, especially for fullspeed, would build in tm2 instead, because holy fucking shit is it annoying to drive them in tmnf. And then there are maps like Clockwerk by Simo that can’t even run properly in the tmnf engine and stutter for me and others (although some people seem to not have this issue, I’m told it’s better on an intel cpu).
As a bit of a fun extra argument: due to the same blockset and restrictions existing in both games (in vanilla form), there is almost no reason to view pushing the limit of one vanilla game as being a separate thing from pushing the limit of the other vanilla game. If I build a map in tm2 I can simply port it to tmnf and vice versa and then i have pushed the limit of both vanilla editors. It doesnt really matter if that has actually happened or not, as mappers/observers we can essentially consider that to be the case for all maps. If someone builds a new transition in tm2, i can probably build it in tmnf, and vice versa. If a transition doesn’t work, it would be due to minute differences in the physics, which is less one game being more restrictive than the other and more that they are both just a bit different from each other in terms of physics. The physics, the gameplay of actually driving, is the only thing that is different between vanilla tmnf and vanilla tm2, not mapping. The gameplay is in most cases better in tm2 because there are “no” bugs. Because of this, almost all tmnf maps should be made in tm2 instead.
TLDR build your maps, especially fs, in tm2 instead of tmnf please :)
More: TM Theory