Fake-flagging in Trackmania: an important but often overlooked problem.

Trackmania is a competitive arcade racing game with a community that's welcoming to new players... or at least that's what people love to claim. If the Trackmania community really is the welcoming community that they claim to be, there needs to be action behind those words. Unfortunately, the things that we've seen recently is something that proves us otherwise.

Recently, there's been a problem that's been overlooked, but rarely addressed. It damages the competitive integrity of Trackmania, and prevents players from underrepresented regions to flourish. And unfortunately, whenever we point out to people that this is a problem, we get ridiculed and mocked.

I'm talking of course, about fake-flagging. Let me share a little story about what we've been through.

A little context

I'm a co-organiser of Trackmania Asia/OCE (@TMAsia_OCE(external)), a community of Trackmania players from the Asia and Oceania region. Our region has often been underrepresented in the Trackmania community at large, mainly due to competitions that occur in non-friendly hours for the Asia and Oceania timezone. You can thank the Trackmania community for being Euro-centric on that part.

We're here to provide a hub for all players from our region to talk to each other, share their creations, tips and trick, and also give people who want to flex their competitive muscle a place to prove their worth. We've been hosting the Asia/OCE Trackmania Championship (AOTC)(external) for three seasons now, and the level of competition within our region has been increasing exponentially every season we run it.

Unfortunately, while we were starting out, we had to face many hurdles. When it comes to finding people from the same region as we are, here are the steps that we needed to do:

scout the leaderboards for people that are decent enough
add them through Ubisoft Connect and pray that they accept your friend request
chat with them and hope that they actually come from the country they claim to represent

It's a very tedious process, and most people who have no time and energy to do so will just not bother about it.

Local leaderboards make it easier to notice people from your region who are as good as you are, or maybe even better, and personally, I've matched up with a bunch of people from my local community that way. It also motivates each other to push themselves to be better, which is the main point of the game after all.

But unfortunately, since the leaderboards are overrun by people outside of the region, some players didn't get the recognition they deserved for their respective region. This may cause some players to drop lower than the rank they're supposed to be in. Even if their skill level doesn't match the outsiders, they still deserve their name to be in their rightful place.

Why is this possible?

Since the inception of Trackmania Nations ESWC, players can choose a country when they launch the game for the first time. You can also change countries as much as you like.

It's stayed like this throughout the history of Trackmania. From TMNF, to TM2, and now to TM2020. For the previous games, this wasn't that much of the problem, since the leaderboards were there, but weren't an integral part of the game. But since TM2020's leaderboards are real-time and persistent, it's starting to be used by some people as a measure of skill.

Although it doesn't help us to achieve that goal when people start using a flag that's not theirs. Here's a screenshot of the Asian top 5 leaderboard during the Winter 2021 campaign, when it was at its worst.

The players marked in the red square were French. When this screenshot were marked, I didn't know that Fontur was also a fake-flagger. With that information, only one person on this top 5 is legitimate.

But why would they do this?

Based on some questions I threw around on the TM Discord, they boil down to three reasons:

Privacy reasons

Some people just don't want to share their country of origin to other people. Which I understand, and it makes sense for non-public personalities. But if you're a professional player in the global stage (e.g. an OGL player), I don't feel like I could sympathise with this reasoning.

Liking a certain country's flag/skin

This is one of the reasons that I can't sympathise with. In previous games, we can alleviate this with being able to select other countries' skins in the profile menu, but unfortunately in TM2020, that feature is reserved exclusively for Club members (since these skins are only available in clubs). But it still feels wrong for people not in your region to be in there.

Because of a meme

~~Two words: Forza Uganda.~~ [UPDATE 2021-12-07 00:56 GMT +7] See below.

And now, the shitty stuff.

Long after I made this thread(external) pointing out this issue, this issue remains rampant even in the Asian leaderboards. It's even getting to the point where players in the Asian region start to get immediately suspicious of any previously unknown player suddenly appearing in the Asian campaign leaderboards.

Especially in country-based competitions like TSCC, it gets harder for upcoming players to team up when they can't find other players from their own region. It's also harder for organisers, since we have to do extra work in verifying people's identities when they sign up.

The South African community has suffered badly thanks to this, to the point where it's impossible for them to host a competition for their region, thanks to the infestation of "Forza Uganda" fake flaggers.

We also started to take measures and ask people who have been using fake flags to respectfully stop doing so. Unfortunately, some people ended up turning things against us and mocked and ridiculed us when we ask them to. One more often than the rest.

Let us introduce you to Heav.

Heav is a notorious fake-flagger, using the Japanese flag at the top level. When we politely ask him to stop doing this, we get ridiculed and mocked, saying that we don't matter just because we "have no players".

Let me share you some chat logs from the TM News Discord server. The following exchange was sparked by the discourse regarding the "Forza Uganda" fake flaggers, which was picked up by people in the Discord.

Is it better now ?🤡@N3xTy__(external) @SRK__LV(external) @ClearwaterTM_(external) pic.twitter.com/5o3LDXGywk(external)
— Forza Uganda (@ForzaUganda) June 22, 2021(external)

[UPDATE 2021-12-07 00:56 GMT +7] Otaaaq has contacted me clarifying that Forza Uganda was solely made because the members liked the country flag, not because of a meme.

This is the moment where Heav's mask slipped off regarding what he really thinks about Asian players.

Incoming wall of screenshots.

It doesn't stop there, by the way. I promise the wall of screenshots is ending soon.

This is what he had to deal with. Now take a look at this from our shoes, and imagine if this were to happen to your community. Would you accept the fact that this happens to players from your own region?

"Asia legit has zero players," they say.

As someone who lives in a region with a growing amount of players, we faced a constant uphill battle. What with dealing with fake-flaggers, joining early-morning competitions, to name a few. And once we finally get on their level, we still didn't get recognised as a living, breathing scene. Mainly thanks to people like this.

We can't compete because we're already getting shut down by people who can't seem to get it out of their thick skull that there are also competitive scenes for Trackmania outside of Europe.

It's one thing to fake flag, but it's another thing to mock and ridicule others when others point that it's acceptable. We're literally driving potential communities away because of this. It's just plain offensive to us.

Well, now you understand why you don't see any of us in the leaderboards, do you?

It's about time we put a stop to this.

If you find someone who fake-flags, politely ask them to stop doing so.

If you're a competitive player in the top step of the game, please respect the competitive integrity and other regions' leaderboards by sticking to the country flag where you actually reside in.

If you organise medium- to high-tier competitions, please run a background check of players that sign up if they look suspicious to you.