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What do YOU want from Mario Kart? [roundtable]
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Yes, YOU. As with the Zelda fanbase, there seems to be a schism in the Mario Kart fanbase. There's the Double Dash folks and the Mario Kart Wii folks, and seldom shall the twain meet. (And then the MK64 weirdos off in the corner (Battle Mode was awesome, though).) Of course, that's a somewhat simplified take, and ignores the solid handheld entries. But I wonder if this has become a Zelda-like situation, where the fans want very different things. What do you want to see from the next/future Mario Karts? Feel free to give pie-in-the-sky answers like track creation, but focus more on realistic elements that you want to see represented. If you want to create a Frankenstein Kart from Mario Karts past (track design from MKx, battle mode from MKx, etc.), you can do that. And/or you can suggest improvements to the formula. Also, are you still invested in the series? Or has it become ho-hum for you at this point? I started thinking about this after playing Double Dash with my nephews. They had never played much Mario Kart before and were totally loving the Battle Mode and the Super Weapons. After they went back to their house, my sister called me up and asked what Wii game(s) she should buy for them next. I said Mario Kart Wii, since their Wii doesn't have the Gamecube controller ports. Apparently, after they played it, they panicked and exclaimed, "B-but wait! This isn't the fun one!!" Even though my suggestion bombed, I was pretty proud of them. I freaking hate Mario Kart Wii.URL to share (right click and copy)
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10/20/13, 17:32 Edited: 10/20/13, 23:07
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Paid or not, I think at this point we should be able to lobby up with each other and then hop online, rather than wait for a race to finish. How many times have I tried to play online with 4 or so other people, but it was difficult to get everyone together? "Oh, sorry, this race is full." How does that even happen?
MKW was very functional but it wasn't without its frustrations. We couldn't talk with each other, couldn't simply invite someone to play via the system itself, couldn't lobby up before a race. You couldn't even re-select your character/kart without either quitting the game or resetting the system. These are all things that really don't require a paid service.
Again, of course it was fun because we all got to play together, but we couldn't really do anything without having to be in a chat room at the same time. That's pretty archaic by today's standards, I don't think there's any way around that. |
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@Mop it upHow about if it can match a paid service from 10 years ago? Because Nintendo online is still worse than Live on the original Xbox. No voice chat, no easy way to invite people to play the game you are currently playing. But it doesn't really matter if it is a paid service or a free service and here is why: You aren't actually paying for anything other than the service itself. Now Microsoft and Sony are getting in to cloud servers and things like that but this past generation it was basically all peer to peer networking. The actual costs incurred for maintaining a service like Xbox Live were fairly small. You would need some servers to host the content people see on the marketplace and some information like which friends of yours are online. Microsoft (and starting in a month or 2 Sony as well) feel that the service they offer is good enough to ask people to pay for it. Some people do, some don't but it is a huge revenue stream in addition to the typical software sales model (and hardware after enough time I suppose). Nintendo on the other hand, they just flat out don't care. I am pretty sure the Wii U still doesn't have a first party online multiplayer game. Who cares though as long as Mario Kart comes out alright right? Well this is part of the problem. Mario Kart won't come out alright. The rate at which Nintendo iterates on their online models is just too slow. So it is almost assured that Mario Kart online is going to have some oversight which is going to keep it from being as good an online multiplayer experience as it could be. Voice chat may be missing, invites might not be cross game, options might be left out etc. And then what happens? Wii U has its Mario Kart game. Now we just have to wait for the next system and its Mario Kart to try again to get it right. The weird thing is with Nintendo is that it is a total apathy that causes this. They don't particularly care about having a strong online presence. If they did we would see more attempts to make already multiplayer games online. We never do though. Nintendo is more content to just try to put something together for a title where it actually does make sense like Mario Kart or Smash Bros. and then that's it. So sorry, but in my opinion Nintendo isn't to be lauded for this free online multiplayer they've bestowed upon us. Like I said before it isn't that they could charge for it but decide not to out of some ethical obligation to the general gamer. It is that they literally don't have anything people would pay for in the online space. This isn't out of ineptitude, it is purely out of apathy. I am not sure if that's better or worse. |
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@Stephen Yeah, I think Nintendo should push online more, because I think advertising free online over the competition's paid service would make the Wii U look more attractive... if it were close to being the same. You've seen me in chat playing with others so you know I care about online play, but it still isn't something I'd ever pay for. Gaming is already pretty expensive as it is, with the cost of hardware, price of games, add-on content, and the occasional accessory, that paying a fee simply to play a game is something I'm never going to do. So I'll take missing features over paying money. Hopefully the Wii U, being more powerful, will have better online, but even if it's still Wii-level, I'll happily enjoy what it is instead of cursing what it isn't. I think I'd still come to Negative World (and other places I visit) to schedule nights to play because that's a lot easier than just trying to randomly see who's on. Since I'm hard of hearing then I don't use voice chat and don't care about it, but I can see why some people do. But since the Wii U has a mic built-in then I think we'll see it in more games. If Pokémon has it these days then Nintendo can't be too worried about children and voice chat anymore. I think apathy is better than ineptitude because if they change their mind about being apathetic then they could implement good online, but if they're inept at doing it then it will never happen. Neither are ideal of course, but one has more hope than the other. I still disagree that people wouldn't pay for Nintendo's previous online, because it isn't like you could get online Nintendo games on other systems. Considering some of the products Nintendo release that I scratch my head why people buy it, I have little doubt that millions would pay for it. |
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