Mario Kart Wii - 16-person online multiplayer?

[Doctor Setebos]

According to the official Nintendo UK magazine, Mario Kart Wii will sport Wii-creations of favorite Mario Kart DS tracks, mid-air stunts, online battle mode--oh, and 16-person online multiplayer.

The decidedly small yet fruitful snippet from the mag can be found here (http://gonintendo.com/?p=24423).

[color=darkorange]Update: Looks like this is false (http://www.evilavatar.com/forums/showthread.php?t=35549).[/color

[tombofsoldier]

Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please...

[Kid Moxie]

Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please...Uh, pretty please? *puppy dog eyes*

[mkelehan]

I believe it. Nintendo said they want to allow a whole lot of players when they announced it back at E3. Four people in my home, 12 abroad... sounds good. It'd be much cooler if there were voice chat with random folks, but this is Nintendo.

[Heretic Machine]

Doesn't matter, you won't be able to talk to any of them in-game, so it'll be a worthless feature. Decent A.I. would accomplish the same thing.

[bapenguin]

Doesn't matter, you won't be able to talk to any of them in-game, so it'll be a worthless feature. Decent A.I. would accomplish the same thing.

Exactly. ........

[Chameleo]

meh i dont care about online. i just wanna have a blast w/ my buddies on the couch....

and knowing Nintendo's track record with online, i wouldn't be surprised if online didn't make it in the final versions.. well no, i take that back. theres online in mariokart for DS - so i dont see why they can't do it for Wii.

But i wouldn't be surprised if they canceled online for super smash brothers. fighting games online is tough to synchronize.

[Chameleo]

Doesn't matter, you won't be able to talk to any of them in-game, so it'll be a worthless feature. Decent A.I. would accomplish the same thing.

sure it matters - you can play your friends you meet in online message boards, and friends you've met in your travels abroad who also have Wiis.

not that i'd wanna play w/ you mr. jaded gamer.

[Skyelan]

Amazingly, here in common sense land where people actually relax instead of 'baaawwww' all the time... The game is as much as half a year away. Nintendo WILL be allowing (And pushing) online chatting in the near future. They've been doing it on the DS for a long time, pushing just about EVERY online multiplayer game to have voice chat inside game. A goddamn handheld.

It's only a question of when it starts, so pardon me if I wanna wait and see how stuff works out before I whine about 'useless features', even though AI cannot replace human players (For good or bad).

[Wyrm]

Doesn't matter, you won't be able to talk to any of them in-game, so it'll be a worthless feature. Decent A.I. would accomplish the same thing.

What is there to talk about? "Did you see when I hit you with that red fucking turtle shell? That shit was bomb, yo!"

It's not like Mario Kart is a fucking visceral experience or anything. Sure, it's a lot of fun, but do you need voice chat to race around a fucking track and shoot god damn turtle shells at your friends?

[MacD]

Seriously, the DS has (wifi enabled MP) games with ingame voicecomms? Which ones? That's some cool shit on a handheld :)

[Heretic Machine]

What is there to talk about? "Did you see when I hit you with that red fucking turtle shell? That shit was bomb, yo!"

Removing communications takes the party out of party games. You know how much fun online multiplayer with Bomberman Live would be if you removed voice communication? The answer is that it wouldn't be fun, at least not any more or less than the single-player. Without communication the other players are just bots with good (maybe bad) A.I. So really, what is the point?

Also, maybe I'm out of the loop, but the last I checked the only voice-chatting you do on the DS is in Metroid, and only between rounds. Nintendo has made their stance on online play quite clear: Communication has the potential to be bad, and by removing communication entirely they can avoid a lot of potential hassles with their younger audience.

[Skyelan]

Seriously, the DS has (wifi enabled MP) games with ingame voicecomms? Which ones? That's some cool shit on a handheld :)

It's usually just with friends, but Pokemon has it (I dunno if it works in battle, but I can't imagine not... You have a room where you can do a lot of random shit with friends including trading and battling), Puzzle League has it, I believe Starfox has it... To be honest, not a whole lot of online games have come out lately (I don't think) so it's hard to recall, but there are quite a few.

And I'm near positive every first party one for a long while has had it. I should go look this up more extensively.

Edit: Zelda DS will have in-game Voice Chat as well in its multiplayer mode.

Downhill Jam was one of the first to have in-game voice chat. Most slower games like Rune Factory at least have a pictochat feature, so communication exists.

Again, it's really hard to find a comprehensive list at the moment (Then again I've yet to check any official sources), but one thing is clear. For a while now Nintendo's been pushing in-game voice chat in all their online DS games, third parties have access to it, and even where there isn't voice chat, there's usually pictochat clients.

So yeah, communication thrives. It's only with people on friend lists, but most people on this site mute out almost all strangers on Live anyway. Or don't even play strangers at all. :p

[digitalErich]

I would buy Mario Kart regardless, so I just look at this as a nice extra.

Even if they had a VoIP solution, it still wouldn't change the fact that playing same room MP, spewing enough profanities at each other to embarrass an armada of sailors is the true way of the Kart.

[SBKidJamX]

Seriously, the DS has (wifi enabled MP) games with ingame voicecomms? Which ones? That's some cool shit on a handheld :)

Metroid Prime Hunters and the new Pokemon games immediately spring to mind. I know there's more though.

[Crowe]

Removing communications takes the party out of party games. You know how much fun online multiplayer with Bomberman Live would be if you removed voice communication? The answer is that it wouldn't be fun, at least not any more or less than the single-player. Without communication the other players are just bots with good (maybe bad) A.I. So really, what is the point?

Also, maybe I'm out of the loop, but the last I checked the only voice-chatting you do on the DS is in Metroid, and only between rounds. Nintendo has made their stance on online play quite clear: Communication has the potential to be bad, and by removing communication entirely they can avoid a lot of potential hassles with their younger audience.

The point is human competition. It's much more fun when you have some serious intelligent competition. I dislike most multiplayer on consoles, because it's so much more anti-social then on a good ol' fashioned PC. You can't type and the Voice quality isn't that great either.

Taking into account my new dislike for most console multiplayer would I love to play against 16 other people whom I could not talk to?? YES, simply because it's Mario kart and I don't really care whether I talk to people when I play the game.

[Heretic Machine]

The point is human competition. It's much more fun when you have some serious intelligent competition. I dislike most multiplayer on consoles, because it's so much more anti-social then on a good ol' fashioned PC. You can't type and the Voice quality isn't that great either.

Taking into account my new dislike for most console multiplayer would I love to play against 16 other people whom I could not talk to?? YES, simply because it's Mario kart and I don't really care whether I talk to people when I play the game.

Good for you. I disagree entirely. I didn't even touch the online multiplayer in the DS Mario Kart outside of a few trial runs to see how it went. There was no point, I was playing with what might as well of been bots, it was easier just to start up a single-player race.

Will I still buy it? Yes, because it will be fun. But the multiplayer will have no appeal unless they impliment some form of decent player communication.

[Wyrm]

Removing communications takes the party out of party games. You know how much fun online multiplayer with Bomberman Live would be if you removed voice communication? The answer is that it wouldn't be fun, at least not any more or less than the single-player. Without communication the other players are just bots with good (maybe bad) A.I. So really, what is the point?

Also, maybe I'm out of the loop, but the last I checked the only voice-chatting you do on the DS is in Metroid, and only between rounds. Nintendo has made their stance on online play quite clear: Communication has the potential to be bad, and by removing communication entirely they can avoid a lot of potential hassles with their younger audience.

A.I., no matter how good it is, is still predictable to a certain degree. Human players are not. You're simply ignoring the facts if you think otherwise. Human players can be predictable for sure, but they can change their strategy dynamically. A.I. cannot. It can be programed to run a different script provided a certain situation occurs, but it cannot adapt on the fly like a human player can. That in and of itself is why multiplayer games are so much more fun with human players than with bots.

The same thing could be argued about Bomberman that I said before, but the gameplay in Bomberman is even more simplistic. The fact that there is less to it makes the voice chat that much more important to the experience, because it will always be more fun to play with your friends, and it is always fun to hear someone bitch when you kill them. So, yeah, voice chat is a good thing. Do I believe it's essential to the experience of games like Mario Kart and Bomberman? Not even a little bit.

Nintendo doesn't understand where the future of online gaming is going, but then, they really don't need to. They figured out this generation what it would take to bring the casual gamer into the fold, and they aren't concerned about online gaming any more now than they were when the Gamecube hit. Don't expect to see any change anytime soon.

[Heretic Machine]

A.I., no matter how good it is, is still predictable to a certain degree. Human players are not. You're simply ignoring the facts if you think otherwise. Human players can be predictable for sure, but they can change their strategy dynamically. A.I. cannot. It can be programed to run a different script provided a certain situation occurs, but it cannot adapt on the fly like a human player can. That in and of itself is why multiplayer games are so much more fun with human players than with bots.

...Dude, do you really think that I look to online play for challenge? Is that honestly what you think that myself, and most other people, use online multiplayer for? Let me give you a big FYI, my love of online multiplayer games has nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with challenge. For me, it is a social experience. UNO isn't challenging, hell it's mostly random, but it's still insanely fun to play online. Why? Because of the communication that goes on between players during the game. If you put an UNO for the Wii out right now, with online play, it would be worthless. It would be utterly without value, taking up space on my shelf would be more than it would deserve. On the 360, it's one of the most amusing games on the platform.

Nevermind the fact that the lack of communication between players in online Wii games blatantly goes against the philosophy of the console.

[Crowe]

Good for you. I disagree entirely. I didn't even touch the online multiplayer in the DS Mario Kart outside of a few trial runs to see how it went. There was no point, I was playing with what might as well of been bots, it was easier just to start up a single-player race.

Will I still buy it? Yes, because it will be fun. But the multiplayer will have no appeal unless they impliment some form of decent player communication.

So you disagree that A.I is just as efficient as Human competition? Thats was my first main point....that human competition was so much more enjoyable then A.I.

*Edit* I can understand why you play multiplayer games, simply for the sociol experience. I can't understand how consoles can do that for you though, after playing MP on a PC I cannot go back.

[Skyelan]

Right, well, this is all pointless because we don't know. There's a good chance voice chatting doesn't kick off before MK hits, but there's the fact that Nintendo's been extensively pushing it in their DS games for a while now.

Mind you, if there isn't voice chat in BWii, heads will roll. That's just beyond completely fucking retarded. Head to head matches have some redeeming value without chatting, but they're gonna have online co-op in a strategic action game. If it doesn't happen, I hope it crashes and burns and gets their fucking heads in the game ASAP.

If it does, well, goody. That's a good sign for future Wii games. They've been a little quiet on it, though, so we don't have a way of knowing yet. But I will be pissed if they fuck up BWii. Very pissed indeed.

[Wyrm]

...Dude, do you really think that I look to online play for challenge? Is that honestly what you think that myself, and most other people, use online multiplayer for? Let me give you a big FYI, my love of online multiplayer games has nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with challenge.

So, you like to play with your friends. That's great, I'm happy for you. I like to play with my friends as well, but not all of my friends are good at video games, and when I play games, I like to be engaged. I'm not even necessarily saying that it needs to be challenging, but A.I. can only do so much. Human players provide an element of surprise that simply doesn't otherwise exist.

I'm not dogging on you for your choice here, merely disagreeing entirely that A.I. could, in any way, ever replace a real live human player. Even without voice chat, playing online with real people would be ten times more fun than playing the computer for an enormous variety of reasons. You're sharing the experience with other real people, and even if you can't talk to them, that's still more engaging than racing an A.I. opponent.

For me, challenge is part of the experience. I play games online with my friends, but I also play online because humans do things that A.I.s simply do not. Human players think of clever ways to do things, and that challenge isn't something you can experience by playing against an A.I.

[Crowe]

Mario Kart has never been about the campaign mode. But I would sit there and play the A.I over and over. Not any more though, now I can play like I used to except against people who can fight back in a so much more intelligent way.

[CapnBob]

Battle mode! Woo! Let's see what snaking gets you THERE, bitches.

[agentgray]

16x16=256

That's a lot of numbers to type. For some reason I don't think this will go over big. I want it to, and I hope I'm proven wrong.

[cp#]

Mario Kart

[Camel]

It'll be awesome if there's 16 person multiplayer, if only for the fact that it was impossible to do race like that in double dash if everyone was driving their own car.

For the most part, voice chat isn't necessary for me (I don't use my headset EVER when I am playing with people I don't know...I just don't care to talk to them), but if I'm playing with friends or EvAvers or whatever then that's a whole different ball game.

[GAThrawn]

There truly isn't anything like schooling on your friends in a good game of Mario Kart. But sometimes you don't have a third or fourth player, and the online experience allows you to get some real human drivers in the mix. The other advantage is being able to practice driving against different people, which gives you more experience and allows you to whoop on your friends when you do play them.

[Evil Avnovice]

Who will be first out of the gate with a Wii headset, first or third party?

Mmmm....Online 16-player.

[Dr. Douche Nozzle]

hells ya, this is another reason I want a Wii now....

[LikeTheRazor]

This is very good news.

[LikeTheRazor]

Here are some screenshots: http://www.n-europe.com/screenshots.php?gid=mariokarts

[RUSKULL]

from nothing to 16 player multiplayer? I have to see it to believe it.

For the record, I'd be happy to see no chat. It's a big reason why I avoid Xbox Live unless it's with someone I know, and those situations are pretty rare.

[oldjadedgamer]

Mario Kart online for DS sucked and this looks to continue the trend. I've had it since the day it came out along with a few friends and it was so insanely hard to actually even get into a game that it just made you not want to play it.

Also, you have a good race with someone and you can't add them as friends. They are gone forever. But who cares, all people do is snake all the time anyway or quit if they know they aren't going to win.

Nintendo + online = lick my balls.

[Chainblast]

If that online multi-player feature allows 4 people on the same machine to go online to play against other people I'm all for it. Otherwise I don't particularly care. Mario Kart has always been about the jack-ass beside you getting lucky one too many times with what items they pick up. Or something like that.

[TeeCakes]

Meh, I really don't care to race against people in Mario Kart online, multiplayer racing games are best when the players are all in the same room, especially when you insert the wacky Mario power-ups on top of it all.

Smash Bros. on the other hand would best benefit from the online, voice chat treatment, because if you don't trash talk when Smashing, thy gamer heart doth not beateth.

Oh, and just to fill my quota for the day, it's funny how Wii is the "leading" system, yet their online multiplayer support is a distant third behind XBL and PSN's setups. Don't tell me it costs too much money to implement decent online gaming, I mean look at always-in-the-red-Sony and their 32-multiplayer behemoth Warhawk, or even back to Halo 2 on the original 'Box. Where exactly does all that money Nintendo gets from the profits of each Wii/DS hardware sale go, what are they paying top dollar for Mario's live-in Italian chef?

Geez, I could've gotten a better Nintendo zing in there at the end. Wait for the edit...

[RMan]

Nintendo has made their stance on online play quite clear: Communication has the potential to be bad, and by removing communication entirely they can avoid a lot of potential hassles with their younger audience.
That doesn’t make sense, because, as you seem to be aware, they do allow it in Metroid, a competitive shooter, about the most anti-social atmosphere you can get without trying. The fact that they do it only in the lobby likely has nothing to do with a ‘stance’, but perhaps crosstalk or bandwidth issues. I’m not sure if you thought it through, but I really don’t think Nintendo feels that players suddenly put themselves in rated-G mode when in a lobby, clearly allowing chatting at all opens the flood gates for the communication you claim they hate. It’s a Nintendo published game even, if they’ve sent any kind of message it’s not that they don’t want it, because if that were true they wouldn’t have it at all. I think you could argue they don’t care enough to do it more, and they should, but clearly they like the feature.

[Skyelan]

The fact that they do it only in the lobby likely has nothing to do with a ‘stance’, but perhaps crosstalk or bandwidth issues.

That actually is a fairly good point. Hunters is a 3D, decent-sized area FPS. Since then Nintendo's happily put voice chat into far more kid friendly games, and the ones that have it are usually fairly basic or 2D in graphics (Phantom Hourglass isn't exactly pushing the system hardware, afterall).

Why would it make sense for them to restrict it to lobby talk purely out of 'moral control' or some crap in a T rated FPS, when sparkly clean stuff like Pokemon and Puzzle games get it in-game?

Then of course there's always the reasonable consideration that they were testing the waters, which is what they've done over the entire course of online through different games... Nah.

[Nessus]

Good for you. I disagree entirely. I didn't even touch the online multiplayer in the DS Mario Kart outside of a few trial runs to see how it went. There was no point, I was playing with what might as well of been bots, it was easier just to start up a single-player race.

Will I still buy it? Yes, because it will be fun. But the multiplayer will have no appeal unless they impliment some form of decent player communication.

I dunno, I still found MK:DS online a bit refreshing. I found myself imagining my competitors were decent courteous human beings instead of fucktards who spend the entire round calling me a faggot while hollering and using every racial slur imaginable.

Now, friends list headset communication is something I could definitely get behind, especially if they packed in a headset with Mario Kart.

I just don't want random fucking idiots insulting me or yelling at me or calling me a cheater if I beat them. The prevalence of swastika icon idiots in MK:DS only made me glad I couldn't hear what they were saying.

[court12b]

My only experience with Nintendo's idea of online has been Mario Strikers and honestly, I think I really do appreciate having the communication aspect left out of multiplayer. As somebody else mentioned, it gives me the illusion that the person I'm playing against isn't a complete asshat.

[lockwoodx]

/orgasam....

[duff himself]

i just wish they would throw in the old school kart games (super or 64 versions) as bonus games. i liked the one for game cube but those classic ones i can't get enough of...

this game does sound like a ball-o-fun tho. 16 players is a turtle filled mess that i would enjoy!

[pseudopseudo]

So far, I've got a raging semi.

[Headcase]

16 player seems obvious to me. They said "more than 8" at E3, adding something like "how much more? Wait and find out". 16 is the bare minimum you can deliver after saying that without looking like you've failed.

Removing communications takes the party out of party games.
Not being in the same room takes the party out of party games. When's the last time you hooked up a conference call to have a party?

[Headcase]

Where exactly does all that money Nintendo gets from the profits of each Wii/DS hardware sale go, what are they paying top dollar for Mario's live-in Italian chef?.

Making games? R&D? Oh wait, video game companies don't spend money on that.

[DaXIthR]

Oh, and just to fill my quota for the day, it's funny how Wii is the "leading" system, yet their online multiplayer support is a distant third behind XBL and PSN's setups. Don't tell me it costs too much money to implement decent online gaming, I mean look at always-in-the-red-Sony and their 32-multiplayer behemoth Warhawk, or even back to Halo 2 on the original 'Box. Where exactly does all that money Nintendo gets from the profits of each Wii/DS hardware sale go, what are they paying top dollar for Mario's live-in Italian chef?

Ha ha! Good one. "Live-in chef"....

Seriously, Nintendo ought to be able to find a way around the costs but setting some strategic partnerships in the various territories. Nintendo doesn't want to bear the burden and responsibility of hosting an XBL or PSN service in-house, fine....but I refuse to believe there aren't willing parties who will do that if they're allowed to advertise on Nintendo's console and its online interface.

Someone like TimeWarner would be the ideal candidate in North America, I guess.

The problem is I think that someone not in the a major territory (eg. me) would get shafted by not having that service available to them.

[TeeCakes]

"Live-in chef"....

Wow, what a blatant misquote.

Okay, okay, here's a better one-- "What are they spending all the money on, the development of a brand new Virtua Cop game with Sega and the Wiimote?!"

It's funny because Nintendo's so tunnel-visioned and wastes so much money on 1st party games that they'll never even consider this great idea. I mean, what a joke, right?

And please don't ever defraud me again, Daxy, kthx!

[KingGorilla]

Sure, and tomorrow I will shit a gold brick so big that I can quit school, buy a house, and live easy.

[Yellowman]

Not if I get in there and steal it first.

Wait that came out wrong...

Ah crap now I'm in a hole...

This shit just keeps getting worse.

[TheFlyingOrc]

*Random anti-Nintendo rant*

Goodness. Does it require training to be such a bad poster?

[vherub]

I would have settled for 8 online, or 4 splitscreen with computer ai.
16 is beyond my expectations, though this title is a day 1 buy unless something goes horribly, horribly wrong.
I rank voice communications as follows:
tight control, balanced gameplay, balanced kart/driver options, great course design
ability to jump, actually useful shortcuts, ability to take other items with ghost
balanced weapons and greater impact of skilled racing/power sliding
more weapons, more courses, more characters
acceptable graphics
online play without lag
leaderboards/tournaments




"here we go" and other hilarious sound clips
voice communication