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Mario Kart 7 has the best online matchmaking in a non-PC game ever?

D

duckroll

Member
This is probably old, but I don't own a 3DS, and I don't generally follow news for games I'm not planning on ever buying or playing. But firehawk12 told me about this amazing feature that seemed totally unbelievable. Upon investigation, it turns out it is in fact true!

Mario Kart 7 supports "Communities" which are like Steam Groups. You can create a Community, and just share that Community Code with friends instead of a Friend Code, and everyone who joins the Community can automatically see and play with the other players in the group without sharing Friend Codes. WTF?!

The program director of Mario Kart 7 even has this to say about it in a recent Iwata Asks:
The reason you want to become friends with someone through Mario Kart is because you want to race them. Until now, if you played someone once on the Internet and wanted to play that person again, the only way was to register them as a friend. Then someone suggested to include a way of making it easier to gather, so it would be easier than registering a friend and it would be more recurring than the once in a lifetime chance encounter you may have with someone that's somewhere in the world.
Click to expand...

Isn't this one of the signs of the apocalypse? I'm sure it was written on some Mayan tablet that when Nintendo begins to master online infrastructure, the skies will open and the demise of the world is at hand. I'm scared... :(
 
F

firehawk12

Subete no aware
Nintendo beats Microsoft and Sony and creates the best online gaming system on consoles. Who would have thought it would be possible?
 
H

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
If this is true, I hope they use it for Smash.
 
DR2K

DR2K

Banned
Problem is this was supposed to be a system wide feature, but got cut. Sure would have been nice in DOAD and Street Fighter IV.

Persoanlly can't wait to try it myself, but it's sort of bittersweet at the same time.
 
G

Gomu Gomu

Member
It would have been great to have it on the OS. I hope all future consoles adapt this feature day 1. Online Friends list + groups is a must in an online capable platform.
 
S

Sneaky Gato

Member
^Hasn't the blue shell gone back to when it hit everyone instead of just the person in first? You're going to need something better than that then to bring about the end of the earth.
 
A

Anth0ny

Member
duckroll said:
Isn't this one of the signs of the apocalypse? I'm sure it was written on some Mayan tablet that when Nintendo begins to master online infrastructure, the skies will open and the demise of the world is at hand. I'm scared... :(
Click to expand...

Is such a thing even possible?
 
R

Reknoc

Member
It sounds like an awesome feature. Judging from the OT though, since the communities have no "leaders" it's impossible to change any of the settings, which is fine if you don't mind having separate communities for battle and racing and only race using normal rules.
 
C

Cheesemeister

Member
Tomorrow's the big day in Japan. I actually already saw some lucky punk with the game via StreetPass yesterday.

So, who's making the meet-up thread?
 
D

duckroll

Member
Oni Link 666 said:
We've known about this for at least a month now. We've actually had a couple of threads about it. Like this one. http://neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?p=32269648

It's really not as robust as it might sound. Hopefully Nintendo will use it in ontehr games and keep improving on it.
Click to expand...

cosmicblizzard assured me there was no other thread! Blame him!

Reknoc said:
It sounds like an awesome feature. Judging from the OT though, since the communities have no "leaders" it's impossible to change any of the settings, which is fine if you don't mind having separate communities for battle and racing and only race using normal rules.
Click to expand...

But what about Bananas?!

Iwata: I suppose making the Communities was fun for development, too.

Shiraiwa: Oh, absolutely! You can play it so easily, but one way to play with a Community is to decide the rules. That is a lot of fun! (laughs)

Iwata: You can determine the rules yourself?

Yabuki: You can limit the ways items appear, like having a race in which only bananas appear. After three laps, there are bananas everywhere! (laughs) You can play a different way than ever before.

Shiraiwa: Battles are pretty intense when you play with the rule that only Bob-ombs appear! There was a minigame called "Bob-omb Blast" in Mario Kart: Double Dash!!. It's as fun as that! The programmers gathered and played during test-play.
Click to expand...
 
I

Instro

Member
Reknoc said:
It sounds like an awesome feature. Judging from the OT though, since the communities have no "leaders" it's impossible to change any of the settings, which is fine if you don't mind having separate communities for battle and racing and only race using normal rules.
Click to expand...

I dunno, that seems useful in its own right. You can set up a couple communities with different settings, kind of like how PC groups will have multiple servers with different map rotations and so on.
 
M

Mpl90

Two copies sold? That's not a bomb guys, stop trolling!!!
Cheesemeister said:
Tomorrow's the big day in Japan. I actually already saw some lucky punk with the game via StreetPass yesterday.

So, who's making the meet-up thread?
Click to expand...

Those lucky bastards.
Ordered on Amazon, cannot wait to receive it!
 
T

Thoraxes

Member
I skipped over the Wii one, so this should be great as I haven't played a new Mario Kart game since MKDS.

It'd be cool if you could have a community to yourself for all the streetpass miis you encounter or something.
 
F

fernoca

Member
I do hope it's a good sign of (online) things for Nintendo. Then again the world's going to end next year anyway; so it is indeed a sign of the apocalypse. :p

Guess will be fun doing banana-communities with the Four Horsemen.
 
S

speedpop

Has problems recognising girls
EloquentM said:
You're telling me this wasn't common knowledge?
Click to expand...

It's only slightly starting to come out of the woodworks because more concrete details are forthcoming with the release of the games.

It's like the new update that came with Mario 3D Land. You can see what your friends are playing and when they are online - of course this hasn't nullified the 12-digit friend code but in a way it is similar to everything else out there.

With Mario Kart 7 it has boosted the appeal a lot more with the community aspect. Being able to jump on to MK7 and see who on the GAF community is playing is quite worthwhile without having to jump through the hoops of adding people to a friend list. The only thing missing now is voice communication. But as mentioned earlier in the thread, the "Community" was supposed to be an integral part of the OS on the 3DS to begin with but the time constraints meant that it could not be put in. Hopefully a firmware update can rectify that because it would boost the somewhat weak Friends listing.

For a company that has always breathed the social aspect of gaming it's a welcome sight to see the slumbering dragon wake up a little bit and realize that the restrictions put in place only add to the criticism. Now if only they would ditch the Friend Codes and implement a broad Nintendo account that could be used for everything, though I imagine my dreams of something like that happening (ala VC titles finally being used universally) will not eventuate.
 
O

Oni Link 666

Member
You might also like to know that a virtual mailbox app that looks kind of like Pictochat is coming to the 3DS soon, duckroll. AND the eShop is getting updated to allow developers to put DLC and demos on it too. Also, one the first demos will be for Monster Hunter 3G. Did you know Monster Hunter is coming to 3DS? 'Cause it totally is.
 
K

-KRS-

Member
Wait, wait, wait.

You can limit the ways items appear, like having a race in which only bananas appear. After three laps, there are bananas everywhere! (laughs) You can play a different way than ever before.
Click to expand...

You can limit the ways items appear, like having a race in which only bananas appear.
Click to expand...

limit items
Click to expand...

Whoa!

Best Mario Kart ever confirmed.
 
N

Nuclear Muffin

Banned
The problem is that this is limited to Mario Kart 7 only. They need to go back to their original plan and make this Communities a part of the OS with a System Update.
 
K

-KRS-

Member
BTW, this makes me wonder. Is there a limit to how many friends one can have on the 3DS? And does this community thing fill that up as well? If that's the case it would probably fill upp real quick if we made a NeoGAF community...
 
M

Man God

Non-Canon Member
If it wasn't for the cheaters I'd call MK Wii my favorite online console game this generation. It always worked and almost never lagged. Hell you can log on right now and get a decent match going.
 
Haunted

Haunted

Member
That's nice.

Having a constant GAF community without the trouble of having to add everyone individually would be fun to play with, too bad I don't have a 3DS.

Here's hoping other console games adopt it, it seems really convenient.
 
O

Oni Link 666

Member
Prophet Steve said:
Unless I'm missing something, adding a code can be harder than adding a friend. And my vote would go to Halo 2.
Click to expand...

But adding a code is easier than adding hundreds of friends.


synt4x said:
BTW, this makes me wonder. Is there a limit to how many friends one can have on the 3DS? And does this community thing fill that up as well? If that's the case it would probably fill upp real quick if we made a NeoGAF community...
Click to expand...

The Mario Kart website says a community can have up to 100,000 members.

http://mariokart7.nintendo.com/multiplayer/
Right from the get-go, you'll be able to join Nintendo-created Communities with their own unique rules- such as speed class or items available. Communities come in all sizes—from two players up to 100,000, and every Community has a leaderboard, giving the best players bragging rights.
Click to expand...
 
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