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Mario Kart 8 Info Thread

TheGreatMightyPoo said:
I have a new idea for a new item.

It's a black shell that once you get it(it's rare), it lets you scroll through whoever is racing for who it will target.
Click to expand...
34d76da9eeb101c7a29de2b12ea47a6e.jpg
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__qp9iPKeNs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Z1lUrAgImE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOPDqh4etiE

Beautiful!
http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2014/04/preview_mario_kart_8

Wii U Pro Controller confirmed

The performance of a vehicle seems more contingent on its own setup than the character, for example, and our limited playtime suggests that you can select a brute like Bowser or Donkey Kong but, with the right configuration, have a light and fast car rather than being slow and heavy. Like in Mario Kart 7 you select three key areas — vehicle, wheel and flying equipment — and it is that which defines your style of driver, not the mascot of choice. We'd need more hours with the full game to fully verify that's the case, but it's an attractive change that you can opt for speed at the risk of being pushed around, but still choose any character you want, or you can be a powerful brute with Toad or Baby Mario behind the wheel.
 
So here's the new info on compiled

Retro tracks
N64 Royal Raceway
N64 Toad's Turnpike
N64 Rainbow Road
DS Cheep Cheep Beach (I think?)
SNES Donut Plains 3
Wii Moo Moo Meadows

New tracks
Mario Kart Stadium

Items
Extra Coins (Only 2)
Piranha Plant
Boomerang

Characters
Metal Mario
Shy Guy
Lakitu

Other info includes getting a speed boost form hitting others and you that you can't drag items.

Fake edit: Does the kart Baby Peach is on always have a cat tail? Also, hopefully N64 RR isn't a borefest this time. The speed panels and lack of rails in places is a good start.
I don't think we know what tracks are in which cup (besides a certain few) for now.
 
http://nintendoeverything.com/more-mario-kart-8-details-including-expanded-item-customization/

Below are even more details regarding Mario Kart 8:

- Gain small bursts of speeds by jumping off ramps
- Water Park: oscillates between underwater sections and an amusement park-themed gauntlet on land
- Mario Kart Stadium: huge event alongside a dizzying set of anti-gravity sections
- Thwomp Ruins: giant rolling stone wheel eventually collapses a special section of walls to reveal a potential shortcut after the first lap
- Cheep Cheep Beach from Mario Kart DS completely skips the anti-gravity flair in favor of tight turns and a fun spread of boost pads and ramps
- Mario Circuit 4’s remake has a fancy, elevated anti-gravity U-turn in one corner of the race
- Toad’s Turnpike from Mario Kart 64 adds anti-gravity walls lined with booster pads and jumps to help speed racers along, but also tosses ramps and pads onto the backs of other large moving vehicles
- Donut Plains 3 returns
- DK Jungle back
- Can toss the Boomerang item up to 3 times

“There was some item customization in Mario Kart 7, in that you could choose to have a mushroom-only race or shell-only race. We’re going to have that plus a little bit more, actually, in Mario Kart 8. I think we’re going to be able to answer that feeling of, ‘I don’t want to race with items.’ Well, OK, then no items. Or, ‘I only want to have bananas.’ Well, OK. I think we’re going to be able to provide a system to answer that desire this time around.” – director Kosuke Yabuki

“We’re going to have some rule customization for folks who want to be able to go in and set that up for themselves. Game balance is a really important element of Mario Kart that we look very, very closely at and place a lot of value on. I think that item balance, from the time we start working on development, a thousand times, maybe even tens of thousands of times, we adjust that balance while we’re playing. At the end, we come up with what we hope or feel is a really good balance. It’s our strong hope that folks would want to play with the items as we have balanced them.” – producer Hideki Konno

“That feature is not random (Blue Shell). It just doesn’t happen. There is a lot of adjustment, and there is a lot of thought and effort put into that system and developing it in a way that actually promotes game balance. So I would hope people would understand that as well.” – producer Hideki Konno

“One of the things we actually hope for is that if you’re just playing on an off day, and you’ve lost a race or two. We hope that you step away going, ‘Oh well, I just didn’t feel it today. My luck wasn’t with me. Whatever the cause, it just wasn’t my day, but I’m going to come back and play again.’ And that’s sort of what we’re aiming for. We want people to feel that way when they step away, that they want to come back.” – producer Hideki Konno

- Konno said the developers’ main priority was creating interesting courses that encourage new and different ways of playing

“One of the things you’ll see with the later courses is antigravity being given to the player as an option, so you’ll be driving on the course, and now the course branches off and you can either continue driving on the ground, or maybe go into the antigravity area to avoid an enemy or pick up an extra block. You might decide you want to take a different route that has a boost that allows you to take off and use your glider. So with the addition of the antigravity feature, we’ve been able to add more variety to the course design, and it fundamentally changes the player’s strategy.” – Konno

- When players collide with each other while in an antigravity zone, they will receive a speed boost
- Yabuki anticipates that many players will use this feature strategically

“One thing that’s always happened in previous Mario Karts is if you’re racing a light character and you bump into a big character like Bowser, you were at a disadvantage. However, with the antigravity section, and again the ability to give a speed boost from actually running into someone, even the lighter characters are able to strategize around using the antigravity sections to either keep the playing field even or to give them an advantage. So it does alter the strategy.” – Yabuki

- Risks usually outweighed the benefits, so players usually didn’t want to collide
- With the antigravity sections of Mario Kart 8, Yabuki believes players will find ways to use collisions to their advantage

“The speed boost you get from colliding with a character while you’re in the antigravity portion of this course alters the paradigm [of risk outweighing benefit]. So we may see some new strategies come out of this — some that maybe even we’re not aware of.” – Yabuki
 
Apparently, a canon block (from 3D Land/World) and an 8 item were seen in the item roulette in the IGN video.

Anyway, here is the confirmed track list so far:


Mushroom
Mario Kart Stadium
Water Park
Sweet Sweet Canyon
Thwomp Ruins

Flower
Mario Circuit
Toad Harbour
Twisted Mansion
Shy Guy Falls

Star
Sunshine Airport

Special

RETRO

Shell
Wii Moo Moo Meadows
GBA Mario Circuit
DS Cheep-Cheep Beach
N64 Toad's Turnpike

Banana
Dry Drys Desert
Donut Plains 3
Royal Raceway
DK Jungle

Leaf

Lightning
DS Tick-Tock Clock
N64 Rainbow Road
 
The new trailer is awesome.

Great that Lakitu, Shy Guy, and Metal Mario make a return.

Also, Toad's Turnpike! I'm pretty hyped!
 
Guys, the Belgian twitter leak was real, but the guy also mentioned 4-player Grand Prix were possible. Yet I'm not seeing any info about it.

Please tell me it was true as well.
 
PadWarrior said:
http://nintendoeverything.com/more-mario-kart-8-details-including-expanded-item-customization/

Below are even more details regarding Mario Kart 8:

- Gain small bursts of speeds by jumping off ramps
- Water Park: oscillates between underwater sections and an amusement park-themed gauntlet on land
- Mario Kart Stadium: huge event alongside a dizzying set of anti-gravity sections
- Thwomp Ruins: giant rolling stone wheel eventually collapses a special section of walls to reveal a potential shortcut after the first lap
- Cheep Cheep Beach from Mario Kart DS completely skips the anti-gravity flair in favor of tight turns and a fun spread of boost pads and ramps
- Mario Circuit 4’s remake has a fancy, elevated anti-gravity U-turn in one corner of the race
- Toad’s Turnpike from Mario Kart 64 adds anti-gravity walls lined with booster pads and jumps to help speed racers along, but also tosses ramps and pads onto the backs of other large moving vehicles
- Donut Plains 3 returns
- DK Jungle back
- Can toss the Boomerang item up to 3 times

“There was some item customization in Mario Kart 7, in that you could choose to have a mushroom-only race or shell-only race. We’re going to have that plus a little bit more, actually, in Mario Kart 8. I think we’re going to be able to answer that feeling of, ‘I don’t want to race with items.’ Well, OK, then no items. Or, ‘I only want to have bananas.’ Well, OK. I think we’re going to be able to provide a system to answer that desire this time around.” – director Kosuke Yabuki

“We’re going to have some rule customization for folks who want to be able to go in and set that up for themselves. Game balance is a really important element of Mario Kart that we look very, very closely at and place a lot of value on. I think that item balance, from the time we start working on development, a thousand times, maybe even tens of thousands of times, we adjust that balance while we’re playing. At the end, we come up with what we hope or feel is a really good balance. It’s our strong hope that folks would want to play with the items as we have balanced them.” – producer Hideki Konno

“That feature is not random (Blue Shell). It just doesn’t happen. There is a lot of adjustment, and there is a lot of thought and effort put into that system and developing it in a way that actually promotes game balance. So I would hope people would understand that as well.” – producer Hideki Konno

“One of the things we actually hope for is that if you’re just playing on an off day, and you’ve lost a race or two. We hope that you step away going, ‘Oh well, I just didn’t feel it today. My luck wasn’t with me. Whatever the cause, it just wasn’t my day, but I’m going to come back and play again.’ And that’s sort of what we’re aiming for. We want people to feel that way when they step away, that they want to come back.” – producer Hideki Konno

- Konno said the developers’ main priority was creating interesting courses that encourage new and different ways of playing

“One of the things you’ll see with the later courses is antigravity being given to the player as an option, so you’ll be driving on the course, and now the course branches off and you can either continue driving on the ground, or maybe go into the antigravity area to avoid an enemy or pick up an extra block. You might decide you want to take a different route that has a boost that allows you to take off and use your glider. So with the addition of the antigravity feature, we’ve been able to add more variety to the course design, and it fundamentally changes the player’s strategy.” – Konno

- When players collide with each other while in an antigravity zone, they will receive a speed boost
- Yabuki anticipates that many players will use this feature strategically

“One thing that’s always happened in previous Mario Karts is if you’re racing a light character and you bump into a big character like Bowser, you were at a disadvantage. However, with the antigravity section, and again the ability to give a speed boost from actually running into someone, even the lighter characters are able to strategize around using the antigravity sections to either keep the playing field even or to give them an advantage. So it does alter the strategy.” – Yabuki

- Risks usually outweighed the benefits, so players usually didn’t want to collide
- With the antigravity sections of Mario Kart 8, Yabuki believes players will find ways to use collisions to their advantage

“The speed boost you get from colliding with a character while you’re in the antigravity portion of this course alters the paradigm [of risk outweighing benefit]. So we may see some new strategies come out of this — some that maybe even we’re not aware of.” – Yabuki
Click to expand...

It really sounds like they put a lot of effort into balancing everything (blue shells and anti-grav included). Looking forward to getting my hands on it.
 
Alistair Roo said:
Should I worry about no map being displayed on the TV?
Click to expand...

It can. There's three button toggles at the side of the horn, one of which being the map. The map then gets blown up on the pad along with the current positions. The other two are quick toggling a switch between motion and traditional controls and a rear view screen display.
 
Volotaire said:
It can. There's three button toggles at the side of the horn, one of which being the map. The map then gets blown up on the pad along with the current positions. The other two are quick toggling a switch between motion and traditional controls and a rear view screen display.
Click to expand...

I have yet to see a video with the map on the main screen; I am not sure pressing the map button on the GamePad sends the map to the TV. It just removes it from the GamePad and displays something else (off-TV or the horn).
 
Volotaire said:
It can. There's three button toggles at the side of the horn, one of which being the map. The map then gets blown up on the pad along with the current positions. The other two are quick toggling a switch between motion and traditional controls and a rear view screen display.
Click to expand...

I know you can see it in the gamepad. My question was if it's going to be displayed on my TV (if I decide I don't want to use the gamepad)

Edit: Oh, thanks, I link would be helpful.
 
Alistair Roo said:
I know you can see it in the gamepad. My question was if it's going to be displayed on my TV (if I decide I don't want to use the gamepad)
Click to expand...

Ah, I'm not so sure on that sorry. Misunderstood. I presume it must do if you're playing Pro Controller, but Gamepad I presume not.
 
Question, will this game finally let us bring up to 3 extra people on 1 console online to race against others? Mario Kart Wii only let us bring 1 extra person...
 
Why does everyone look like they have never played a Mario Kart in these previews? Swerving everywhere, hitting every fence.. Do Nintendo force people to play it with the GamePad as the motion wheel or something?
 
Robin64 said:
Why does everyone look like they have never played a Mario Kart in these previews? Swerving everywhere, hitting every fence.. Do Nintendo force people to play it with the GamePad as the motion wheel or something?
Click to expand...

It's usually either they've never played Mario Kart or they're trying to show off the controller for filming purposes and aren't used to talking and playing the game. When I went to a Post-E3 Nintendo event last year, some people said they'd never played a 3D Mario game O_o.
 
Robin64 said:
Why does everyone look like they have never played a Mario Kart in these previews? Swerving everywhere, hitting every fence.. Do Nintendo force people to play it with the GamePad as the motion wheel or something?
Click to expand...

Big but unnoticeable (visually) changes in handling may disturb even experienced players. I remember a lot of people had a difficult time moving around during glider sections with the E3 demo.
 
PotionBleue said:
Big but unnoticeable (visually) changes in handling may disturb even experienced players. I remember a lot of people had a difficult time moving around during glider sections with the E3 demo.
Click to expand...

Yeah, heard gliding was tougher.

That could be a positive or negative to people.

Personally, I think 7 nailed the controls there...perhaps TOO much.

I don't know what to think of them being trickier to control.
 
PadWarrior said:
http://nintendoeverything.com/more-mario-kart-8-details-including-expanded-item-customization/

Below are even more details regarding Mario Kart 8:

- Gain small bursts of speeds by jumping off ramps
- Water Park: oscillates between underwater sections and an amusement park-themed gauntlet on land
- Mario Kart Stadium: huge event alongside a dizzying set of anti-gravity sections
- Thwomp Ruins: giant rolling stone wheel eventually collapses a special section of walls to reveal a potential shortcut after the first lap
- Cheep Cheep Beach from Mario Kart DS completely skips the anti-gravity flair in favor of tight turns and a fun spread of boost pads and ramps
- Mario Circuit 4’s remake has a fancy, elevated anti-gravity U-turn in one corner of the race
- Toad’s Turnpike from Mario Kart 64 adds anti-gravity walls lined with booster pads and jumps to help speed racers along, but also tosses ramps and pads onto the backs of other large moving vehicles
- Donut Plains 3 returns
- DK Jungle back
- Can toss the Boomerang item up to 3 times

“There was some item customization in Mario Kart 7, in that you could choose to have a mushroom-only race or shell-only race. We’re going to have that plus a little bit more, actually, in Mario Kart 8. I think we’re going to be able to answer that feeling of, ‘I don’t want to race with items.’ Well, OK, then no items. Or, ‘I only want to have bananas.’ Well, OK. I think we’re going to be able to provide a system to answer that desire this time around.” – director Kosuke Yabuki

“We’re going to have some rule customization for folks who want to be able to go in and set that up for themselves. Game balance is a really important element of Mario Kart that we look very, very closely at and place a lot of value on. I think that item balance, from the time we start working on development, a thousand times, maybe even tens of thousands of times, we adjust that balance while we’re playing. At the end, we come up with what we hope or feel is a really good balance. It’s our strong hope that folks would want to play with the items as we have balanced them.” – producer Hideki Konno

“That feature is not random (Blue Shell). It just doesn’t happen. There is a lot of adjustment, and there is a lot of thought and effort put into that system and developing it in a way that actually promotes game balance. So I would hope people would understand that as well.” – producer Hideki Konno

“One of the things we actually hope for is that if you’re just playing on an off day, and you’ve lost a race or two. We hope that you step away going, ‘Oh well, I just didn’t feel it today. My luck wasn’t with me. Whatever the cause, it just wasn’t my day, but I’m going to come back and play again.’ And that’s sort of what we’re aiming for. We want people to feel that way when they step away, that they want to come back.” – producer Hideki Konno

- Konno said the developers’ main priority was creating interesting courses that encourage new and different ways of playing

“One of the things you’ll see with the later courses is antigravity being given to the player as an option, so you’ll be driving on the course, and now the course branches off and you can either continue driving on the ground, or maybe go into the antigravity area to avoid an enemy or pick up an extra block. You might decide you want to take a different route that has a boost that allows you to take off and use your glider. So with the addition of the antigravity feature, we’ve been able to add more variety to the course design, and it fundamentally changes the player’s strategy.” – Konno

- When players collide with each other while in an antigravity zone, they will receive a speed boost
- Yabuki anticipates that many players will use this feature strategically

“One thing that’s always happened in previous Mario Karts is if you’re racing a light character and you bump into a big character like Bowser, you were at a disadvantage. However, with the antigravity section, and again the ability to give a speed boost from actually running into someone, even the lighter characters are able to strategize around using the antigravity sections to either keep the playing field even or to give them an advantage. So it does alter the strategy.” – Yabuki

- Risks usually outweighed the benefits, so players usually didn’t want to collide
- With the antigravity sections of Mario Kart 8, Yabuki believes players will find ways to use collisions to their advantage

“The speed boost you get from colliding with a character while you’re in the antigravity portion of this course alters the paradigm [of risk outweighing benefit]. So we may see some new strategies come out of this — some that maybe even we’re not aware of.” – Yabuki
Click to expand...

Oh, this some very interesting information! Balancing Mario Kart is such a difficult task, but all of this sounds very promising.

Man, I'm getting excited! :D
 
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