Mario Kart 8 (Wii-U)

[Komodin]

They probably knew nobody would buy the Koopaling DLC bundle because nobody cares about them. Cue DLC for characters people actually want. 

 

... No one cares about the Koopalings? Honestly, I find that a bit hard to believe that no one cares about them versus, say, the generic skeletal Koopa.

[Mando-Whirl-Wind]

... No one cares about the Koopalings? Honestly, I find that a bit hard to believe that no one cares about them versus, say, the generic skeletal Koopa.

Hey, I liked Dry Bones, for a skeleton he had so much life, but doesnt mean there arent other characters I would prefer over the koopalings, but hey they are in, and nothing we can do about that

[MegasonicZX]

Not that it matters to me but does anyone else think the character roster is a bit too big? Its not a bad thing per se since it means a more likely chance that everybody will have their favorite characters in the game but it just kind of makes me wonder how much of that could've went into improving the actual game (strictly speaking from the racing standpoint).

[Mando-Whirl-Wind]

Not that it matters to me but does anyone else think the character roster is a bit too big? Its not a bad thing per se since it means a more likely chance that everybody will have their favorite characters in the game but it just kind of makes me wonder how much of that could've went into improving the actual game (strictly speaking from the racing standpoint).

A ton went into the actual game, with the way they have the roster setup its the easiest part of the game, after the basic mechanics were installed it would take no more than 3-7 days to do a character at most, and very little to incorporate them into the actual roster, because their only effect on gameplay is a single weight variable. MK has cookie Cutter character production, adding more to the roster, or even for dlc is extremely easy and consumes very little time due to the ease of development nowadays, hardest thing is finalizing concept designs

 

Now tracks on the other hand takes ton of time, and with how amazing they are they put a TON into them, not to mention the anti-gravity mechanic

 

Fact is the roster is simply a matter of who they want to put in, not how many nowadays, IN RACERS that is, since they have very few unique gameplay effects, unlike a fighter or sports game where there are hundreds of moves to balance

[TearForFear]

I still don't get the point of the babies characters to exist. Is Nintendo telling me that Baby Daisy is an interesting character to play with?

[Lady Soniko]

You have no idea what you're talking about, 3-7 days for a character.

 

Are you for real? Have you seen the modelling and animation each character has?

[Emperor Robrainiac]

They probably knew nobody would buy the Koopaling DLC bundle because nobody cares about them. 

 

Speak for yourself. I'm pretty happy with the Koopalings being in the game, and I'd take them over more baby characters. Not to mention there are quite a bit of people I've met who are fans of the Koopalings.

[Mando-Whirl-Wind]

You have no idea what you're talking about, 3-7 days for a character.

 

Are you for real? Have you seen the modelling and animation each character has?

Ya, but I also know how fast a skilled animator can work when they have a template to work off of, its not like the early days where each movement was a different pose. The Model depends on the concept work, and wheter or not its been done before, like with the main group like mario they have a pool of standardized models to pull from, and on new/ not done before characters the rate depends on the complexity.

Also out of the current roster a bit more than 17+ of them already had HD models made for other main mario games. Individual rates for each part will depend on a modeler and animators' skill, but there is a set number of standard animations that every racer must have, and customizing off that isnt as hard as you would think, and even with another couple days for integration and testing it doesnt take as much time as you would think, especialy considering that most of the gameplay mechanic alterations are linked to the kart not the racer

 

I may not know everything, or even this for sure, but I've dealt with enough modelers and animators, even on an ameuter level to know a bit about this, and I also know that trained professionals can work much faster than I or the other people I have worked with, and quite a few of these guys can move pretty fast despite their relative lack of training

[Kaabiitorori]

The Koopalings have been around since Super Mario Bros 3, a game that's been out since 1988 (more than 25 years), and whose presence has been strengthened in Super Mario World and the New Super Mario Bros series as far as main Mario platformer entries go. I think they legitimately deserve a well earned spot on the Mario Kart 8 roster just as much as any other important characters from the series could have been featured.

 

It's fine if you simply don't like a particular character. However, I don't think it's right to disregard their presence in this game just because you don't like them; there may be plenty of players who do like them, and in the case of the Koopalings I know there are a reasonable amount of fans who asked for their inclusion for a very long time.

 

But honestly, that's what happens with character inclusions in video games: it's almost impossible to please everyone.

[Sami]

Speak for yourself. I'm pretty happy with the Koopalings being in the game, and I'd take them over more baby characters. Not to mention there are quite a bit of people I've met who are fans of the Koopalings.

 

 

Who's asking for more babies? Those slots could have gone to much better characters, not just more filler.

[LimeTH]

It's clear that this isn't the final character select screen. The fact that it foregoes a random character option is telling enough.

 

There's a big chance that MK8's character selection is a lot bigger and I wouldn't be surprised if they're holding off on some characters.

 

Not to mention there's a lot of empty space at the bottom there.

 

I'm gonna be honest that I really don't like the design of that character select screen. I hope the final one looks more organized. 

[Lady Soniko]

None of the models are re-used in MK8, they're all brand new models, with extensive facial expressionism and animations, compare the models in MK8 to say, Mario & Sonic 2014 or Mario 3D World. They're all new for MK8, to design and model a character, give them voice samples, program them and create the extensive animation for each character, would take more than a week, don't kid yourself.

 

This isn't some amateurish task, considering the amount of polish MK8 has, it'd take a fair amount of time to create and implement a new character.

[Sami]

There's probably more, yeah. I'd be genuinely surprised if that's the final screen, or if Diddy didn't make the cut. 

 

I just think the roster as of now pretty silly, disregarding the fact that we haven't seen all of it yet. There's really no excuse to have such glaring omissions at this time with seven characters hogging up those spots.

[Komodin]

Who's asking for more babies? Those slots could have gone to much better characters, not just more filler.

 

I think you're missing his point a bit here. Just because you don't like the characters, doesn't mean you should assume that no one does.

[Lady Soniko]

I still think it's a waste of time and space to add all 7 of the Koopalings, and Metal Mario.

 

I mean the track selection is fucking unbelievable, but the characters are sort of "eh" for me right now, I hope they knock it out of the ball park. This is exactly the same way I felt over Sonic Transformed and it's joke of a roster.

[Mando-Whirl-Wind]

None of the models are re-used in MK8, they're all brand new models, with extensive facial expressionism and animations, compare the models in MK8 to say, Mario & Sonic 2014 or Mario 3D World. They're all new for MK8, to design and model a character, give them voice samples, program them and create the extensive animation for each character, would take more than a week, don't kid yourself.

 

This isn't some amateurish task, considering the amount of polish MK8 has, it'd take a fair amount of time to create and implement a new character.

Hey, I never said it was easy, but you are underestimating the skill and processes of trained professionals, it does take time to make a character, but with the proper procedures, techniques, and templates it takes less time than you would think, but I can tell you they can easily make several characters in under a month, and takes far less time than a track

 

 

 

I still think it's a waste of time and space to add all 7 of the Koopalings, and Metal Mario.

 

I mean the track selection is fucking unbelievable, but the characters are sort of "eh" for me right now, I hope they knock it out of the ball park. This is exactly the same way I felt over Sonic Transformed and it's joke of a roster.

I agree with this, but we got a month late, and a more than likely a Nintendo Direct as well, so we just have to wait and see, and at least we have the advantadge, that if there is dlc we will be getting it

[Sami]

I think you're missing his point a bit here. Just because you don't like the characters, doesn't mean you should assume that no one does.

 

The problem isn't that I don't like the characters, it's that even Diddy is absent in a list that includes seven fully featured characters that really should have been just one. It'd be like having Yellow Luma, Co-Star Luma, Hungry Luma, and Lubba all featured as playable characters. 

[Lady Soniko]

Just because it'll take longer to make a character isn't me "underestimating" them, if not I'm more so praising them for taking their time to put polish onto characters, Nintendo are known for taking their time to deliver the best experience for their triple A titles, Mario Kart is literally top tier Nintendo, so I'd imagine they'd take their time.

 

I hope they do take DLC into consideration, they'd be stupid to offer fucking DLC for some Golf game, but not for one of their main titles.

[MegasonicZX]

Honestly as long as toadettes here it doesn't really matter for me much who else they add in (besides E.gadd).

[Jolt_TH]

didnt it take SUMO around 2 - 3 months for SUMO to do one character?
I wouldnt be surprised if it was a similar time frame for the nintendo dev's, only difference would be that Nintendo has more manpower and so could have more teams and have more characters developed at once, dont forget they also had to develop and animate each vehicle as well and how each character sat in each vehicle, as some have different seating positions

[jords]

Im not really feeling it too. its like the roster is being overrun by babies and clones, and now the koopalings. 

[Mando-Whirl-Wind]

didnt it take SUMO around 2 - 3 months for SUMO to do one character?

I wouldnt be surprised if it was a similar time frame for the nintendo dev's, only difference would be that Nintendo has more manpower and so could have more teams and have more characters developed at once, dont forget they also had to develop and animate each vehicle as well and how each character sat in each vehicle, as some have different seating positions

No, thats how long it took a reserve team, post release with other priorities to do it, along with the bearuchy, and having to run each design past the creator, whereas mario kart characters only require internal approval, and this is Nintendos biggest seller, oh and each character has less game traits, and share vehicles with others

[Sami]

Just because it'll take longer to make a character isn't me "underestimating" them, if not I'm more so praising them for taking their time to put polish onto characters, Nintendo are known for taking their time to deliver the best experience for their triple A titles, Mario Kart is literally top tier Nintendo, so I'd imagine they'd take their time.

 

I hope they do take DLC into consideration, they'd be stupid to offer fucking DLC for some Golf game, but not for one of their main titles.

 

This is the same company that hasn't put a single N64 game on the eshop yet, lol.

 

I really genuinely hope so too, but I'm tempering my expectations. 

[Jolt_TH]

I could have sworn that they were talking about during Dev time. however I can still imagine it would take FAR less time than a week at tops, maybe 1-2 months per character. Also Mario kart characters are far more expressive and they may share vehicles with others, but that would make it take longer as they would have to do different animations for each vehicle, as some are different in the seating position.

 

Either way the point i was making was that 5-7 days is utterly ridiculous to expect a whole character to be animated from scratch and be completely finished and implimented into the game

[Lady Soniko]

Their decisions are questionable yes, but you can't deny that when they do push their content, it's definitely worth it.

 

No, thats how long it took a reserve team, post release with other priorities to do it, along with the bearuchy, and having to run each design past the creator, whereas mario kart characters only require internal approval, and this is Nintendos biggest seller, oh and each character has less game traits, and share vehicles with others

 

And even then, 2-3 months on a single character that is still very much amateurishly animated, mainly static and as bare bones as possible (they didn't even bother to animate the transformation for most of the roster, just sparkly effects and an overlaid image to hide the vehicle switching out for another form). You look at potential clone characters in MK8 and they're still uniquely animated, with incredible polish on every character, a single character from MK8 unfortunately could shit all over Sumo's efforts on their characters.

 

So if you imagine Sumo takes 2-3 months to make their characters, imagine giving Nintendo that much time with a character or 2, then imagine how much polish it'd have.