Hello everyone here, I'm new to this game, and the Wii U console (haven't even completed my timeset and joined the MK8 player's page), and I have a question. It doesn't really pertain to MK8 itself, but the Wii U hardware. So I can't think of a better board to ask this, since I know everyone here must have a Wii U.

So I'm trying to start up MK8, and the console is asking me to do an online system update before I can even start my game. I already did an update before so I could play MK8 the first time; some Wii games forced you to do this as well, but just the first time you played them, which, if you ask me, is bad enough. But now the console is asking me to do another update before the game can even start. Is there any way to make these kind of updates optional? What if you don't have an Internet connection (or just don't want to connect the console) and you want to play the game again after a period of absence? I don't really know much about the Wii U yet. These newer consoles are just too complicated for me. I miss the old consoles that played games and did absolutely nothing else. You just popped the cartridge in, turned the power on, and you were ready to play.

Has anybody else had to update your Wii U just so you could play MK8 again and improve your times? If I have to keep dealing with this, I'm probably not going to advance a lot farther than my initial set of times.

Okay, thanks for that. So far I've got gold trophies in the first 7 cups on 50cc and am working on the 8th. Maybe it's just 50cc that's this easy, but I can drive like absolute shit and still rape the CPU drivers, often lapping them.  

I did notice that when my game started up that it said "Version 3.0" on the title screen. (This is a North American NTSC game disc, if that matters any) So I assume that Nintendo is releasing patches in order to fix bugs in the game, or tweak certain mechanics to make the game more balanced.

I also noticed that there are four cups on the track select screen that have to be downloaded. Two of them haven't been released yet, they'll be released in May, but the other two (Egg and Triforce) are already out and you can buy them for $7.99. (I didn't realize that it cost money until after taking several minutes to create a NNID... go figure...) And you need these tracks to get an AF ranking, though it looks like there's also a ranking that excludes DLC tracks. Do I only need times for the original 32 tracks to get a rank that will count toward Combined Mario Kart Rankings? (see signature below) I would hope so, because otherwise, players who don't download the next eight tracks this May would no longer be eligible to have an AF rank, which would cost them points in Combined. (since a full timeset will need 48 times after these two cups are released)
Having to buy additional tracks in order to have a proper ranking in this game? Nonsense.  

(Though I must say, it's really funny to see Zelda stuff in a Mario Kart game now...)

EDIT: I checked... it appears as if the Combined rankings just uses the Regular Tracks-only rank for scoring MK8. Certainly makes it accessible for those of us who have a Wii U, a copy of MK8, and nothing else.   (In fact, the DLC-included rankings has fewer than half the players of the Non-DLC chart anyway!)

I definitely  agree that updates are annoying, especially if they take long. I just get then anyway to enhance my game.

RRD wrote on 01/27/15 at 22:36:26:


Harvey Kartel wrote on 01/27/15 at 22:49:33:


no shit.

ALAKTORN wrote on 01/28/15 at 06:38:23:


yeah that's great, only ever used lower ccs to learn wheel in mkw lol.