Talk:N64 Kalimari Desert

Our current policy on 8DX reroutes creates an awkward situation with this track
Maybe I'm jumping the gun by not waiting until Wave 2's release, but I think this is something that needs discussion before our next move. In the TPP to decide how to handle the 8DX versions of the city courses, we also decided that had the same type of relationship to the original track as, say, Tokyo Blur 2 does, and would therefore also be affected in the same way as those courses by the proposal. What ended up winning the vote, and therefore becoming our current policy, is that the 8DX incarnations of the city courses should have their own articles, effectively being considered something like a "Tokyo Blur 5". That option didn't affect Kalimari Desert at the time.

However, now that Wave 2 has been revealed, it's been pointed out by several people on the internet that it seems to combine and  in the same way as the city courses. Under the policy set by that proposal, that means Kalimari Desert as it appears in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe needs to be its own separate article.

Firstly, it raises the question of what such an article would be called. Leaving aside that I've gone on record as disliking it, the naming scheme we used for and  wouldn't be able to apply.

Secondly, I can only speak for myself here, but I didn't foresee this happening when voting on the policy. Between this and concerns RSM has raised here about the MK8DX layouts later being added to Tour, it has me wondering if we should maybe rethink our policy on this. Perhaps I'm just overreacting to an unexpected situation, though.

What do you all think? Ahemtoday (talk) 15:13, July 28, 2022 (EDT)


 * I thought about this too. Obviously we'll have to wait and see, but it really depends on how much of a change this track would have. If racing on the 2 variant is completely optional, I feel we can pass it off as keeping them the way they are. But let's say that two laps are of the normal route and the final lap has you race the train tracks like in 2, then we'd have an interesting situation. It's not easy, since realistically, we can only be as consistent as Nintendo is and they have as much consistency as Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash has content; barely any. They're already treating a Tour original track as a new track and released several tracks before they even appeared in Tour, giving the latter the same treatment as Ninja Hideaway and making it seem like it's an 8 Deluxe track instead of a Tour track. I feel it'll be hard to find a solution that isn't going to be inconsistent in one way or another. If you want my personal suggestion, while likely won't be ideal to everyone, we create a which would talk about how Kalimari Desert is treated in 8 Deluxe, much like how the Tour tracks are treated. I kinda would oppose going back to merging the Tour tracks with their number 1 variants because they feel too different, as the 8 Deluxe versions aren't exclusively the 1 variants seen in Tour. 16:50, July 28, 2022 (EDT)


 * I definitely don't think we should return to treating 8DX's Tokyo Blur as identical to specifically Tokyo Blur 1 and no other courses. That was neither accurate nor easy to parse, so there wouldn't be much sense in going back to that. I moreso meant reconsidering the "merge all" option from that proposal - 1, 2, 3, 4, 8DX; the works, all in one article. That phrasing makes it sound like I'm pushing that as necessarily what we should do, which I'm not. I just think that maybe we ought to take another look at that concept. If we were to keep a full split (and maybe we should), seems like it would be the best solution. Ahemtoday (talk) 17:12, July 28, 2022 (EDT)


 * I likely won't oppose merging them all into one, if push comes to shove and it is deemed the best option by many others, but keeping them split the way they are now and creating a separate article for Kalimari Desert's appearance in 8 Deluxe would be my preferred solution. 17:16, July 28, 2022 (EDT)


 * the most obvious solution would be to merge articles together to prevent a confusing network of articles. honestly - three articles for one course, all of which are pretty similar in design, is a little too much in my opinion. with that said; i personally don't see an issue with keeping the MK8D content on this article as it is explained perfectly as it is, i believe. alternatively, i also dont see anything wrong with merging the Kaliamri Desert articles together. having a section in the Mario Kart Tour portion that says theres a re-route that uses the tunnel called does also seem like a simple option. however, the threat of there being more instances like this in the future is there, so the safest thing to do is to merge them together to prevent a mess of articles for content that is almost identical, and simply update pre-existing course articles if this is to ever happen again, thats what i think. - RSM 17:56, July 29, 2022 (EDT)
 * i made a page of what a combined article roughly would look like. the only real issue i think it has is the list of Tours it is in is a little too long, however im sure theres a way to turn the Tours list in the infobox into a [show] [hide] sort of thing.- RSM 18:14, July 29, 2022 (EDT)


 * I kind of speculated that the MK8DX version of Kalimari Desert would incorporate both Kalimari Desert 1 and 2 from Tour before the course was even announced for the Booster Course Pass, which only adds to my reasoning for merging the Tour city track variants from the proposal all those months ago. Back then, I also mentioned Kalimari Desert 2 would be merged with the original Kalimari Desert if the mergers passed through, and even pointed out Kalimari Desert 2's minimap in Tour is basically the same as the original Kalimari Desert in Mario Kart 64 anyway. Arend (talk) 18:22, August 1, 2022 (EDT)

I've... gone on quite the journey of opinions while typing this comment, so bear with me.

While it's a very real possibility that something comes along to make our full split policy untenably messy (such as RSM's Paris Promenade 4 scenario), if we start making decisions based on our own conjecture, we could theoretically justify anything. Therefore, I think we should only be considering confirmed information for this decision.

What I was initially going to write was that since something like that had yet to occur, the only new thing that's happened is that we're going to have to create the article. That's basically identical to a city track article with the Tour prefix, so I don't think it would necessarily make a full split untenable.

However, as I mull it over, I begin to wonder whether the concept of an article for specifically as it appears in MK8DX actually makes sense, especially to an end user who won't have been privy to these discussions. I expect them to ask themselves: what makes the MK8 version of Kalimari Desert so special? Why doesn't the 7 version get its own article since it adds the glide ramps? Why don't we have a article because of the extra route to take at the start? Or a article for the different layout of the mushrooms? The reason why - which you and I know but people just looking up Mario Kart courses wouldn't - is that the MK8 version combines in a new layout from.

But that raises its own questions. Namely: if Kalimari Desert 2 had never existed but the MK8DX layout was the same, would it get its own article? The answer is no. As it stands now, these BCP tracks being their own articles isn't contingent on the tracks themselves and how similar they are to the tracks they share a name with, it's contingent on whether or not a third track exists. I don't think that makes as much sense as a wiki policy should.

Of course, all this is relating purely to the 8DX layouts, with little about the Tour layouts. And honestly, if this whole merged-courses thing wasn't happening, I probably would say they should be separate courses since the game seems to treat them that way. But if we keep them split and merge the 8DX courses into the first variant of each track, we're right back where we started - an unideal solution that literally nobody voted for. If we merge the 8DX courses in, we're merging everything in.

However, I don't think that's impossible to justify. They take place on the same model with elements moved around, after all; meaning they're not so different from T or R variations. Especially ones such as or, which blur the line by sending racers far from where they would normally be driving. And yes, the game does seem to treat the city track layouts as different courses, but... I mean, look at the favorite courses of characters and karts. There the T and R variations are, also treated as if they were separate courses.

I'd joke that our options to remain consistent are the full merge or to split all T, R, and R/T variants into their own articles, but the latter wouldn't resolve any of the aforementioned issues when it comes to the 8DX tracks. So despite coming in intending to say we should hold off on a full merge, I accidentally convinced myself that a full merge is the ideal solution even without anything to further complicate our current full split.

Mark me down as supporting a full merge. Ahemtoday (talk) 18:00, August 2, 2022 (EDT)


 * Bringing up the R, T and R/T variants like that, as well as the differences between tracks across the series, you make a very good point. That all being said, I could support a full merge as well. 22:33, August 2, 2022 (EDT)

I was already in support of a full merge as per my vote in the aforementioned proposal. As I stated, it would make navigation simpler and less cluttered, and the articles less repetitive. The bringing up of the R, T, and R/T variants, as well as the appearance of these courses in other entries, only add to the reasoning to do a full merge.

The one issue is something WildWario has brought up in the prior proposal, and that is the fact that we still keep the Mario Kart Arcade GP tracks split, which also make use of alternate pathways for the same general area, but I do have some counterarguments: Therefor, I'm in full agreement that all variants of the city courses and Kalimari Desert should be merged together as per their appearance in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, but I think the courses from the Mario Kart Arcade GP games should be exempt from this full merger until a future entry actually merges (any of) those courses together the same way Mario Kart 8 Deluxe does. Arend (talk) 11:44, August 3, 2022 (EDT)
 * 1) The Mario Kart Arcade GP series are spinoff titles that don't count as official entries to the mainline Mario Kart titles (as evidenced by the fact that they don't ever get referenced anywhere from Mario Kart DS up to the Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Booster Course Pass, when Mario Kart Tour does), and thus they may follow vastly different rules.
 * 2) Judging how nearly all of the Arcade GP courses (aside from Yoshi Park 1 and Yoshi Park 2) have completely different names, and that the Arcade GP DX courses even have different BGMs, the developers probably did not intend them to be the same courses at all, unlike with New York Minute or Kalimari Desert.
 * 3) Similarly, any courses from Arcade GP DX that share their minimaps (or similar ones) with those of prior Arcade GP games aren't intended to be the same course either due to the different names, aesthetics and music, even when the course theme is similar (a reason why I'm opposed to the original Arcade GP version of Bowser's Castle and Castle Wall being merged with Bowser's Factory and the Arcade GP DX version of Bowser's Castle, as explained here).