Talk:Mario Kart Tour

Obstacles Table
Looking at some of the obstacles, they're starting to get quite bloated just by the sheer number of courses and their variants they appear in, in particular, the cones and pipes. I was thinking instead of having a new line for each course variant, we should have a new line for each course, and then list the variants afterward, something like: And if there's a case where it's in a bonus challenge, and then in a variant, maybe something like: Would this work? MarioComix (talk) 20:34, November 9, 2020 (EST)
 * SNES Mario Circuit 1, R, T, R/T
 * 3DS Toad Circuit, T
 * 3DS Rainbow Road R, R/T
 * GCN Dino Dino Jungle (Do Jump Boosts), T, R/T
 * I was planning to do exactly this the other day. I support the change. 20:46, November 9, 2020 (EST)
 * Maybe the variants in which they appear should be listed as (normal, R, T, R/T). Just a suggestion. I otherwise support the change as well. 21:14, November 9, 2020 (EST)
 * Agreed with putting the variants in the same line to avoid bloating. The lists will only get bigger so this kind of aggregation is useful.--Mister Wu (talk) 21:57, November 9, 2020 (EST)
 * The only issue with doing something like (N, R, T, R/T) to denote variants would be in a bonus challenge case like the Dino Dino Jungle case I posted above, or more practically, the Pipe being present in 3DS Shy Guy Bazaar (Do Jump Boosts) but also in its Trick variant by default. Is the following example not too confusing?
 * 3DS Shy Guy Bazaar (T), (N) (Do Jump Boosts) MarioComix (talk) 00:45, November 10, 2020 (EST)
 * Bonus Challenges courses are stored in the separate event folder in the internal data, so there's no need to label them as N, R, T or R/T, just name the Bonus Challenge.--Mister Wu (talk) 04:26, November 10, 2020 (EST)


 * I prefer the first format you proposed.
 * 3DS Shy Guy Bazaar, R (Ring Race), T (Do Jump Boosts)
 * In this example, it's clear which challenge pertains to which variant (Ring Race to the reverse variant, Do Jump Boosts to the trick variant), whereas putting each singular part in brackets--(R) (Ring Race), (T) (Do Jump Boosts)--would be redundant. Would semicolons make the delimitations more visible instead of commas?
 * 3DS Shy Guy Bazaar; R (Ring Race); T (Do Jump Boosts)
 * 08:29, November 10, 2020 (EST)
 * I went on to see if the format worked, and it did. I’ll see if I can update the table. --

Tour-exclusiveness
I don't find the "tour-exclusive" status we attribute to certain drivers, karts and gliders to be too helpful. It can easily become obsolete, with one of the most glaring examples being the Cheermellow, a kart that was available in three tours straight starting with the Winter one, still described as "tour-exclusive" in this page's table. I would remove this term; the instances of availability of each item are listed in the item's table entry and thus already indicate whether it is exclusive to a tour or not. 17:38, November 11, 2020 (EST)
 * While we do have special availabilities listed, I think the main reason for using "tour-exclusive" is to separate the (mainly high-end) drivers, karts, and gliders that always have a chance to be pulled from pipes, regardless of tour, compared to those that are only available in, say, the Sunset Pipes of the Sunset Tour. If we have some kind of distinguisher like that, then we could remove the "tour-exclusive" status. MarioComix (talk) 18:30, November 11, 2020 (EST)
 * Yeah, the Availability column was never implemented and as such, we absolutely need to tell which items are found in every 100 items pipe, let's not forget that the High-End items found in every pipe are also available in the All-Clear pipe and are sold in the Tier Shop. So either we implement an Availability column with, for example, the base set Daily Selects, additional set Daily Selects, every pipe and restricted values or we need at least to tell what items can be found in every pipe and what items are still event-restricted instead.--Mister Wu (talk) 18:39, November 11, 2020 (EST)
 * Some kind of "General availability" column should be implemented, and the possible availabilities could probably be Daily Selects base set, Daily Selects additional set, In every pipe, or None. And, we should assume that the driver/kart/glider debuted with that general availability except when listed, such as Pauline's general availability being "In every pipe (Holiday Tour onwards)". The elephant in the room becomes the current "Availability" column which lists dates. In my opinion, it's redundant as basically every case coincides with the start date of their debut tour, with the few exceptions of "Opponent in a bonus challenge/Playable" or "Added/Obtainable". This can easily be added to the "Tour debut" column with, in the example of Hammer Bro, "Baby Rosalina Tour (bonus challenge opponent)  Hammer Bro Tour (playable)", or Black Yoshi, with something along the lines of "Yoshi Tour (obtainable starting April 15, 2020)". MarioComix (talk) 04:31, November 21, 2020 (EST)

Galleries on tour pages
Okay, so there seems to be a bit of a difference when it comes to hosting image galleries on tour pages. I repeatedly tried creating a gallery on Mario vs. Luigi Tour's article for relevant artwork, but the edit was reverted every time, the reasons given being that it would be inconsistent with the other tour pages which do not feature a gallery and that we already have a main gallery to host the images--Gallery:Mario Kart Tour artwork. I find both of these arguments to be flawed. First, images can exist on multiple pages at once and many pieces of artwork have in fact always existed on multiple relevant pages without anyone raising it as a potential issue (see Mario's running artwork from Super Mario Bros., which is simultaneously present on both Mario's article and artwork gallery). Secondly, and as I have previously stated in a revision summary, "consistency" only regards the way we present a similar type of information between different pages, not the content itself. If that would be the case, we'd be well on our way to removing anything related to Token Shops from certain tour pages because older tours didn't feature them. I think this strife for consistency is exaggerated in this case and, besides, I doubt anyone would be thrown off by the presence of a singular image gallery in sea of pages that don't usually feature that. 19:18, November 20, 2020 (EST)
 * Well, the gallery page exists as a repository for all relevant images, in this case, all Mario Kart Tour screenshots and course icons. Though, if we parallel your example with a racecourse page instead of a tour page, like Maple Treeway, I would agree that the Maple Treeway page's gallery section should contain all images of Maple Treeway uploaded to the Wiki. What's interesting is that every tour page contains its profiles from the Mario Kart Tour Twitter, but each profile is accompanied with a screenshot. I would say that including each of those accompanying screenshots on the tour page would make for a convincing argument, and by extension, any relevant artwork. (I would even go a step further and say any screenshots referencing tour-exclusive elements like pipes or spotlight racers are also relevant, since all that information is covered on the tour page.) MarioComix (talk) 04:50, November 21, 2020 (EST)
 * Yeah, Maple Treeway's page is an even better example. If galleries don't belong to tour pages because there's already a main gallery, then why is this not the case for race course articles? Talk about inconsistency. 05:26, November 21, 2020 (EST)
 * I've gone ahead and reverted the edit because the idea of not allowing something that's worth adding and related to a subject makes zero sense to me. 05:59, November 22, 2020 (EST)
 * If I can find some free time I'll dig through the Mario Kart Tour Twitter and determine which images are relevant to each particular tour according to caption, and add those in as well. MarioComix (talk) 18:01, November 22, 2020 (EST)

Paid banners section
I’ve been adding the Paid banners section on the tour pages that didn’t have them, and I’m not sure if that would be too much for the pages. However, I still think it’ll be necessary to add them for each page. --
 * The banners are fundamental for the information on the availability (some karts are still unobtainable through means other than the commemorative banners), so thanks for adding them, definitely go on with that project of yours!--Mister Wu (talk) 12:43, November 23, 2020 (EST)

R, T and R/T courses
It has been inferred that these letters stand for "Reverse", "Trick" and "Reverse/Trick", which is apparent from the nature of the courses they define, but has Nintendo themselves capitalized these words anywhere? The only one I could source in this article is "Trick" (1, 2), which seems to have been used as an umbrella term for both T and R/T course variants, making it a vague choice. The in-game FAQs don't help the matter as far as I know. Is there anything useful in the game's newsletter or internal data regarding these terms, or may we just as well use them in their de-capitalized forms? 14:58, December 12, 2020 (EST)
 * The game uses capitalization in the text of the challenges, so I think it should be kept in this wiki as well.--Mister Wu (talk) 04:30, December 14, 2020 (EST)
 * These don't appear to refer to course types by their complete names, just their initials (Earn a score of 8,000 or higher on a T course.) I'm specifically interested in knowing if the former are formatted with a capital ("Reverse") or not ("reverse"). 05:09, December 14, 2020 (EST)
 * I don't think there has ever been an explanation of these initials except for the Trick Tour which is the explanation of the T much like the Extreme Tour in Japan is the explanation of the corresponding X, I think the safest approach would be to just use the initials instead of the full words, explaining in a single place (e.g. the main page) what they refer to.--Mister Wu (talk) 15:01, December 14, 2020 (EST)
 * This Twitter post is the closest to official terminology, I think, where there are no capitals. Looking to the Japanese twitter, this post specifically mentions "extreme" before listing the concept as "X course"; similarly, this post also says "reverse" (albeit in the sense of "the course is reversed") before listing the concept as "R course". I think that since the Japanese terminology is converging onto "reverse", and that it's intuitive, we can still call R courses as "reverse variants" (namely when on that course's page). MarioComix (talk) 20:00, December 14, 2020 (EST)

New Years 2021 Glider: New or Variant
So I'm just curious about this, but is it a little bit of a stretch to call the New Years 2021 glider a new glider? Aside from the obvious "1", the glider shares the same concept and same general shape (again, save for the one number difference) with the New Years 2020 glider, but much like other variants, it's a different color scheme. Personally, I feel like it's a variant of the New Years 2020 glider, but I'd rather not make any changes, as there could be reasons for it to qualify as a new glider over a variant. 23:32, December 16, 2020 (EST)
 * I'd heard that variants are counted because they actually share in-game files and/or are grouped into the same folder together. But I don't access the in-game data so I can't confirm anything. MarioComix (talk) 00:56, December 17, 2020 (EST)
 * We don't have access to the files yet but there's no need: the 3D model is different. In general, we don't use concept to determine variants as far as karts and gliders are concerned, because the variants in these cases share the 3D model and just change the textures applied, to the point that the variants are in the same folder as the original.--Mister Wu (talk) 16:26, December 17, 2020 (EST)
 * Alright then, thanks for the explanation. 00:11, December 18, 2020 (EST)

"Not available in the Week 1 Pipe" - Special Availability and Regular Availability
I noticed the recent edits added a lot of notes about drivers, karts, and/or gliders having special availability such as "X Tour (Week 2 spotlight)" that they are "not available in the Week 1 Pipe". While I was taking this to be assumed, that these tour-exclusive items are only obtainable from their special availabilities during certain tours, i.e. if a tour-exclusive item is available for "X Tour (Week 2 spotlight)", then we'd assume it's not available at any other time in that tour. But I'm thinking that leads to a conundrum, if I'm recalling correctly, items introduced in a tour as a spotlight item for one week, can still be obtained from the other week, e.g. Pauline (Party Time) was Week 1 spotlight for Holiday Tour, but could still be obtained in Week 2 Holiday Tour Pipe.

So I'm thinking we need to delineate these availabilities more, such as by having a "Regular availability" section that lists the "any tour" availabilities of items (including Daily Selects, the main weekly Pipes) and a "Special availability" that clearly delineates if an item has "X Tour (Week 1 non-spotlight, Week 2 spotlight)" kind of availability. MarioComix (talk) 05:05, December 18, 2020 (EST)
 * Well, I proposed this many times, so I can only agree with the column regarding the type of general availability as well as adding the non-spotlight availability. In general, the tour's spotlight items can be obtained in both 100-items pipes, but only in one pipe they are certainly obtained when emptying the pipe. There are also special cases, like the Christmas-themed spotlight items from the 2020 Winter Tour that are available also in the first 100-items pipe of the Rosalina Tour, even though they aren't spotlight in the Rosalina Tour.--Mister Wu (talk) 16:50, December 20, 2020 (EST)

Expanding the favored and favorite courses page
I’m currently thinking on how I would expand the page with the items that unlock courses at level 3 and level 6. For the indicators, I’m slightly questioned if should use astericks or footnote headers. For the locked items, should I include the the favored items to the favorite selection (with their indicators) while leaving them in the original spot? --
 * I'd add LV3 and LV6 so it should clearly show the superscript, maybe try and see if it works, I think you should add in the favored courses the ones that then become favorite, maybe if the superscript works you can add another superscript to explain that the course is then upgraded. In the courses page, it is very important to follow a similar approach - tracking which items get upgraded is quite time-consuming so this can be useful information, in my opinion.--Mister Wu (talk) 14:26, December 22, 2020 (EST)
 * I did it for 3DS Rainbow Road, and a few for 3DS Toad Circuit, but not all of the items, and it worked. I may do the same for the other courses as well. --

Use of present tense
Can somebody tell me why past tense verbs keep getting changed to present tense on course pages in sections about previous tours? It makes no sense to describe the past state of something in present terms (e.g. "Choco Island appears in the Exploration Tour"--an in-game event that ran back in July) and it's starting to get annoying with how vehemently this gets reinforced. 21:00, December 27, 2020 (EST)
 * Since present tense is most commonly used on the Wiki, I think they may be defaulting to reverting to present tense. In my opinion, until Mario Kart Tour settles on some kind of set schedule of recurring, identical tours, we should treat each tour as a one-time event and therefore they should use the past tense. (Technically the concurrent tour should use present tense too, but it makes things easier to just use past tense on that as well.) MarioComix (talk) 00:48, December 28, 2020 (EST)

Split?
So this is now the second longest non-list page on the wiki, and it loads slower than molasses at this point which makes it annoying to patrol edits and it's only going to get worse. I think it's time to start thinking about splitting this off into smaller, more manageable pages. -- 11:35, January 27, 2021 (EST)
 * I feel like we could easily split tho challenges to, as there's no immediate need to have that on the main game page. Similarly, we could split off the drivers, karts, and gliders into respective lists. However, no information should be permanently removed from the wiki. In addition, I archive the first 50 messages from this talk page to prevent it from becoming too bloated, similar to what with did with the Mario talk page. 11:40, January 27, 2021 (EST)
 * I definitely feel like there's potentially too many tables and images, such as all those tables just to explain points; they probably shouldn't be on the main page. For tables, if we set them to "collapse" (i.e. we can click to "show" or "hide"), would that decrease loading times? I also feel like we could split off several pages to house these tables specifically, such as maybe "Mario Kart Tour Shop" and "List of hazards, obstacles, and course elements in Mario Kart Tour"? MarioComix (talk) 18:51, January 27, 2021 (EST)

On the naming conventions of new variants and power-up forms
Now that we had a few new power-up form and the confirmation that Peachette is considered a power-up form of Toadette as she's put in Team Daisy, we can finally have a look at the naming conventions of the new power-up forms and variants.

Please note that the variants from previous games, such as Red Yoshi or Pink Shy Guy, just bear the name they had in the original game.

New characters

Their naming convention is just

[Name of character]


 * They always get completely new emblems
 * They often become regular drivers, found in every first and second pipe of each tour
 * When regular, they are eligible for getting their own cup

New power-up forms

They follow the general naming convention established in the Mario franchise, so save for special cases like Peachette the naming convention is

[Name of power-up form] [Name of character]


 * As revealed by Peachette in the Peach vs. Daisy rally, they are considered the same as the original character as far as grouping in team rallies is concerned
 * They sometimes get new emblems or at least recolored emblems
 * When they have a new or recolored emblem and when they are regular, they are eligible for getting their own cup

New variants

They follow this naming convention

[Name of character] ([Name of variant])


 * They are considered the same as the original character as far as the grouping in team rallies is concerned
 * As revealed by the Birdos, colored members of the species are now considered variants even if they are different characters
 * The colored variants get a recolored emblems, the others very frequently feature the same emblem as the original character
 * As suggested by the naming convention, they are not supposed to get their own cup

I think this sums up what we observed so far, based on these observations I introduced the (new power-up form) term in the driver list.--Mister Wu (talk) 11:49, February 12, 2021 (EST)


 * In my opinion, the "power-up form" concept is ignoring the major basis for the variant concept, which is that the variants are using the same model/skeleton as the base character (the example being like Echo Fighters from Smash Bros.). As far as the game is concerned, variants are all separate characters (as explained in the pipes, when they say how each character is delineated by their exact name). However, the reason we didn't separate variants out (besides for keeping the pages tidier) is that there is a clear sharing of assets between variants that new characters do not exhibit. In that sense, Peachette cannot be a variant of Toadette because they do not share those assets, and I believe she should count as a new character because all her voices, animations, and emblem are unique. The clearest example of shared assets between variants is when you tap them before the race starts; they all share that animation. Notably, Captain Toad actually shares all his animations with Toad, even his winning animations, so he's more similar to Toad than Peachette is to Toadette.
 * In short, I don't believe the "power-up form" nomenclature is significant because it ignores the concept of setting variants by assets as opposed to setting variants by name. (Like how the Calico Parafoil is not a variant of the Parafoil since they do not share assets.) Also notably, all power-up forms who were previously considered variants only had recoloured emblems, not new emblems. In my opinion, an entirely unique emblem is grounds for being a wholly new character (as we can see being applied on Captain Toad). MarioComix (talk) 18:11, February 12, 2021 (EST)

I'd like to suggest a new naming convention that will take into account whether the power-up form is variant-like (shares resources, animations, voices, and other assets with the base character, e.g. Penguin Luigi and Fire Rosalina) or character-like (does not necessarily share resources, voices, or other assets, e.g. Peachette or Ice Mario): power-up variant and power-up character. This way it incorporates the classification of power-up forms (which do not necessarily match the variant naming convention) as well as the basis for classifying variants in the first place (that they share assets with a base character). Are there any dissenting opinions or other feedback? MarioComix (talk) 16:57, February 19, 2021 (EST)
 * While it would be neat to be able to use a simple criterion like we do for the karts and gliders, we simply can't do that for drivers due to how differently are drivers organized: in that sense exclusively the colored variants are actual variants, as they reside in the same folder and apply a texture swap to the character. Even the variants flagged as such in the game stay in a different folder with different assets, most animations files of variants are completely different even when the animation is supposed to be the same, and often the voice clips are different as well, an example being Wintertime Peach saying "Wintertime!" when selected. I think we should rather focus on additional aspects stemming from how the game handles them: what I wrote above tries to start from there, now that we have more power-up forms showing us how they are handled compared to the openly stated variants. In my opinion Peachette being put in Team Daisy despite the clear connection with Peach strongly suggests how she's still seen as a Toadette form, which she effectively is. Of course, there's no perfect approach, and we can revert to just putting power-up forms and variants together if there's a consensus on that, it's just that with power-up forms following different naming conventions and team rallies being character-based I thought that it might have been useful to distinguish these two types of variants in the game, while clarifying in the process the reason behind the otherwise hard to explain placement of Peachette in Team Daisy.--Mister Wu (talk) 18:57, February 19, 2021 (EST)
 * That's the thing, right, is that the game effectively treats variants as separate characters. In order to simplify that approach, we came up with the variant approach, which was originally based on the relative sharing of assets between Mario and Mario (Musician) (versus, say, Metal Mario or Dry Bowser, who do not share the same range of assets, if at all). The most consistent one I've seen (but cannot yet confirm applies to all "variants") is the animation the character performs when performing a perfect rocket start (hold down from 2, then release at "go") - from what I've seen, Rosalina shares it with Rosalina (Aurora), while characters as similar as Hammer Bro and relatives all have a unique one. This isn't to say variants can't have unique attributes, like trick animations for Mario (Chef), winning animations for Mario (Musician), and voice lines for Peach (Wintertime). But dressing down a character with wholly unique assets into a power-up form is just inconsistent when we list Captain Toad as new, despite sharing almost all of his animations with Toad. It's true that team rallies place the same character with different forms into the same team, but that applies to the baby forms as well, who aren't necessarily power-up forms. After all, a "new character" introduced to the series is based on whether they've appeared in the series before, but these variants are essentially reusing assets from existing characters, hence their newness becomes murky.
 * There's a good analogy in the Echo Fighters from Super Smash Bros. Daisy is new to the series in Ultimate, but she is not considered a fully-fledged fighter because she still shares Peach's moveset - she is built on existing assets from Peach. But that isn't to say that characters who shared assets can't be their own figher, as seen in the case of the Melee clones all being their own fighter. Essentially, the variants are based on reusing particular assets (like emblems or the rocket start animation), hence why they don't sort out as a wholly new character. MarioComix (talk) 19:29, February 19, 2021 (EST)
 * For the record, Captain Toad shouldn't be considered a variant of Toad regardless of any shared assets since Captain Toad is confirmed to be a separate character. I prefer the "new power-up form" distinction since the old system had quirks like Ice Mario being considered a new driver outright when he really shouldn't have been. The old organization system relied way too much on digging into the files to determine exactly what a "variant" is which in some cases caused conflicts with what our eyes and common sense should have told us. -- 20:37, February 21, 2021 (EST)
 * If that's the case, then Birdos and Yoshis shouldn't be considered variants? And with Penguin Yellow Toad being added, would we have called him a "new character" instead of a "new variant"? I can't stress enough that we should not be labelling variants because they are the same character in-universe, but because the "new character" (the variant) is similar enough to the existing character that they don't constitute a wholly new character. Common sense tells us that if a "character" can fit as a costume swap, they are a variant. (Similarly, Peachette cannot be a costume swap of Toadette, hence "new power-up character" terminology). There is enough wiggle room with the "power-up character/variant" terminology I'm proposing that we could still label Captain Toad as a "new power-up character". MarioComix (talk) 21:38, February 21, 2021 (EST)
 * We can't go on like that exactly because of that Captain Toad case that showed that the developers often reuse assets regardless of the status of the character introduced - let's not make the mistake of not listening Nintendo on him being a unique character and likening him to Toadette (Explorer)! -, but much more importantly because we now have different data than at the beginning: now we know that the developers use a specific labeling for variants, and so far they also showed that even if a variant is permanently in the pipes and has an emblem recolor, they still don't get their own cup. Indeed, we should first and foremost label as variant the characters that were labeled as such by the developers. However, many editors were still labeling similar forms as variants as well even though they didn't have the variant labeling, they had a unique emblem and even their own cup, and while I wanted to correct this, the Peach vs. Daisy Tour happened and showed that this "mistake" had some merit: the forms of characters are indeed grouped with the characters in groupings like the ones seen in this tour. It's not a matter of finding the groupings, but rather the discovery of the implication that forms lead to grouping, the other direction of the implication. This is why I introduced the power-up form term: on one hand it makes life easier for the other editors who can clearly see when to actually use the new variant term, on the other it acknowledges these groupings that in the case of Peachette became pretty apparent. Since she has a new emblem, Peachette can be considered a new character like Ice Mario and both get their own cups, but at the same time they aren't necesarily as independent as Nabbit can be when it comes to groupings. Lastly, a clarification on the term used: at the moment new baby forms haven't been introduced, so I used a more specific term as it's again clearer than a generic new form term, of course if new babies pop up and they are confirmed to be grouped with the main characters, the new form term will be used. We can also use it right now, or we can just remove the new form terms altogether and only go with the new variant term applied to the characters clearly labeled as such; I still think that for editors this term can come in handy.--Mister Wu (talk) 12:06, February 22, 2021 (EST)
 * Is there a way to compromise on the situation, such as having "new power-up form"/"new power-up character"? This way, we can retain the information of characters being grouped together in Team Rallies ("power-up") as well as indicating when the character is relatively a wholly new character (like Peachette) versus when they are more variant-like (like Penguin Luigi)? MarioComix (talk) 17:52, February 22, 2021 (EST)
 * As I said above, the developer don't put the same amount of work into the drivers for various reasons, making these kinds of criteria problematic. However there is something that might help you in highlighting the new power-up forms on which the developers worked more: the cups! Indeed, the additional work poured into Peachette and Ice Mario resulted in them earning a different emblem and a cup. Having had a cup is relevant gameplay-wise as it means that from time to time the driver will get a boost in the normal and favored courses, but at the moment we aren't using a mark to highlight the driver who received a cup. Adding such a mark would finally set Peachette and Ice Mario apart from new forms who will likely never receive a cup like Penguin Luigi or Cat Toad.--Mister Wu (talk) 20:30, February 22, 2021 (EST)
 * As the game has been ongoing, I suppose with our ever-developing criteria that a "power-up form" can be considered a separate character if they receive a cup, in which case we can label them a "new power-up character"? If so, then shall I move to make that edit? MarioComix (talk) 21:44, February 22, 2021 (EST)
 * I find that term a bit awkward, as honestly it's more a reinterpretation on our side that some new power-up forms are more character-y than others in order to solve our problem of counting and listing the new characters introduced in each game. Maybe we can find a better term, but I'd rather focus on finding a simple yet effective way to highlight the drivers who received a cup so far. If we'll do it well I think that readers will get the same message they'd get if we considered some high-effort new power-up forms as brand new characters.--Mister Wu (talk) 22:22, February 22, 2021 (EST)

I have a good news and a bad news:

the good news is that the developers themselves are starting to use the variant term:

Throwback Drivers Pipe You can get variants of well-known

characters like Mario (Musician) and

Peach (Vacation)! Tap Details to

learn more. New Year's 2021 Tour second pipe Celebrating the New Year! High-End

Appearance Rate at 12%! Nine Variants

of Mario Are in the Spotlight! Berlin Tour second pipe The Second Pipe Is Here!

Three High-End Variants of

Luigi Are Here!

The bad news is that none of the pipes in which the variant term was used featured Ice Mario or Peachette, not allowing us to know their official status. Still, due to the wiki policy I already updated power-up form to power-up variant to reflect the term used while highlighting how the power-up forms still get a different treatment in some cases. We can also just call all of them variants to more closely follow the in-game text, but we can't treat Ice Mario and Peachette differently until we get a confirmation of their status by the in-game text itself.--Mister Wu (talk) 12:45, March 12, 2021 (EST)
 * Well, a little update: the current challenges that must be cleared using Mario can be cleared using both Ice Mario and Metal Mario, so both are considered to be Mario and not separate characters.--Mister Wu (talk) 05:22, March 17, 2021 (EDT)
 * And according to one of those comments, Baby Mario doesn't count. So I suppose Metal Mario and Ice Mario can be considered alternate "forms" of (vanilla) Mario. MarioComix (talk) 18:16, March 17, 2021 (EDT)

Okay, so I don't believe that Peachette should be classified as a variant of Toadette. Sure, Peachette is a power-up form of Toadette, but I personally think that variants refers to a character in a different outfit or costume or something of the sort. Peachette has her own unique base model, voice lines, and other stuff, and isn't just some outfit of Toadette. The babies are counted as unique characters for the same reason; they are still the same character as their adult form, but look completely different. Plus, the babies sometimes even get their own outfits. If we get down to it, all costumes of a character branch from the same base model, with only a few exceptions like Mario (SNES). Oh, and as for Ice Mario, he should be considered a variant of Metal Mario or Mario, but not a unique character. 12:24 PM, 4/2/2021 (EST)
 * With her being grouped with Toadette and not Peach in the Peach vs. Daisy Tour we can't be sure about Peachette either. If we get a confirmation that Peachette is considered a brand new character we'll change her designation, but the in-game material so far rather suggested otherwise.--Mister Wu (talk) 19:22, April 2, 2021 (EDT)
 * To clarify, Peachette and Ice Mario are not being considered as variants, but alternate power-up forms. What this means exactly, and whether there's any differentiation between power-up variants and power-up characters, is yet to be seen. MarioComix (talk) 19:48, April 2, 2021 (EDT)
 * Indeed, Mario Kart Tour has a different approach to drivers in general: not only many are explicitly flagged as variants through the use of brackets, the challenges also clearly showed that what we previously considered separate characters (Mario and Metal Mario) aren't really separate. It's more complex but understandable - effectively with Mario Kart 8 the roster started having multiple forms of Peach and Mario so a new approach to the characters was to be expected, especially in a game where variants and forms are so represented.--Mister Wu (talk) 20:16, April 2, 2021 (EDT)
 * Metal Mario remains split due to a proposal (misunderstanding notwithstanding). The new challenge info warrants another merge proposal. LinkTheLefty (talk) 11:06, April 21, 2021 (EDT)

The Comet Tail as a variant of its unreleased kart
I've been thinking about this for the longest, and it's with the Comet Tail. I noticed that the unused texture of the kart, which was first found in the files during the Vancouver Tour, but was removed in the version 2.0.0 update, may have been the original texture of the kart, since its variant was released first, similar to how the Gilded Prancer, Dasher II and Pirate Sushi Racer were released before their original counterparts. I feel like it would be better if we consider it a variant. -- 19:07, February 21, 2021 (EST)
 * I say that until the original version is released, let's leave the Comet Tail as the "new kart". The original version is not a kart from a previous game that it could be a variant of, and since they removed it there's even a chance it never gets released. But if that original kart gets released, then I say it's probably fair to change the Comet Tail to be the variant. MarioComix (talk) 21:38, February 21, 2021 (EST)

Course icons in galleries
While this doesn't quite relate to this article per se, it does involve our coverage of the game, and I couldn't think of a better place to put it, so here we go. Does anyone else think the inclusion of the course icons in the galleries for individual characters is getting excessive? Take my main man Waluigi as an example. He only has 1 variant in the game as of now, but he has 18 MKT course icons in his gallery. These images aren't illustrating anything new about the character, it's just the same artwork pasted over a different course. We don't pile every single in-game image that happens to have a character in it into their gallery, so why should this be any different? I suggest limiting it to just 1 course icon per variant. Whether it would be a course that goes with the character well (i.e. Waluigi Pinball for Waluigi, London Loop for his Bus Driver variant) or just on a first come first serve basis is up for discussion, but something really needs to be done about this. -- 12:08, March 3, 2021 (EST)
 * To my understanding, technically a subject's gallery should include every image pertaining to that subject; we're just behind on getting every image into the gallery. However, I agree that the presence of the course icons is rather excessive. Perhaps it's possible to separate them out from the general "Sprites and models" section, like how we've started including an "Emblems" sub-section? I could also see merit in making a dedicated gallery for MKT course icons/thumbnails (no screenshots), and they would only appear in there and not in other galleries; although the exact criteria for that exclusion would be somewhat arbitrary, I'd like to hear others weigh in on our possible options. MarioComix (talk) 17:18, March 3, 2021 (EST)

Split drivers and karts, gliders, and wheels from this page
Alright, time to tackle this behemoth. This is currently the second longest non-list article on the wiki surpassed only by Bowser's article, loading takes a long time, and with how often this game gets updated, it's just going to keep getting worse. I suggest starting by splitting off the sections that are currently the longest and still growing, drivers, karts, and gliders (and tires too, why not). This would create two new articles, "List of drivers in Mario Kart Tour" and "List of karts, gliders, and tires in Mario Kart Tour". I've also included options to split only one or the other, if you disagree with the handling of the karts and related items or if you just think only one of them should be split for some reason. And of course there's always the option to split nothing if you feel so inclined.

Proposer: Deadline: March 22, 2021, 23:59 GMT

Split both

 * 1) I think the guy who proposed this has some pretty good ideas.
 * 2) Let's do it!
 * 3) Per proposal.
 * 4) Per proposal; also consider either gallery or table of head icons to remain in main page section, and potential to split Drivers/Karts/Gliders
 * 5) Per proposal.
 * 6) Per proposal.
 * 7) Per proposal.
 * 8) Per proposal.
 * 9) I would rather have the gliders be separate from the karts but for now I'll vote for this option since it is the closest one to that.
 * 10) Per proposal.

Comments
I think splitting it is fine and dandy, as it gives us room to cover details pertaining to these in more depth (like specific availabilities both Tour-exclusive and "regular", such as in Pipes). I'm just brainstorming how the section will look on the main page. I suppose we can keep the opening paragraph for each. My main concern is the Drivers section, it would just feel odd to not mention who's playable in the game on the main page - might just be me, though. I'm thinking we could have a small table that would list "Returning Drivers" and "New Drivers" and we could use their head icons just to give a brief idea of who's in the game without needing to go to the list page itself? Though for karts, gliders, and tires, I'm thinking the opening paragraph could be enough. We could just expand it to mention how karts and gliders affect the points system (e.g. karts give bonus points multipliers, gliders increase combo time). Any thoughts? MarioComix (talk) 18:50, March 8, 2021 (EST)
 * Since there already is an image of the entire roster in the Drivers section, we could probably make that larger for better visibility and potentially move it. -- 18:56, March 8, 2021 (EST)
 * Sounds good to me. You mean like this? 01:33, March 9, 2021 (EST)
 * Yeah, that's pretty much exactly what I was thinking. -- 11:39, March 9, 2021 (EST)
 * I second the "table of head icons" idea. That allows us to link each individual driver to their corresponding wiki page. --Scepthan (talk) 02:51, March 9, 2021 (EST)
 * The image would be best if we can link each Driver to their page (kind of like how the RPG game maps can link to different locations). But my concern is that the Drivers list image would need to be updated every tour and in a relatively timely manner, which it hasn't been doing so far, unless someone would like to step up to that responsibility. So the table of head icons would be easier to keep up-to-date. MarioComix (talk) 03:56, March 9, 2021 (EST)
 * I have a suggestion. Drivers, karts and gliders sections can be formatted like a gallery. It's detailed information (like their special availability, traits) can be added to their driver/kart/glider profiles and statistic page or section, alongside the favourite/favoured course info. - 04:58, March 9, 2021 (EST)
 * The gallery idea is good, but the problem with shunting away all the information into each page's statistics section is that it will be hard to retrieve that information comparatively, e.g. someone wants to know which of their drivers qualifies as having short sleeves, now they'd have to check every single Profiles and statistics page individually to find that. I think that splitting off the current lists into separate pages retains that accessibility. MarioComix (talk) 16:26, March 9, 2021 (EST)
 * There's the badges page with most of the traits info in one section. - 02:36, March 10, 2021 (EST)
 * Well, I never knew that table existed. I'm guessing we should link to that in the main page's Drivers section once the list gets split off/simplified. MarioComix (talk) 18:31, March 10, 2021 (EST)

Why there isn't the option to make separate pages for each main category (driver, kart and glider)? I find this aspect of the current proposal a bit odd, especially considering how there are more karts than drivers, and the trend is to make the gap even wider. By the way, I didn't mention the tires as they have no gameplay relevance and are tied to karts, so they can rather be added to a column of the kart table if a page dedicated to them would be overkill.--Mister Wu (talk) 15:52, March 9, 2021 (EST)
 * Actually, you make a good point. I think the best course of action is to split Drivers, Karts, and Gliders each into their own list. MarioComix (talk) 16:26, March 9, 2021 (EST)
 * I anticipated this to be brought up while making the proposal, but in the interest of simplicity I thought it would be best to limit it to only these two pages for now. I grouped the karts and gliders together because they're both part of the "kart" aspect of the game, and added tires as well because while that topic isn't nearly as large or expanding as fast as the others, it felt like it made more sense to have them on the kart article than all alone on the main page. This is mostly intended as a starting point, the karts and gliders can either be split further with another TPP down the line, or you can opt to vote for only splitting the drivers for now and the karts and gliders can be handled later (which is half of why I included the options to only split one or the other, the other half being in case of general objections against splitting at all for some reason). -- 16:49, March 9, 2021 (EST)

Now that the Split has Occurred
First, I think that the tires section can be removed, and just added as a note within the karts section (since the tires are tied to each kart), and even if/when the gliders are split out from that other list, the karts and tires were likely to stay on one page. More importantly, the issue I take with using the drivers list screenshot (as opposed to a table of head icons) is that the screenshot has not been consistently updated with each tour. If someone were to commit to taking this on and updating it each tour, then I think that's fine to use the screenshot. But if no one is able to, I think it would be better to use a table since that's easier to update with each tour. (The screenshot could potentially be moved to the drivers list page to give a rough overview of all the characters in the game without needing to scroll through the entire list.) As it stands at the time of writing, this screenshot has been out-of-date for 6 weeks. Imagine if our coverage for a newly-released game was also out-of-date for 6 weeks. I think it's important that the main page and preview of the drivers list on that main page should be accurate and up-to-date, so that at least if people don't want to go to the full drivers list page they can get the full picture of who's available. MarioComix (talk) 16:17, March 23, 2021 (EDT)


 * I've been keeping a psd document of the drivers image and it does takes a lot of time to update. Six weeks is condensed into three tours, and on average that's only three drivers out of more than one hundred. I feel a table would be more difficult to format as the roster gets larger. Now that the section has been split off I see why it's more important to have an up-to-date image, so I'll try and have it updated every tour from now on.


 * 22:54, March 23, 2021 (EDT)


 * Alright then, thanks for your efforts! I agree that the image would look better than a table, so as long as it's still practical then let's stick with that. MarioComix (talk) 00:20, March 24, 2021 (EDT)


 * Cool!


 * 03:57, March 24, 2021 (EDT)

Remove “Notes” sections on tour pages

 * ! NEW OPTION ADDED !

Ninja Tour

The Ninja Tour reuses the Wario Cup's bonus challenge from the 2019 Winter Tour for this tour's Hammer Bro Cup, the Bowser Jr. Cup and Baby Rosalina Cup's bonus challenges from the Valentine's Tour for this tour's Toadette Cup and Pauline Cup (although the 1-star and 3-star requirements for the latter were changed from 5 and 14 to 6 and 13), the Rosalina Cup's bonus challenge from the Vancouver Tour for this tour's Larry Cup (although the 1-star, 2-star, and 3-star requirements were all increased from 1:50.00, 1:28.00, and 1:16.00 to 1:35.00, 1:20.00, and 1:14.00), the Donkey Kong Cup's bonus challenge from the Mario Bros. Tour for this tour's Rosalina Cup, the Toad Cup's bonus challenge from the Hammer Bro Tour for this tour's Waluigi Cup, the Dry Bones Cup's bonus challenge from the Marine Tour for this tour's Roy Cup (although the 3-star requirement was increased from 750 to 800), and the Roy Cup's bonus challenge from the Los Angeles Tour for this tour's Wario Cup.

The above paragraph is cluttered, hard to follow, and, more than anything, redundant: we already have pages for each bonus challenge listing their tour appearances as well as the objectives set in different iterations. On game articles, we rarely if ever mention the previous appearances of each character, enemy, object, or entity that appears in a game. I don’t see why bonus challenges should receive a different treatment, especially at this point in the game’s lifespan when they are bound to be recycled often enough that this is not really worth an express mention.

If the majority votes to instead keep these notes, then it stands to reason that they need some heavy rewriting.

At the suggestion of, I decided to add an option to keep the notes, but reorganise them as footnotes. While keeping them would run counter to the parallel that entities appearing and changing between games is not always relevant to one particular game, I could see some importance in expressly mentioning which bonus challenge appeared previously and which changes occured in it since this happens across events within one game.

Proposer: Deadline: April 29, 2021, 23:59 GMT

Remove

 * 1) Primary choice.
 * 2) Per proposal.
 * 3) Per proposal.
 * 4) Per proposal. I suppose we should at least add a footnote or asterisk to indicate which challenges were reused, and potentially if the Grand Star criteria was changed too (* reused, ** reused and new criteria). I don't think it's necessary to explain how the criteria was changed, not only do we have previous tours archived so that one could just go back and check them, but the exact changes wouldn't really serve a purpose.
 * 5) Per proposal.
 * 6) Even if its get removed, as least a small indicator should be used for a bonus challenge if its reused from a previous tour. See my comment below for more information.
 * 7) I agree with adding a minor indicator. It really doesn't need a confusing paragraph to note that it's reused.
 * 8) If the outcome of this proposal is anything to go by...
 * 9) Per proposal; something about them should have been done given how confusing they've gotten.
 * 10) Per proposal.

Keep, but reorganise as footnotes

 * 1) Secondary choice.
 * 2) My second and preferred choice, as I stated below.
 * 3) Per proposal.
 * 4) Less invasive, but still easier to find than having to go to the respective Bonus Challenge page.

Comments
I would like to note that these sections were added before the challenge pages were created, so they did originally serve a purpose (albeit it a pretty trivial one). --Scepthan (talk) 13:51, April 15, 2021 (EDT)

In the earliest tours that reused bonus challenges, there were a total of a least 3 or 4 bonus challenges in each tour. However, by the Berlin Tour, there were more bonus challenges that were reused from previous tours than the new bonus challenges, with most of them having the Grand Star requirements changed. So while I support to remove the "Notes" section, it should not be removed completely. Instead, put a small "foot-note" template to the right of the bonus challenge if that challenge is reused from a previous tour. This was done four months ago but I thought we only use that template for tour pages if its contains a small error or a character appearing in a bonus challenge before becoming playable in a later tour, so I changed it back. After I saw this proposal (and after I found that the "Notes" section nowadays can be confusion to read, especially in recent tours), I do think this should be removed but at least, a small indicator should be use in place if it pass. 19:23, April 15, 2021 (EDT)
 * I think that's reasonable. I added another option in the proposal to reflect what you said. 20:29, April 15, 2021 (EDT)

Inconsistency with Course Galleries
This is more of an issue with the course pages, but I've put this here because this is a central hub.

I recently noticed when I was on Sydney Sprint that the first course icon picture for the normal course indicates the character in the picture, even though this is not the case for Reverse, Trick, or Reverse/Trick variants (the first picture does not list the character, but later pictures do). However, on some other course pages, such as Mario Circuit (3DS), there's a picture of the normal course without a character indicator. There seems to be an issue with consistency across course pages. Any idea what should be done regarding this? BMfan08 (talk) 12:12, April 21, 2021 (EDT)


 * It has always bugged me that we do this; I would vote for adding the character's name to all course icon descriptions. A slightly deeper and more difficult issue to fix is the fact that the image filenames are somewhat inconsistent as well: the first character to ever appear on a course icon is deemed the "default character" and not given a _CharacterName suffix on the end of the filename, while all future drivers that appear on that same course icon do get a suffix. This has been a somewhat annoying issue for me when, for example, I'm trying to add an old track to a new tour; I'll use the TrackName_CharacterName format, only to find out that the image doesn't render because the character is in fact the "default" on that course according to the wiki. (For example, File:MKT_Icon_DKPassRDS_BabyPeach.png doesn't work, because the file is listed under File:MKT_Icon_DKPassRDS.png.) I don't know of any situations in which we would truly actually need a "default character" (correct me if I'm wrong), but so as not to break everything, a compromise would be to take each default course icon and reupload the same image but with the character suffix added to the filename. --Scepthan (talk) 20:28, April 21, 2021 (EDT)


 * Yeah, I totally get that. For instance, Dry Bones is considered "default" for 3DS Cheep Cheep Lagoon T because he was the first one for that course, but in reality he's only a favored character that got boosted to favorite in that instance. I'd certainly consider setting up a proposal for this, but I reckon it would have to be two-fold if we also consider file names. BMfan08 (talk) 23:38, April 21, 2021 (EDT)

"Ninth Mainline Game"
Here's a link to the Japanese Mario Portal. If you click here into the Mario Kart series, it lists all the Mario Kart games excluding the arcade installments, including Tour and Live: Home Circuit. For comparison, its page on the Super Mario series includes all of our Super Mario games plus Super Mario Bros. 35, its Mario Party page includes every installment without the arcade games, and its Mario Tennis page includes all the Camelot-developed games. If our Super Mario page is acknowledging games like Maker and Run, then for consistency we should be acknowledging Tour and Live: Home Circuit, unless someone has better evidence against it, or would like to arbitrarily draw the line between which games "count" as mainline and which as spin-offs, and disregard the Mario Portal entirely. MarioComix (talk) 19:15, May 5, 2021 (EDT)

Most people don't consider Tour to be a mainline title, and most people don't consider Super Mario Run to be a main series Mario title. I don't think Nintendo considers them to be main titles either, as several ports are listed on that page, one of them being Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, which we don't have listed as main series. There are many many differences between Tour and Run the main games, too many for me to list here. I propose we vote on them being spin-offs. Polterpup (talk) 13:10, May 7, 2021 (EDT)
 * That just seems a bit arbitrary, we should really be doing things by how Nintendo handles them rather than what fans think of them. 13:17, May 7, 2021 (EDT)
 * I'm not going just based on what the fans think. If Tour and Run are main series, then 8 Deluxe, New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe, and Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury should be listed as main titles based on this page. Besides, does the page specifically state these are main titles? Polterpup (talk) 13:27, May 7, 2021 (EDT)
 * Those are re-releases of past games, so no they shouldn't really. 13:35, May 7, 2021 (EDT)
 * What about Home Circuit then? Polterpup (talk) 13:43, May 7, 2021 (EDT)

If Mario Kart Tour can be considered mainline, then all the arcades, MK8DX and Home Circuit should be mainline too! RSM (talk) 13:59, May 7, 2021 (EDT)
 * MK8DX definitely shouldn't because like I said it's a straight port of a past game. Mario Kart Tour is a new game so it can be. 14:06, May 7, 2021 (EDT)
 * thank you for ignoring the other ones just so u can keep defending ur point RSM (talk) 14:07, May 7, 2021 (EDT)
 * I'm not sure what to think about those ones actually. 14:10, May 7, 2021 (EDT)
 * As I said in the page linked above, the arcade games are not listed on the series page, likely because they're all developed by 3rd-party studios. MarioComix (talk) 17:47, May 7, 2021 (EDT)

Regarding re-releases, they are re-releases of main games, hence why they're listed on the series page (and also to drive sales of many of these being recent games). We list them as ports/remakes because they're not wholly brand-new games. The question we need to consider is whether we follow the Mario Portal, since our own Super Mario page is doing so, in which case we need to acknowledge Live: Home Circuit as a main title, or we need to start drawing our own boundaries and give concrete reasons as to why we are following those lines rather than Nintendo's. For ports/remakes, that's a concrete enough line. MarioComix (talk) 17:47, May 7, 2021 (EDT)
 * We're in troubles for sure, the presence of Super Mario Bros. 35 and Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit in Mario Portal calls into question what exactly is listed in these lists to begin with. But I don't think any criteria will ever be good enough to determine the main series games, we'll have to rely on the content of the next home console game to know.
 * As far as what Mario Kart Tour currently is, it's anybody's guess. I can only provide the insight of the internal data, according to which Mario Kart Tour is being used to add assets and features to the next home console games - all its drivers, karts and gliders are compatible with the Mario Kart 7 engine games like Mario Kart 8 and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, all its courses follow the naming conventions of the Mario Kart 8 team and the new courses even have a mob main series platform code (by the way, Merry Mountain and Ninja Hideaway are internally known as gmob_hillclimb and gmob_ninjamansion, again consistent with the names of the Mario Kart 8 new courses such as Gu_SnowMountain and Gu_HorrorHouse), they even worked the first year to finally implement half-pipes into the Mario Kart 7 engine games, delaying Battle Mode that only now is in the works, with the main driving mechanics finally being functional. Basically, it's a development platform for the console games.--Mister Wu (talk) 18:37, May 7, 2021 (EDT)

I think the reality we have to face is that Nintendo is clearly willing to stretch the boundaries of what constitutes being part of a series. Home Circuit and to a lesser extent Tour are clearly oddballs, just as Run, the Maker games, and 35 are for the main series. Just because the gameplay doesn't match previous titles, that doesn't necessarily mean it's not part of the series, especially if Nintendo considers it to be that way. Super Mario 64 was a much bigger deviation from the 2D platformers, but few people would suggest splitting our coverage of the main series into (at least) two. I see no reason to disregard Nintendo's official material just because the game doesn't meet arbitrary fanmade standards.

For what it's worth, I also think remakes/ports should be considered mainline titles of the series they belong to, barring rare cases like Super Mario Advance where it essentially becomes a spinoff series of its own. -- 19:53, May 7, 2021 (EDT)
 * I'm still not sure about putting re-releases within main game lists in series articles, I really do think they're the sort of thing that's better off with their own list. 20:12, May 7, 2021 (EDT)

remove unrelated source
nowhere in the source for "ninth mainline game" does it actually say it's the ninth mainline game, making it redundant. remove it immediately, stop reversing it, and find an actually related source!!! 86.149.20.4 19:11, May 7, 2021 (EDT)
 * It lists it alongside the other main series games. -- 19:44, May 7, 2021 (EDT)
 * Please make sure you log into your RSM account when editing. Staff members can check which users are on which IP addresses. 19:48, May 7, 2021 (EDT)