NO (free typing) text chat in Mario Kart Wii

mario kart wii chat

I guess Nintendo is once again playing it safe by not allowing angry gamers to write to other possible pre-pubescent gamers with such phrases as:

“U sux at MK, Noobz.  I ownd U, go practice till U R L33t like me, a$$Fu*k”

Instead, Nintendo opted for pre-written text that you can send (like in Madden ’08).  I find it really hard for an online games in 2008 not to have a way to communicate with each other.  I think a real simple solution to this would be to have 18+ rooms, private rooms, or other designated rooms that allowed text/voice chat.  While other public rooms kept it to pre-written responses.  Also, if a parent was concerned about their child receiving x-rated messages, couldn’t they set the parental controls or monitor their child?  The 10 year old will just go onto a Mario Kart Wii forum after the race and be open to the wild antics of forum members anyway, wtf…

During WiiNintendo’s Medal of Honor gaming night, we had to set up a IRC room just to communicate with each other, why bring that much hassle to the gamer when the technology is, not only available, but most likely in it’s prime (few bugs, flawless integration, etc…).

It seems it’s almost the opposite of what an online game should be.  Before ANYTHING there should be communication.



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  • Berend Jan

    So irritating now i have to caal my friend on the phone again when we are playing and put the thing on speakerphone so we can shout and yell and hiss and bark when we win/lose. I don’t care if there is no voice communication whith strangers if there is text support it’s the fact that IF you see a good player you cannot call his friend number so he will always be a random stranger, its more fun to make new friends online and then go drink some drinks someday when they are your friends but if i can’t put em on my friendlist HOW CAN WE BE FRIENDS???

    it’s terrible the online thing of nintendo, luckely they are going to make a payed service so that we can have all of this becouse then you can make rules and if people don’t stick to the rules you can ban them… Thats almost imposible now :( … Hurray for the payed service boooohooo for the friend system (witch always needs another piece of electronice device to communicate whith your friends (PC for voicecomm/IRC/IM or phone to call your friends)

  • http://www.seomanager.fr seo manager

    I’m not sure about what you write, of course being able of talking with friends is pretty cool, but sometimes when you play online you have weird surpises. I remember once racing with a guy called Hitler 666.
    It felt a bit weird… I had no idea what the guy wanted to say exactly…what as the point ?
    I guess talking with this type of guy could be as good as well as bad, how can you know ?!
    What would he write ?! I’m not sure i wanna know.

  • http://forums.wiinintendo.net/ SirVenom

    Yeah, I know what you mean…
    I am sure there are still plenty of people who wouldn’t talk to anyone that called themselves Hitler…. it’s not cool, it’s twisted.

  • http://wiinintendo.net noodle

    Oh come on. If you don’t want your kids getting owned by us online and subsequently flaming us, resulting in us flaming back, DON’T LET THEM. Even if we had SSBB up/down/left/right phrases built-in would be good.

    We need private rooms. Like Anything Goes room. Voice chat PLEASE. It’s hardly ‘friendly’ with text chat. >.>

  • scullum2001

    i don’t see the point of text at all…or even voice chat. in my opinion it’s just a “cool” add-on, but definitely not necessary. because of my opinion on this, i don’t mind that it’s pre-assigned messages or whatever. i probably won’t use them anyhow…

  • http://www.owensoft.net 0wen

    it more fun when u can communicate

  • Will

    Can’t be half-assed with this sort of thing. Either do the online thing right or don’t do it at all. If there is a fear of protecting the Nintendo everyone friendly brand then maybe online play isn’t a viable future for the company. There are kids out there with PS3′s and XB360′s who are playing online uncensored. I don’t see why they just don’t introduce some kind of parental control on these types of things so various words get censored in that way. Maybe this should be proposed to Nintendo.

  • Will

    Why not give th option at the beginning of a match to mute the mic or text? If people are so afraid of the future stay in the past. These are the things that still in my opinion pigeonhole Nintendo as a system for little kids. As cool as these games will ever be, until the company grows up a little and gives its players some more freedom and credit the growth won’t be with the hardcore and they might just lose some die hards.

  • http://www.xanga.com/relaxing_roth Roth

    They should make it so that if Parental Controls are on, the parents can choose the option to disable text/voice chat.
    I thought Wii is for everyone, not just kids. Sup with that.
    I guess we’ll have to set up a Skypecast or Ventrilo or something.

    // Roth

  • Digfree

    I know it’s a “Little” off topic, but speaking of medal of honor Hero’s night, are you doing that again? I missed the first two, and i’m ready for the third now that i got the game.

  • http://www.videogamedc.com Potatoman

    yeah lets contact nintendo about this and tell them about a parental control option to block voice or text chat

  • brian

    Im 26 and I support nintendos no text or voice policy. I dont want any punk kids telling me where to stick it. Good for them not budging. Im on their side!

  • Digfree

    Look at advance wars Day of Ruin. It has the capability to have voice chat, just all you need is a friend code, and you can turn off the voice option of midgame. Now I would Love to Yell “Ownege!” each time I snipe off some one in Medel of honor heros 2, but I do see how a parental control would be needed, besides, a 8 year old shouldn’t be playing a WW2 War game, so maybe some games would be more freely to use voice chat. Or at the very least use friend codes that inable chat. I don’t want to anoy anyone here, but specking of wi-fi M.O.H.H, Heres a tip… Get to good sniping point (Works best in port lv) and use pistle to type on wall a phrase like “haa haa” or “ownege”, then go snipe off a someone, and then run over to your wall so they can see it in third person.

  • AMIE

    I WAS A GOOD ONE BUT MORE ACTION

  • http://sophielogin sophie

    hi

    • Jasondabomb15

      Wassup gurlfriend