I notticed that there are no categories for drivers choice.

So it is that everyone just wants to play with bowser or DK. which makes the speedrunning community of this game being so repetitive

What about creating new categories like

MARIO PRINCESS category BOWSERKOOPA TROOPA category

It would be fun to have fresh categories so players could use different skills on this game.

What you think? =D

What's the point of adding extra arbitrary categories on a game with little competition (on here) anyway?

Goomba, The categories are not so arbitrary. If you think that maybe you didn't use to play this Mario kart much?

In Super Mario kart each pair of cars have their own weight, handling, speed and cornering. If you drive with one kart it's a totally different gameplay than driving with the other.

For instance, Bowser and DK reach a maximun speed that become impossible for other karts to catch up (therefore runners always choose them). But with Luigi and Mario that are more balanced the AI drivers would be always on your tail. Yoshi and Peach are the lightest ones which have best acceleration, but the easiest to corner-out And so on.

It requires different skills for speed and cornering. It will be other run.

It's the same as playing with Mario or Luigi in Super Mario bros Lost Levels, or Super Mario Bros 2. Each one has its own run, with different timing for jumping, running etc

Like runners are always creating all kinds of bizarre categories for Super Mario World that have the same gameplay no matter which character you choose. Why not create new ones for totally different characters?

And little competition?? How can a classic have little competition? Super Mario Kart was race-runned in last AGDQ.

FurryWulfz, If everybody choose the fastest ones, any runner will have to choose the same to catch up on time. As I said, the other cars play differently.

I haven't tried a run of this one yet because i think a must-have to choose always 2 cars "out of 8" is dumb, I mean, you can have more of this game '-'

I explained Goomba about the differences couse I saw he didn't have runs on this one, and I don't know much about other mario karts, haven't played them much. Never played double dash for example, I had no idea its the same gameplay on car differences

I explained why it's not arbitrary, and c'mon, it isn't

I explained on the standard forum why I posted a topic there. Sorry if it's too much of a big deal. Damn, you guys seem to get pissed about anything of a little thing sometimes... ><

I've had so many friends that only knew how to play Super Mario kart with a kinda of kart, and not with the others. But whats the point when its impossible to compete on time with the 2 same only cars everybody choose? Maybe that's a chance to make the game accessible to more runners?

I mean, it is as much arbitrary as playing with different Street fighter characters in my opinion (If there were two characters that beat the oponents faster for some reason, runners would only choose these two, and again other kinds of categories could be created to explore more of the game)

Anyway, since playing with Mario it's not the same as playing with Peach that's not the same of playing with Toad or DK and so on... If you disagree, there's no need to be angry and say everything is dumb. Why don't you just give your impressions on how you feel about the idea?

But this is not a less popular series... the boards would never be dead. So Let's see what other runners think about it.

Ps. I would love to see an AGDQ or ESA live run with runners playing Mario Kart with characters other than aaaalways Bowser and DK '-'

And before I forget:

If this is the nature of Speedrunning, as you say:

"If everyone has to choose the same car to catch up on time, then so be it. That's the nature of speedrunning" > 'only being fast'

Then why Super Mario World has "No Cape" category? since "cape" is faster than "capeless" (Isn't the nature of speedrunning only being faster?) Why No star run (if the star way shortcut is faster?)

Why no flower Mario, no Cape Mario, Small Mario...

Why "knife-only" category in Resident Evil? Shouldn't it be only the fastest way around?

If you're claiming that it's dumb to create new "arbitrary" categories for the same game then you're claiming everyone at Speedrun.com is dumb.

Then I'm thankful to hear your opinion. It's all about having fun. And I have plenty of reasons to believe it would be a valid Idea, reasons which I exposed here.

I still wait for the community to manifest what they think about it.

I won't be adding character-specific leaderboards to speedrun.com. Even if you ignore that they're not suitable for this site, SMK competition here is sparse enough that I won't be adding any new categories unless there is a very compelling reason to do so.

As far as the community at wide goes, the vast majority of SMK competition resides in the Players' Page. As you can tell if you visit the page, there are no character-specific leaderboards, despite the fact that the rankings contain several hundred players. Only a few people have ever bothered setting times with lesser characters after switching to Bowser/DK Jr., and there's never been any discussion of having other characters receive special treatment on the main leaderboards (aka separate rankings).

That being said, you're free to run the game with whichever character you like. Nowhere in the rules does it say that you have to use a specific character. As it stands right now, Niakky's 3rd place time on speedrun.com for All Cups (1P) is done with Koopa.

Thanks, Lafungo. Yeah, I understand it would have to be changes (major or minors) for instance the "All-character" board name would have to be changed for "any" or something and then create news...

BasicalIy, I understand that there's not enough competition or interest from many to do so

The argument there's not too much competition seems flawless. So there's no point at the end

Anyway, keep the idea in mind =). Imagine how good would be an AGDQ run with characters like Mario and Luigi that nobody plays with. People are creating new categories for Super Mario World all the time, so if there's competition one day ;)

Cheers!