Preamble

I previously wrote this blogpost, thinking it would be final in its current state, but I was told there was some details I got wrong, that I would like to correct in this updated blogpost. It should still be noted that I want to make it very clear that this post is not meant as an attack on Mario Kart Wii DX or any of its staff members. However, it should be noted that the statements made about feeling personally attacked are genuine and I do expect an apology for some of these actions.

Joining the CT pack Community

Since joining the IKW team, I have seen a lot and I mean a lot of development in the custom track pack community. Most of which good, a lot of which also bad. I have learned a lot about track pack making and developing custom code for track packs.

There's a lot that can be said about what goes in the building in track back and my god does it get complicated sometimes.

When I first joined IKW, the pack still ran on RetroWFC. An aftermarket online service currently notorious for... I don't really want to talk about that, to be honest.

THF, the owner of IKW, really wanted to switch to a server that gives him a little bit more power. So, I started IKWFC together with him. Now, as a manager of IKWFC, I have a responsibility to uphold, namely preventing unauthorized activity on the server, most of which comes down to cheating or disruptive gameplay. I want to do things right, so I take my position very seriously and try to uphold the rules where I can.

I'm doing this out of love for the Mario Kart Wii community. I love the game, and I care for a lot of the people in here.

Leaving RWFC

Since starting IKWFC, I have noticed that RWC has started to go downhill, very downhill. A lot of allegations have been made against them, making us very glad that we have left that service for our own.
We were not the only ones to have this idea. Due to RWFC, rejecting a lot of new packs, a lot of people spawned their own aftermarket online services for their own pack, or switched to already existing ones.
The topic of today's blogpost? NewWFC.
What makes new WFC special, you might ask? Well, to make a long story short, originally it was the go-to place for hackers. If you wanted to cheat in Mario Kart Wii multiplayer, this is where you go to.
In the past, NewWFC had a line on their home page, warning people of these hackers. As you can see in this screenshot.

This screenshot is from February 9, 2026, at the beginning of this year. At the time of initially writing this, this was still there.
They have since removed that bottom most line:

This, while conveniently still not providing any actual rules. They do have a ToS, but its contents are too general and non-descript to even have any impact on anything related to hacking/cheating on the service.

It is in fact, so bland that I am willing to bet they asked ChatGPT for an example of a ToS, and said "Fuck it, We ball" and just went with it.


In any case, the distinct lack of rules, while also conveniently not saying anything about people taking advantage of this lack of rules, leads me to believe that NewWFC is probably one of the worst WFC services you could associate with, if what you want is fair play online. Especially considering the fact that they have been the hackers' paradise for the longest time, and even mentioned that for the longest time on their home page.


I feel this way because I think it is inherently wrong to randomly start enforcing rules on a service that is widely known for not having rules, and while the removal of the notice of hackers may make it seem that they are starting to lean towards a more fair system, I think they should make it more clear what their stance on hackers is.


And its not even like its that hard to make it very clear; As you could either just:

• Make it very clear the service is no longer meant for hacking/cheating at all, and post strict rules and policies dictating the way the service is meant to be used.
• Disasociate the sections of the service not meant for hacking on by not giving it the exact same label as the service meant for hacking on. (E.g. by calling it CleanWFC or WFC-DX or something)
• Just dont use NewWFC.

Pointing out the issues

Now, it's worth noting that for track packs like these, they did in fact section off a part of the server that has actual rules. However, I still do not believe this is a good idea because you're on a server that literally just says "we will never ban for any reason". The reason I find this statement alone so problematic with the fact that there are in fact rules is the fact that these are generally the same rules you would expect on an actual legitimate WFC server. Why would you have to go to a server that literally says there are no rules we will never ban and then start enforcing rules? a little bit double cross in my eyes, and a lot of other people agreed with me as they started hacking on there.

Obviously, this started a cat and mouse game where people got banned and then started evading a ban to hack again and then people got banned and started evading a ban and then got hacked again. But realize what I just said here. People are getting banned off of a server that never bans for any reason. This is a very important point to make in my honest opinion.

Breaking the rules

Mario Kart Wii Deluxe is on the official custom Mario Kart Wiki, also known as https://wiki.tockdom.com/. This means it is required to follow very strict rules regarding the distribution of the pack. packs may, for example, not distribute any unreleased versions of tracks within their pack. And only patch files may be distributed, not entire games.
I previously stated that packs like these are required to publish their source code, and disclose the sources of snippets they are using. But I was informed that quickly after posting, Pulsar uses MIT. Which invalidates that point. However, I stand by my point that not disclosing the source of codes you use is at the very least problematic, as it makes it easier to steal content and just claim its of your own making, and the similarities are merely a coincidence.

1. Stolen code.
   Me and others of the development team for IKW have noticed that Mario Kart with Deluxe seems to have a lot of features either directly taken from or very heavily inspired by features from other packs, including IKW. Features such as the double item box, for example, are heavily inspired by similar features from IKW. The problem herein lies that the pack would feel inauthentic. But worse yet, could incorrectly make people think IKW is taking features from WiiDX, just to name a couple examples.
2. The WBFS situation.
   Within their Discord server, there is a download and install section, which makes sense if you're a community for a mod pack. You would want a guide and a quick place to find the downloads for your mods and how to install them. However, like I said, distributing full games of your mod is not allowed as per waky rules. Yet in their Discord server, they have WBFS ROM images of their pack ready to download from media fire and Google Drive. In fact, it is so funny that the owner of the pack has been called using the server nickname "piracy is no party", all while distributing piracy links. Those who share a space with me in the formula kart wii community will have seen the screenshots.

Getting Banned from the discord guild

Rather problematically, I was recently banned from the discord guild. The situation for this was as follows. Someone was hacking. I got on to take a look. Morbid curiosity takes the better of us sometimes after all. So as I was playing, I didn't in fact notice the hacking going on. I joined the conversation inside a discord guild about the hacking and was met with a moderator. This moderator then said that they have taken action to the offending player and they will be back within a month. Hold up, what did you just say a month? Yes, yes, he sure did. Apparently, it is their policy to allow banned players ,no matter how bad the offense, to return within a month. On a server that isn't supposed to bad in the first place, but let's put that aside for now and focus on gameplay integrity. Banned are allowed to return after a month. Immediately, this was a red flag in my head. I told them, isn't that a big problematic though? Do which I got the response, well, if they've changed their ways, they can continue playing again. But obviously, if they haven't changed their ways, you're just going to have the same problem, again, in a month. So I point at this issue out to them by saying "right, so your policy is to allow players to find the limit". While I agree, I probably could have chose way better wording. Apparently that was enough to get me banned from the discord guild. And subsequently one of my friends who also was in that conversation, also got banned. This is problematic because this is a person that was previously considered a friend of the development team. Now, because of my wording, I don't entirely disagree with this ban. However, I believe just straight-up banning me without warning is a bit problematic and is a bit of an abuse of power, especially considering that I was shortly after immediately crossbound from a completely unrelated Mario Kart wii Track Pack, Aurora, which is a pack that I genuinely do like and still would like to play, but don't feel comfortable playing because of this unfair and unjust ban, which I only received because I pointed out a flaw in a moderation system in another track packs online service.

Now, I'm not going to go into detail about who did it. I just hope that whoever did in fact ended up banning me from both these communities rates this and has a little bit of a head scratcher because I believe this was a complete and other cross of boundaries. I did not deserve this at the very least I deserved a warning that I was threading a thin line. And my other friend, who also got banned, did not deserve any of this at all, because she didn't even do anything wrong to begin with.

This has all happened about a year ago now, and I have still not been able to get in touch with anyone on the Wii Deluxe team for any resolution, so I am going to just post this on my blog and hope that they see it, because I'm fucking done trying.

Addendum: Some personal statements post-revision.

I understand that some of the changes recently made to some of the sections may make me look a little bit stupid, if you've read the original post. And I do apologize for the wrong statements I've made. This is, in fact, the first post I've actually had to revise.
I'll admit, I could have made the revision a bit sooner. And I'll also take blame for that.

It still is worth pointing out, however, that the existance of this pack is still problematic. And that I still feel like more people should be talking about things.

Unfortunately, however, As of writing this edit, News has come out about the Custom Mario Kart Wiki being shut down. Something I will also write a blog-post about.