I don't understand what is going on the video or where the glitch occurs during the race. Better yet, I don't think I understand WHAT the glitch actually is, but that's probably because I don't actually have this game yet. Out of curiosity though, could someone explain it a little better for me?

Basically you intentionally fall off the track at a precise area and then lakitu will drop you off on a much further section of the track.

It is annoying for several reasons:

1) It encourages you to play the game in a way directly contrary to ordinary play. You should not ordinarily want to jump off the edge of the track, unless in some circumstances like if a blue shell is about to hit you and due to a slope you'd end up falling off anyway but more slowly. That is clever maneuvering though, while this glitch is mandatory practice if you want to beat others who use it.

2) If you don't use it, you lose to those who use it, but if you are in the lead, you don't know if those behind you are going to use it or not. So you can either play it safe and be a bag of D, or you can play it normally and risk being defeated by the bag(s) of D behind you who use(s) it.

3) It is a fun course, and if you use the glitch, you will not race on half of that course ever again.

4) It creates a huge gulf between those who know about it and those who don't. You have to know about it to race competitively if others are using it. If you don't know about it, you are screwed and won't even know why you're screwed. You'll probably think it's hacking.

5) It's lame.

All of these reasons create a negative environment and do not make the course any more fun. Shortcuts that take skill and only a small amount of time subtracted balance the risk and reward to make the game more fun and make you think about using the shortcut. This shortcut is a no brainer and does not add anything fun to the course. We are both blaming the game and the player here because the only part of the decision tree to consider is:

Am I a complete and utter loser with no redeeming qualities whatsoever, either as a Mario Kart racer or as a human being?

Yes --> Use glitch. No --> Don't use glitch.

I have never used that glitch before, but I might start using it and then:
a) Wait for others to start passing me before I continue if no one else uses it.
b) If someone else uses it, target them as much as possible for the rest of the race and for the next 5 races.
Actually, if someone uses the glitch, I could drop into last, keep using items until I get a blue shell, then screw over the user by using it so it hits them when they're over the huge gliding section at the end. They'll probably still win, but if I can succesfully do that several times, maybe they would get the message that I don't like Maka Wuhu ultra shortcutters.

If you did option A, then others would do the same thing to you. And if you just sit around an item area in an online race, you will be disconnected. I have tried it just for fun once.

@Adam

Just for fun and to be annoying, I'm going to use your bullets to make the case that there's some similarity between this game-breaking, fun-breaking bug and snaking in MKDS.

1) It encourages you to play the game in a way directly contrary to ordinary play.
2) If you don't use it, you lose to those who use it
3) It is a fun course, and if you use the glitch, you will not race on half of that course ever again.
well, okay this one doesn't apply, but snaking did make certain very "fun" carts unusable if you wanted to compete with snakers
4) It creates a huge gulf between those who know about it and those who don't.
5) It's lame.

; )

I didn't even know there was a glitch. But now that I know what it is you'd better belive I'm using it every time I play.

What about Koopa Troopa Beach etiquette? People are always using their mushrooms to hit that ramp in the water and cut out a huge chunk of track! It's balderdash! ;____;

Snaking isn't a glitch and was prominent in two games, so it isn't contrary to ordinary play. It encourages you to boost, which is a huge part of what makes Mario Kart Mario Kart. Maka Wuhu encourages you to fall off the track, which ideally isn't a huge part of your average Mario Kart experience, though your experience may vary.

If you see someone snake, you immediately know how it works, and it isn't particularly hard to learn. There is no gulf.between those who know and those who don't because as soon as you see it, you know. If someone falls and is behind you in Maka Wuhu, you'll have no idea how they did it.

You can beat snaking players with a heavy kart and good item usage. This is more true in Double Dash, but still true in either.

Your mom's lame.

I just happened to be a spectator to the right player when waiting for a match. I watched the guy use the glitch and immediately come in first place. I really don't like using it myself, but I feel that if I don't then other players will. I wish Nintendo would issue some sort of bug-fix for this.

I'm just glad it's not possible for players to spam the tracks like they could in the previous portable outing.

i havent seen anybody using this online.
i use it in timetrial but i hope nintendo will fix this soon.

The fact that they're fixing Skyward Sword's glitch gives me hope... but I haven't looked into how exactly they're doing it, and this isn't game breaking, not in the more literal sense that SS's glitch is.

I didn't really want to debate this at length again, but quickly: you're still wrong, regardless of my mother's ability to walk.

"Snaking isn't a glitch and was prominent in two games, so it isn't contrary to ordinary play." — spinning constantly across the lane on all straightaways is very contrary to the game. Keeping a continuous left right movement going with your thumb on the d-pad couldn't be further from the fun of Mario Kart.

"If you see someone snake, you immediately know how it works." — nope, I remember thinking it was a hacker at first, because someone was jumping all over the track and then was gone, impossible to catch up with, and hadn't used any items to achieve this. I'm not the only one; when I looked it up, I saw others recounting the exact same bizarre phenomenon. It does take learning, particularly given the need to use the right kind of character / vehicle and understanding how you can pull it off on a straightaway. In snaking matches I witnessed, the majority of players clearly couldn't figure it out and were left in the dust every race, little different from the obvious bifurcation in the participants when you pass the Wuhu glitch point.

"You can beat snaking players with a heavy kart and good item usage." — maybe occasionally, but from my experience (and I'm a heaviest-carts only player) it wasn't even a fun or fair match once someone began that, particularly because--just like with Wuhu--the snakers would select the same courses over and over because those were so slanted towards snakers.

It's one thing to snake, though, and another to utilize a glitch. Snaking requires skill, though it's considered by many to be a cheap move, and you are going faster than most by means of near-constant boosting, but you never leave the track while snaking. You are still navigating the entire course, obstacles and all.

The Maka Wuhu glitch skips you forward, meaning you don't actually race through a portion of the track. You do not have to navigate those obstacles on that entire portion of track, there's no fear of boosting yourself off the edge or into a boulder or anything. Through no skill of your own, you've put yourself so far ahead there's no chance a red shell will make it to you before it crashes into something else. Unlike snaking, which is clearly made possible, encouraged by the game (as demonstrated by those tracks you say are geared toward aiding those who snake and the rest where it's also a usable skill), and (as Adam has already said) you can clearly see happening (a problem if you're ahead of those using the glitch in Maka Wuhu), this glitch is unintentional — you fall off the mountain in the right place on one track and the Lakitu assumes you were farther along than you were. It's like hopping the wall in Wario Stadium... the difference between utilizing this glitch and snaking is clear to me, at least — i don't care how fast you're going, but if you're skipping ahead with the help of a misguided Lakitu, that is cheating IMO.

encouraged by the game (as demonstrated by those tracks you say are geared toward aiding those who snake and the rest where it's also a usable skill

Snaking (which means continuous drifting on straightaways) is never something that the DS game encouraged, it simply failed to block it. None of the computer opponents, on even the highest difficulty, will do it under any circumstances. It also breaks the balance of karts, which to me leaves only two conclusions: (1) they meant to do that, and are simply inept game developers who don't understand balance, or (2) it was an unintended consequence, and they didn't realize you could exploit continuous snaking. I prefer (2), because different sized karts are actually reasonably balanced in the rest of the series, plus the fact that they made sure to alter the drift mechanics to prevent this in subsequent titles.

Anyhow, I didn't say the two were entirely equivalent; I just noted that the majority of anti-Wuhu-glitch arguments also apply to snaking. Not all, but most.

Back on topic, I've been quitting the moment I see more than 1 person in the race picking the Wuhu track, or if it if comes up then gets picked by someone again. Since I don't keep track of my total ranking, quitting at will harms me none, and I won't play with those who keep picking that track just to glitch it.

Having a different opinion doesn't make me "wrong." I enjoy snaking because it makes the game more frantic, which is what MK is about, and figured it out from seeing others do it. Falling off the track can not possibly be considered fun unless someone has a fishing pole fetish or something.

actually, i figured they did it that way because snaking is hell on your thumb, lol. i remember extended sessions where i wouldn't be able to feel the tip of my thumb properly anymore... owie

true, it did start that way, but then you continued it. :3
_{btw, 'quickly' isn't really an adjective i'd use to describe any of your walls of text :3}

Either way, my main beef with the Maka Wuhu glitch and your comparison to snaking (even though you were being facetious about it) is that you're still having to navigate the full track along with everyone else whether you choose to snake or not. it's also very possible to still screw someone who chooses to snake with shells/lightning/etc. (and god forbid you screw up snaking on your own!), whereas the Maka Wuhu glitch puts a player too far out of range too quickly for any of the items (or player screwups) to matter.

to me, i don't really care what you do so long as you have to navigate the same length of track as everyone else. skipping ahead as the result of an accidental glitch is not comparable to being good enough to fly through a track via the aid of near-constant boosts. Snaking properly is something that takes practice and dedication, memorizing the right angles to work from and the layouts of courses in order to use this skill to your advantage. Falling off the track and letting a Lakitu carry you to the top of the mountain is not competitive at all.

I was wondering why everybody kept picking Maka Wuhu when i was playing online last night.

Actually, considering they didn't change it after MKDD, and the fact that it doesn't prevent snaking (not in MKW or MK7), and the fact that the same method for boosting is in MK64 where you cannot snake, there is not any reason to assume that snaking was the reason for doing away with the manual mini-boost. The more obvious reason is that they needed a mechanism that worked naturally with motion controls, which both of the recent games offer. You can't expect players to rotate the controller left and right super fast without losing control of the kart.

I like the old way, but I'm fine with the new method. It is easier for newcomers to understand, and that is a good thing.

@Adam: i prefer to think of it as Nintendo sparing my thumb, lol.
_{they do care about me, they do they do they do}