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[gamechanger87]

Unlike others who have mentioned that what Yu Suzuki said might have been interpreted differently, you sound very sure of exactly what the values mean, to some sort of detail, including new amounts such as $15 million. Do you have a source for this information?

Also, the game of Shenmue I cost $47 million, to do a game of similar scope requires outside funding already, so if that is the plan then they've already got some pretty good funding and we don't have to worry.

You can't really compare Shenmue 1 to this one. They are using UE4 and not building and scrapping and re-building an engine. They are using middleware to keep costs down. Yu has come out and said the majority of funding is KS. I expect that Sony's funding is really only around marketing and handling some other outside functions. The KS will be the primary source of funding.

This game will not be the equivalent of a $50M dev budget game. I expect its going to be a really well done indie game with a higher budget. The point here is to finish the story or at least move it along, not create a full open world game. They are adding skill trees as stretch goals and the addition of new villages. I think expectations around the scope of the game need to be tempered. It may have a lot of soul and thought, but don't expect it to be expansive.

Regarding the KS in general, I think we are seeing why there really haven't been any big publishers going out on a limb to fund this game. It has a vocal but small fanbase. That fanbase will throw gobs of money at this game, but a publisher won't make money on it. They need to sell units, and I don't think we can expect that this game will sell 500k copies. You are funding the third game in a series which hasn't been around in 15 years. Without a remaster of the prior 2, no one is really going to jump into this series at the third game, thus its appeal is very limited.

I think this is the difficulty of using a Kickstarter to bring back a series. The momentum of the earlier games is gone and its very difficult to get it back. I think the most successful KS revolve around great developers whom say we want to create a new game that does all these thing that you loved in my old ones. This way you can get some of the old fans as well as new ones that may be interested in what you are proposing. Saying I'm going to continue what I started 15 years ago doesn't bring new people into the fold.

I think the KS at best hits $5M and the fans get their closure or something closer. The complete bungling of the KS should not give the fans any comfort that this game will be out by the end of 2017.

 

[Oriel]

You can still emulate the PAL version for Dreamcast like virtually everyone else is right now.

What is the best DC emulator to play Shenmue? I'm currently trying NullDC but it's not great.

 

[Jo Shishido's Cheeks]

It's so bizarre that people think Yu would build some Witcher-esque open-world with $10 million.
Shenmue 1 & 2 were both open-world!
The term may have been redefined over time, but it's irrelevant in this case as he's stated this sequel will be the game he planned 14 years ago.
The only games it's inspired by and will take things from are Shenmue 1 & 2.
He doesn't even play modern games so for all we know he's never touched Fallout, Skyrim, et al.

Even with $10 million it won't be some sprawling epic, it will be Shenmue.
Trust in Yu (and give him all your money), after preparing for over a decade I've no doubt he'll give us the game we want.

 

[Acquiescence]

I'll build a Lucky Hit Machine and start asking around for funds!


...or try winning the lottery...


Trust me, if I won the lottery, i'd really give 50% of it towards this game.


Why can't one of us be rich?!

I wish Notch was a Shenmue fan, so that he could take those piles of cash he's throwing away at roulette tables in Las Vegas every night and put it towards this Kickstarter instead!

 

[indigo-cyclops]

You can still emulate the PAL version for Dreamcast like virtually everyone else is right now.

Don't have it. This I own so I was hoping to actually play it again.

It's probably not even the disc. I remember playing my brand new copy of Shenmue 1 years ago on the DC and the second disc refused to play, kept on getting a read error after the Sega logo came up. A few other games acted the same way as well. Temporarily solved this by getting a disc cleaner for it which let the disc play but after a while the same trouble started again. The Dreamcast was a great console but lousily constructed.

That sucks, but I bet I would have more luck if I had an original Xbox. Emulating on the 360 is most likely the case. Disc is near mint.

 

[Theonik]

It's so bizarre that people think Yu would build some Witcher-esque open-world with $10 million.
Shenmue 1 & 2 were both open-world!
The term may have been redefined over time, but it's irrelevant in this case as he's stated this sequel will be the game he planned 14 years ago.
The only games it's inspired by and will take things from are Shenmue 1 & 2.
He doesn't even play modern games so for all we know he's never touched Fallout, Skyrim, et al.

Even with $10 million it won't be some sprawling epic, it will be Shenmue.
Trust in Yu (and give him all your money), after preparing for over a decade I've no doubt he'll give us the game we want.

Hey, the Witcher 2 cost less than that!

Spoiler

In Poland

 

[Ryo Hazuki]

Let's be honest. If they ever want to sell copies when the game launches they're going to have to get SEGA to re-release Shenmue I & II before December 2017. There's no way this game will sell unless people have access to the first two games.

I don't think releasing movies or cinematics summarising the first two games will be enough and unless the game can be made to look groundbreakingly awesome to non-Shenmue fans then they're going to have real trouble marketing this game to new people. I guess we'll see.

 

[Zedox]

You can't really compare Shenmue 1 to this one. They are using UE4 and not building and scrapping and re-building an engine. They are using middleware to keep costs down. Yu has come out and said the majority of funding is KS. I expect that Sony's funding is really only around marketing and handling some other outside functions. The KS will be the primary source of funding.

This game will not be the equivalent of a $50M dev budget game. I expect its going to be a really well done indie game with a higher budget. The point here is to finish the story or at least move it along, not create a full open world game. They are adding skill trees as stretch goals and the addition of new villages. I think expectations around the scope of the game need to be tempered. It may have a lot of soul and thought, but don't expect it to be expansive.

Regarding the KS in general, I think we are seeing why there really haven't been any big publishers going out on a limb to fund this game. It has a vocal but small fanbase. That fanbase will throw gobs of money at this game, but a publisher won't make money on it. They need to sell units, and I don't think we can expect that this game will sell 500k copies. You are funding the third game in a series which hasn't been around in 15 years. Without a remaster of the prior 2, no one is really going to jump into this series at the third game, thus its appeal is very limited.

I think this is the difficulty of using a Kickstarter to bring back a series. The momentum of the earlier games is gone and its very difficult to get it back. I think the most successful KS revolve around great developers whom say we want to create a new game that does all these thing that you loved in my old ones. This way you can get some of the old fans as well as new ones that may be interested in what you are proposing. Saying I'm going to continue what I started 15 years ago doesn't bring new people into the fold.

I think the KS at best hits $5M and the fans get their closure. The complete bungling of the KS should not give the fans any comfort that this game will be out by the end of 2017.

I agree with most of what you say but we (fans) won't get closure to the series as Shenmue 3 wasn't meant to be the end (the game was supposed to go to 4-5 games). We'll just get to continue the story.

 

[MouldyK]

I wish Notch was a Shenmue fan, so that he could take those piles of cash he's throwing away at roulette tables in Las Vegas every night and put it towards this Kickstarter instead!

Notch! The Savior of Shenmue...and Maker of Minecraft I guess...

 

[GavinGT]

Bunch of people at Shenmue Dojo are trying to push an alternate Kickstarter video around for the campaign that does a better job of explaining the series to newcomers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzJcBqS1fDY

Those guys are doing the lord's work. That should really be the new KS video.

 

[Ryo Hazuki]

It's so bizarre that people think Yu would build some Witcher-esque open-world with $10 million.
Shenmue 1 & 2 were both open-world!
The term may have been redefined over time, but it's irrelevant in this case as he's stated this sequel will be the game he planned 14 years ago.
The only games it's inspired by and will take things from are Shenmue 1 & 2.
He doesn't even play modern games so for all we know he's never touched Fallout, Skyrim, et al.

Even with $10 million it won't be some sprawling epic, it will be Shenmue.
Trust in Yu (and give him all your money), after preparing for over a decade I've no doubt he'll give us the game we want.

Exactly.

Yu just said in an interview as much:

-- The level of creativity in the games you have created is often very high. Is there any secret to this?
YS: No. I never play games outside work, so I don’t get that influenced by other games. Maybe that’s the reason.

-- I had this idea that you researched other games thorough and tried to make something different, but I guess that’s not true then.
YS: Yeah. it easier to just make something from zero (laugh).

-- So maybe If someone from the media like me hear an explanation for a game and say “Is it like the mechanics from that other game?” you might not be able to get it?
YS: I’m sorry, but I guess that’s true. Well, maybe I have to study the trends in the most popular games.

He literally has no idea what an open world is outside of Shenmue lol. So when he says open world he means Shenmue's open world.

 

[celsowmbr]

Bunch of people at Shenmue Dojo are trying to push an alternate Kickstarter video around for the campaign that does a better job of explaining the series to newcomers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzJcBqS1fDY

perfect !

 

[benzy]

Honestly thought there would be more die-hard Shenmue fans than 40-50,000 that would at least chip in the lowest $5 amount. Shenmue really has a very niche and small community, lol. Dunno why I thought it had 100,000+ massive fanboys/girls.

 

[MouldyK]

Those guys are doing the lord's work. That should really be the new KS video.

Well they have did their waiting!

14 Years of it!

In

Spoiler

Azkaban

Gui Lin!

 

[Dreamwriter]

Shenmue 1 & 2 were both open-world!
The term may have been redefined over time, but it's irrelevant in this case as he's stated this sequel will be the game he planned 14 years ago.

Yes, he stated that for $5 million this sequel will be the game he wants to make, for $10 million it will truly have all the features of open-world games.

 

[Theonik]

Let's be honest. If they ever want to sell copies when the game launches they're going to have to get SEGA to re-release Shenmue I & II before December 2017. There's no way this game will sell unless people have access to the first two games.

I don't think releasing movies or cinematics summarising the first two games will be enough and unless the game can be made to look groundbreakingly awesome to non-Shenmue fans then they're going to have real trouble marketing this game to new people. I guess we'll see.

A decent marketing campaign can make it a success over time I think. The hype is going to make people curious so With 60k KS copies of the game then some Sony marketing and Steam sales they can push a fair number of copies out. Maybe 150k with KS or they could surprise us. On hindsight, they should have gotten SEGA on board the KS at the start and had them budget ports of the first 2 games into the stretchgoals. But the movies might also work. We'll see. Ports of two ~12-20hr games might not be terribly accessible anyway.

 

[MouldyK]

He literally has no idea what an open world is outside of Shenmue lol. So when he says open world he means Shenmue's open world.

That's adorable in a way.

 

[Theonik]

That's adorable in a way.

Reading Yu's comments fills me with warm and fuzzy feelings inside.

Spoiler

Which only makes this worse.

 

[celsowmbr]

Shenmue 3 in portuguese now only depends on the Brazilian fans

 

[Sectorseven]

-- The level of creativity in the games you have created is often very high. Is there any secret to this?
YS: No. I never play games outside work, so I don’t get that influenced by other games. Maybe that’s the reason.

I found that quote odd too. It's like Stephen King saying "I don't read books."

 

[brett2]

I appreciate the continued excitement around here but I think we need to recalibrate our expectations a bit. $5M is a nice goal to shoot for and is in no way a disappointment. Hitting $5.6M and overtaking Bloodstained should be the stretch goal. I don't want to be a downer but throwing the $10M number around isn't going to help our cause.

Once the Kickstarter is over we can focus on suggesting follow up funding ideas and pressuring Sega to release remasters of I and II. I'm excited for seeing how things shake out over the next few years.

 

[Acquiescence]

He literally has no idea what an open world is outside of Shenmue lol. So when he says open world he means Shenmue's open world.

That's alright, Shenmue's definition of open world is still the best kind of open world there is. Give me Dobuita street over the land of Skyrim any day of the week.

 

[Ryo Hazuki]

I found that quote odd too. It's like Stephen King saying "I don't read books."

Pretty much. Though it's not hindered him so far so keep doing what works I guess. Explains why much of what he's done in the past has been innovative.

 

[MaxiLive]

I found that quote odd too. It's like Stephen King saying "I don't read books."

He doesn't say he doesn't play games just not outside of work. So all of his game time would of been in a work environment which is case for a lot of game designers/developers. When you deal with games all day out of work hours would be spent with family and other hobbies.

I bet he does play some game out of work here and there but probably doesn't sit down playing modern western AAA releases. Also being an older guy these days he probably doesn't get much "me" time to play games.

 

[Spaghetti]

I found that quote odd too. It's like Stephen King saying "I don't read books."

you'd be surprised about the amount of game devs who don't really play games

i think kojima does the same

 

[MouldyK]

Pretty much. Though it's not hindered him so far so keep doing what works I guess. Explains why much of what he's done in the past has been innovative.

Yeah because it's like he does what he wants, not what he sees others do.

It's like criticizing Nintendo for not having features other games do.

Maybe it's because they prefer to look and focus on what they are doing, rather than what others are doing.

It's like he is looking at gaming with fresh eyes like a young upstart, but wise enough to know how to make a game what he wants.

We ain't going to get the next Heavy Rain or Skyrim from this, we are getting the next Shenmue because that is what he knows.

you'd be surprised about the amount of game devs who don't really play games

i think kojima does the same

Kojima is more of a Film Buff, so that might be true.

 

[Theonik]

I found that quote odd too. It's like Stephen King saying "I don't read books."

It's not that rare, Miyamoto often cites personal experiences as his source of inspiration. Of course both could be lying to an extent since being in the industry means they are subjected to a level of cultural osmosis whether they are active or not. For the case of Shenmue he did cite 80s adventure games as a topic he researched as well as western RPGs like Ultima, when coming up with how Shenmue should be. This video is pretty interesting. If not for the insight into Shenmue, for 90s YS:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tu86tlnFLVE

Edit: And yes what others have said.

 

[Jo Shishido's Cheeks]

Yes, he stated that for $5 million this sequel will be the game he wants to make, for $10 million it will truly have all the features of open-world games.

Well.....

"I will say this: if we reach the $5 mil mark, one of the things I really want to do with Shenmue 3 will become a reality, at $10 million, it will truly have the features of an open world."

This is the only time he's mentioned open world and seeing as he likely hasn't played any modern open-world games, I take it to mean open-world in the way Shenmue 1 and 2 are only.

Think about it, with more/enough money will he likely enhance plans he's been sitting on for over a decade or suddenly rewrite them all and cram in a whole bunch of features taken from other modern games?

-

I found that quote odd too. It's like Stephen King saying "I don't read books."

Not odd at all to me. I work in film and I and many others I've met and worked with don't watch any modern films at all.
I haven't been to the cinema in about 5 years in fact.
I'd imagine many game designers and writers are exactly the same.

 

[Tricky I Shadow]

This is probably what Yu means when he says 'open world':

 

[Spaghetti]

i've seen the shenmue style open world coined more accurately as a realistic world. it's very dense and content rich, as opposed to just large and aimless.

 

[Theonik]

This is probably what Yu means when he says 'open world':

This isn't to say he won't be adding elements of the Open World before hitting $10m, we already have stretchgoals for this exact purpose even before $5m. To me it sounds like the purpose of the goals up to 10m are to flesh out the world with more and more details and minigames. After $10m if that was even reachable? who knows.

 

[Ryo Hazuki]

Yes, he stated that for $5 million this sequel will be the game he wants to make, for $10 million it will truly have all the features of open-world games.

Well.....

I will say this: if we reach the $5 mil mark, one of the things I really want to do with Shenmue 3 will become a reality, at $10 million, it will truly have the features of an open world.

Yeah, I don't think he's ever said that he will be able to make the game he wants to make at the $5 million number. He said he'd be able to do one of the things he wants to do. And he's most likely referring to to this:

 

[Sectorseven]

you'd be surprised about the amount of game devs who don't really play games

i think kojima does the same

I guess. I don't know how you stay relevant if you're not keeping up with the rest of the industry. Maybe that explains some of the disconnect Japan has been having.

Not odd at all to me. I work in film and I and many others I've met and worked with don't watch any modern films at all.
I haven't been to the cinema in about 5 years in fact.
I'd imagine many game designers and writers are exactly the same.

How does a creator stay in touch with modern audiences if they're so out of the loop?

 

[indigo-cyclops]

Yes, he stated that for $5 million this sequel will be the game he wants to make, for $10 million it will truly have all the features of open-world games.

No he didn't, he was referring to the style of "open-world" that is Shenmue. Meaning, sections with NPCs, and minigames.

 

[Die Squirrel Die]

I'd just like to say I was on the '$10m was a mistake, it's nothing but trash' boat before the lot of you. Journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step and all that.

Even if the KS ended in the next hour it's still past it's funding goal and Shenmue III is still happening. And we are only a quarter of the way to the end timewise. In Shenmue terms we probably haven't even left Yokosuka, In fact we are probably 70 man free battling right now.

While I appreciate the desire to make $10million, I think we need to be careful to do it in a way that doesn't reinforce the $10million or bust mentality. Less '$10million for the full experience' and more 'every dollar helps make a deeper, better game'.

 

[Spaghetti]

honestly the character perspective system sounds very interesting.

playing as shenhua and

Spoiler

ren

really opens a few interesting ideas up in my head.

 

[Theonik]

I'd just like to say I was on the '$10m was a mistake, it's nothing but trash' boat before the lot of you. Journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step and all that.

Even if the KS ended in the next hour it's still past it's funding goal and Shenmue III is still happening. And we are only a quarter of the way to the end timewise. In Shenmue terms we probably haven't even left Yokosuka, In fact we are probably 70 man free battling right now.

While I appreciate the desire to make $10million, I think we need to be careful to do it in a way that doesn't reinforce the $10million or bust mentality. Less '$10million for the full experience' and more 'every dollar helps make a deeper, better game'.

Yes. Maybe we can put the fans on the same page somehow. Let's hope this campaign might yet be mended!

Edit:

honestly the character perspective system sounds very interesting.

playing as shenhua and

Spoiler

ren

really opens a few interesting ideas up in my head.

More importantly,Yu said it won't exactly be about playing as those characters but something in between. How interesting!

 

[indigo-cyclops]

The smartest thing to do, even if they do it after the campaign, is open up a Paypal stream. I'd pay monthly for a period to get the best possible budget for this.

 

[Spaghetti]

I guess. I don't know how you stay relevant if you're not keeping up with the rest of the industry. Maybe that explains some of the disconnect Japan has been having.

everybody playing each others games leads to homogeny to some degree.

 

[MouldyK]

I guess. I don't know how you stay relevant if you're not keeping up with the rest of the industry. Maybe that explains some of the disconnect Japan has been having.



How does a creator stay in touch with modern audiences if they're so out of the loop?

Because when you ain't looking at what everyone else is doing, you can be a leader.

Give people things they don't know they want etc.

I mean Kojima mostly looks at film for inspiration I think and less games and look at how many people would love to be him.

 

[Dineren]

What is the best DC emulator to play Shenmue? I'm currently trying NullDC but it's not great.

The best I've been able to do emulation wise is NullDC and messing with the options until Ryo's shadow is disabled completely. I spent a couple hours messing with it the other day and couldn't complete eliminate the graphical glitches.

I also tried demul and it actually didn't seem to have any graphic problems (or very minor ones), but it had sound issues I couldn't seem to fix. They were bad enough that I actually prefer NullDC over it, I'd rather have some minor graphic glitches than have bad sound.

Ultimately I decided to pull my dreamcast out of storage and play through it again that way. I have to play with it upside down, but at least I don't have to deal with any compromises.

 

[GavinGT]

I couldn't get NullDC or DEmul to work at all. The moment I tried to actually load a rom or even start the Dreamcast dashboard, they would crash. The error messages pointed to the DX11 plugins as the problem, but nothing I did could solve it. I have a GTX 670 with the latest drivers.

 

[Theonik]

How does a creator stay in touch with modern audiences if they're so out of the loop?

Often they don't. Good creators also have the insight to think of things people don't know they want yet!
You can see examples of both approaches, lots of great creators can become irrelevant. It doesn't mean that much, it's part of the job I guess continued success cannot be assured but chasing one's past successes or what is popular often leads to failures. It's also what gives you [Generic FPS #54].

Because when you ain't looking at what everyone else is doing, you can be a leader.

Give people things they don't know they want etc.

I mean Kojima mostly looks at film for inspiration I think and less games and look at how many people would love to be him.

Exactly! In fact Shenmue is a good example of this. YS even had the insight to be the first to do what other developers later started doing which was to try and get more people from outside the industry inside the project that better fit what he wanted to make. Out of the peak of Shenmue's staff of 300 people only 30% were SEGA employees, many being freelance screenwriters, film industry people, architects etc. To bring a more fresh perspective into making games. This kind of cross-industry collaboration happens a lot today in high budget games but when Shenmue was made was something largely new.

Edit: All this could make a nice thread and also a good stealth Shenmue shilling opportunity.

 

[Moofers]

Exactly.

Yu just said in an interview as much:



He literally has no idea what an open world is outside of Shenmue lol. So when he says open world he means Shenmue's open world.

This might also explain why the voice acting is so damn bad in the first two games as well. No idea that not every other game has performances as awful as Shenmue. Lol

 

[GavinGT]

This might also explain why the voice acting is so damn bad in the first two games as well. No idea that not every other game has performances as awful as Shenmue. Lol

I think part of it was that they had every voice actor play like 12 different NPCs. So they had to resort to silly accents to differentiate themselves.

 

[Spaghetti]

I couldn't get NullDC or DEmul to work at all. The moment I tried to actually load a rom or even start the Dreamcast dashboard, they would crash. The error messages pointed to the DX11 plugins as the problem, but nothing I did could solve it. I have a GTX 670 with the latest drivers.

for demul, what internal resolution were you trying to run it at? 2x?

 

[GavinGT]

for demul, what internal resolution were you trying to run it at? 2x?

I tried 1x and 2x. With 1x and max layers: 8 I can hear the Dreamcast startup sound before it crashes, with any other permutation I get an instant crash.

 

[Shadow2222]

I think part of it was that they had every voice actor play like 12 different NPCs. So they had to resort to silly accents to differentiate themselves.

Right. Even the main characters!

Lisle Wilkerson played Xiuying, Joy, and Yuan
Eric Kelso played Ren, Gui Zhang, and Fuku-san

 

[Sectorseven]

everybody playing each others games leads to homogeny to some degree.

There has to be, at the professional level. Games are just too expensive to be jumping in the deep end all the time, creatively. You can still be innovative while hitting all the essential notes.

Because when you ain't looking at what everyone else is doing, you can be a leader.

Give people things they don't know they want etc.

I mean Kojima mostly looks at film for inspiration I think and less games and look at how many people would love to be him.

I'd argue most of his games don't play amazingly well, especially as they've aged. And the Phantom Pain has clearly been influenced by some of the recent open world games. At the budget they're working at it's just too risky not to take cues from what's already proven. But he's said he wanted to be a film director and he's certainly well in tune with the goings on in that industry on at least a pop culture level, same for music. He's by no means living in a vacuum.

 

[Surta]

This might also explain why the voice acting is so damn bad in the first two games as well. No idea that not every other game has performances as awful as Shenmue. Lol

I thought the Japanese voice acting was fine. As for the English... here's an interesting read.