Shenmue 3 Kickstarter

[pierrot]

Didn't mean to pour gas on a raging fire. I honestly felt that the faces shown in the dev report weren't half bad, and after all the commotion of that teaser trailer without animations on the main characters, I was curious why there didn't seem to be any chatter about that update.

Personally, I feel like they made that dev report in an effort to say, 'Media outlets, et al: Please don't commercially deep six our project before it's even nearing release. We've spent all this time on animations for [potentially] tertiary NPCs; So we're definitely putting time into animations for the main characters.'

It's possible that I'm blind to it, but I haven't seen anything related to Shenmue III, so far, that concerns me about its development.

I wish it were easier to discuss Shenmue III without so many diametrically opposed positions at play.

[BogusMeatFactory]

Didn't mean to pour gas on a raging fire. I honestly felt that the faces shown in the dev report weren't half bad, and after all the commotion of that teaser trailer without animations on the main characters, I was curious why there didn't seem to be any chatter about that update.

Personally, I feel like they made that dev report in an effort to say, 'Media outlets, et al: Please don't commercially deep six our project before it's even nearing release. We've spent all this time on animations for [potentially] tertiary NPCs; So we're definitely putting time into animations for the main characters.'

It's possible that I'm blind to it, but I haven't seen anything related to Shenmue III, so far, that concerns me about its development.

I wish it were easier to discuss Shenmue III without so many diametrically opposed positions at play.

I will ALWAYS be willing to discuss shenmue be it genuine, valid concerns to story ideas or speculation on what you would want to see. So please ask away!

[Reprise]

Technically that's an old pic. The most recent development progress looks like this. Just look at those shitty graphics



]

Pics are not showing up for me.

Also, yes. What Elkin posted was from the e3 reveal two years ago.

Updated links. But basically, I was just going from the most recent development pics that can be seen at the official website.

[ElkinFencer10]

If anything, that just makes my point even stronger.

[Reprise]

If anything, that just makes my point even stronger.

Exactly my point

Didn't mean to pour gas on a raging fire. I honestly felt that the faces shown in the dev report weren't half bad, and after all the commotion of that teaser trailer without animations on the main characters, I was curious why there didn't seem to be any chatter about that update.

So basically, this is how things went down. A basic timeline of the events are as follows:

The teaser trailer was supposed to be just a progress update for backers, but Yu Suzuki wanted to reveal it at Gamescom as part of the announcement that they are partnering with Deep Silver. The 'teaser' in its original form is actually longer, but they decided to cut it shorter. Some people in the media and some interviewers have been shown the longer version.

The game is mid-development and it is still very early days. It is not a real trailer, because a real trailer would not be showing work in progress, but because, well, the internet, people like to froth at the mouth and just on the 'let's hate on everything' bandwagon.

After the teaser was shown, there was a lot of 'controversy' and as Segata did rightly point out, he isn't the only one who thinks the game looks like "shit". Lots of people thought the character models looked bad and the main point of concern was the dead pan expressions and completely absent facial animations. Now lots of people would love to say the facial animations were abysmal, but the truth is they weren't. The were just not added in yet.

Yu Suzuki responded to these concerns to point out that facial animations were in the game, but they removed them about a month or two before the teaser video was released, as they were not happy with them and wanted to put more work into them.

They responded with the follow up video showing them working on the facial animations. It was literally just a demonstration to say "hey, look. We haven't forgotten about them and we are working on them". It is what it is. Lots of people are shitting on them ignoring the fact it's just a guy messing around with the tools.

[marurun]

The problem is that because crowd funding is involved, they are having to show lots of early work that most commercial developers wouldn't have to. They aren't able to control the information release as tightly, because they have obligations to backers. But most folks aren't used to seeing this kind of very early content, and so naturally the knee-jerk reaction is to think something is wrong because it isn't as good as xyz's project trailer. The other thing is, I think the Shenmue 3 team is probably not developing to a crowd funding audience the way some teams do. Some teams will prioritize stuff that's easy to show off, even though the game has massive holes in it. I suspect Yu is covering his basics in the more professional development model, meaning there's less early flash and flair to show off.

[Ack]

Ie. the engine is solid and stable, but it's tough to show when the back end of a product is working well. Folks only see the side they interact with, so the tech beneath it isn't something they necessarily consider. For all we know, the hit detection is incredible, the draw distance is remarkable for the amout of actors on screen, and the AI is stupendously designed...but we can't see any of that yet.

I never played Shenmue or Shenmue 2, and I don't pay much attention to modern game advertising, so I don't really have a dog in this fight. But I do hope the game does get released and wraps up the story in a way that makes fans happy.

[Reprise]

But I do hope the game does get released and wraps up the story in a way that makes fans happy.

Maybe Yu Suzuki is mad or just ridiculously ambitious and won't let go of his 'vision' for the series, but I can tell you that Shenmue 3 won't wrap up the story... He says he wants to make Shenmue 4 or Shenmue 5. If Shenmue 3 is not a success, then those games will likely never see light of day. He says at a push, he could compromise the story enough to fit it into 4 games and wrap it up, but he will absolutely not conclude the story in Shenmue 3 as it's "impossible" in his eyes.

So who knows what the future holds... I guess we'll have to wait for a Kickstarter for Shenmue 4 being announced at E3 2033

[Ack]

Heh, well dang. Good luck, fellas.

[Segata]

Ie. the engine is solid and stable, but it's tough to show when the back end of a product is working well. Folks only see the side they interact with, so the tech beneath it isn't something they necessarily consider. For all we know, the hit detection is incredible, the draw distance is remarkable for the amout of actors on screen, and the AI is stupendously designed...but we can't see any of that yet.

I never played Shenmue or Shenmue 2, and I don't pay much attention to modern game advertising, so I don't really have a dog in this fight. But I do hope the game does get released and wraps up the story in a way that makes fans happy.

Nope. he's already talking about Shenmue 4. Seems Yu is wanting to stick to the plan of 16 chapter story. So far in 2 games, we have only played 4 chapters. (Shenmue 1 is Chapter 1,Shenmue 2 is 3-5. 2 was cut and turned into a comic) I would not doubt if 3 is about 3 chapters as well.