The trailer is quite awful, it's not going to convince anyone that isn't a Shenmue fan to jump on board. It looked like one of those random Unreal prototypes fans make and not something from a professional studio. I don't get why they didn't just include the facial animations they took out as that would be better then the blank stares. Even throwing a message at the start of the trailer saying the faces are in development or a 30 second clip of Yu in his office saying this is just to show off tone.

I was on Twitter when the trailer went live and it doesn't take long for people to find issues with things, now the faces are constantly going to be made fun of until we see something better because only the hardcore Shenmue fans will read interviews. It's a shame because the backlash could have easily been prevented and I'm surprised no one internally stood up and said it's a bad idea to show it after the Mass Effect and Street Fighter face backlash. Within 5 minutes I saw Gifs showing the flaws and the majority taking the piss. You want these people on your side as it's your general game fan that will make the game a success financially.

Hopefully with Deep Silver assisting now things like this can be improved, ever since the Kickstarter started I've scratched my head at how things have been done.

With that all said and done as soon as the music kicked in I looked like the Cheshire Cat with the grin I was pulling from watching the trailer. Shenmue isn't my favourite game ever but I love the series and it finally hit home to me that we was getting Shenmue III. I've spent more on this game then I've ever spent on a game before but I've not really thought about it much but now it finally seems real and within reaching distance. I followed the Kickstarter campaign and watched Yu's live streams but as soon as the Kickstarter ended and I pledged my money it seemed so far away that it wasn't worth thinking about. Now I'm worried about if we will get Shenmue HD before this so I can carry over my capsule toys.

One person I think that needs to be more targeted is Gio Corsi. It's down to the building the list campaign that he runs that we got Shenmue III. He's clearly got contacts at Sega with helping on Shenmue III and playing a big role in bringing Yakuza games west. I've always felt he would be better to ask then the Sega twitter accounts during the tweetathons.

But the trailer was great so I don't see what the problem is. I mean, the only bad points were the Ryo and Shenhua models (I'm very picky in this regard though because I want them to look like a specific way and nothing less!)and the facial animations (though I didn't even notice them until some people pointed them out, and I still don't really!) The plus sides to the trailer were the astonishing environments, incredible fight scenes and the whole overall Shenmue feel that it had. It's certainly a win in my book!

Do you really think someone who has never played a Shenmue game will watch that and be tempted to get into the series? A trailer is meant to sell a game and this doesn't do that. The environments are nice but in 2017 most games have nice environments so they're nothing special. The fight scenes don't look incredible, you have some awkward mocap and Roy doing a move that looks awkward.

I can understand someone saying they enjoyed the trailer since you've been waiting for Shenmue III for years (as I did) but you can't tell me that's a good trailer without it sounding like your inner fanboy leaking out.

I wouldn't release the numbers if I was Yu. This game is a bit different to most Kickstarters as we already know about 3 other company's who have invested in it and I bet there are silent investors, no one can convince me Sega doesn't have a hand in the pie. If he said he had a staff of 100 you'll get people working out the average wage someone is paid and how much money in total there is on the project, then the bitching when people realise they was asked to Kickstart it when it's barely anything or the total budget.

When we compare this to what we saw in the teaser, it further adds to the point that it showed a game that's a WIP. It also shows us that those ridiculing it are trying to grasp onto anything during SIII's dev. process that seemingly reinforces their existing bias. That's going to eventually turn off the level-headed.

Don't think so mate, people saw a lot of issues and pointed them out. It's not that they have a bias just that they didn't think it looked very good and commented on it. The first two Shenmue games weren't universally loved back in the day and was very split with those that love it it and those that didn't. With the new generation of players you're also going to get people who don't like it and those that love it. Saying they didn't like the look of the trailer doesn't make them automatically biased but just someone with an opinion, and people are going to make fun because quite honestly the faces not moving looks comical. Not everyone is a diehard Shenmue fan and to a lot of people this isn't something special but just another game.

When the game comes out it's going to be hilarious watching the review threads with people freaking out if a single outlet gives it a low score. "That website has always been shit!" "They only like shit games!" "Everyone else gave it a good score so they must be wrong!"

One thing that does concern me is how the gaming media will receive the game. I fully expect the big websites to criticize the game because either 1. They have no history with the franchise or 2. They just enjoy trashing fandoms they are no part of. I wish there was a way we could get out in front of this and let these places know we expect fairness when reviewing Shenmue 3. If it's a bad game, it's a bad game. But if it's a good game after 15+ years of dormancy but it's not the AAA people expect it to be, it's done what the majority of revisited franchises have failed miserably to do.

They aren't going to criticise the game just because they enjoy trashing the fandom, is it impossible to believe that not everyone thinks Shenmue is the best thing ever? If they criticise the game it'll be because they don't enjoy it, you really think anyone outside of the fanboys will care about the history of the series when writing their review? At some point I've seen every website that reviews things called shit because someone didn't like a score they gave it. I expect the review thread on this forum to be hilarious with people tearing their hair out that someone doesn't like Shenmue because you can't just dislike the game.

Some outlets will enjoy it and some won't. Just like every other game. The idea of trying to tell people we demand fairness is embarrassing.

YSnet doesn't consider it a promotional effort, so I can't fathom why we keep going in circles about it supposedly being an "ad". Their word is the end of it. They know what they made.

YSnet's own language on the Kickstarter is that it's a progress video. Even the Playstation YouTube video (which apparently was meant to launch at the same time as the KS video) hedges its bets as "1st teaser" and a video description of "The first teaser of Shenmue III is built from a small slice of an in-development build of the game, and it delivers small peeks in new look of main characters, new characters, and feels of Shenmue world."

It doesn't even say what year the game is supposed to release FFS.

Trying to convince people that something that clearly wasn't an ad was an ad, and should have looked like an ad, but in the same breath making excuses for people who won't read a video description barely over 35 words... just... what?

It doesn't matter what Ysnet call it, it's an advertisement of the game they're making. We're going around in circles because you're not accepting that. They can call it a progress video all they like but it's cut like a trailer therefore it's a trailer.

I don't really get what point you're trying to make about the year it's being released not being on the trailer. I could point to many trailers that don't have the release date on it. It wouldn't surprise me if they didn't put it the date on the end out of stupidity as the marketing team clearly don't know what they're doing.

Yes, asking people to read a description is too much. I went and see IT the other day and saw trailers before the film, should I have to go home and read the description of each trailer before I decide if I like what I saw? If you're making a 2 minute video you've got to sell your product in those 2 minutes. You've got to hook people in with what you're showing from the off, if it makes your product look bad then you don't show it.

The sad thing is that having a half hour meeting in a room with just some people with an ounce of common sense could have made this trailer and releasing it a massive win for the game in the public eye.

People aren't panicking. I've said I don't think it's a good trailer/teaser and people get all touchy about it so I explain why because quite a few people think nothing bad can be said about Shenmue. Saying something that isn't 100% positive doesn't mean I'm pounding on my keyboard panicking. Everytime I've explained why I don't think the teaser is very good I've said why and explained my reasons. It's the side that aren't supposedly panicking that have called people cunts and claimed people who don't like it are on a bandwagon with an agenda.

Because I want the game and series to be a success so we can get Shenmue IV. The argument is that it's not a good trailer that sells the game to the masses who they need to sell it to for this game to be a success story. Sure the 70k hardcore who contributed to Kickstarter understand it's in development and a work in progress but most people don't look into this stuff or care. But so far the game has sold only 70k copies but they still need to make back Sega, Sony, Shibuya and Deep Silvers investments to be a success. People think the game is already a success story because of Kickstarter but 70k copies sold would make it one of the biggest flops ever so you can't stop there, that's why you need to focus on non Shenmue fans.

Sat at my desk today I thought about how I would have handled the release of the trailer. Felt like writing it for shits and gigs and most of this was thought up in 15 minutes so it's not perfect. I also wanted my plan to cost as little money as possible.

For starters I've said since the Kickstarter that they need to create a Yu Suzuki twitter account that tweets in English, Kojima has both a Japanese Twitter and English twitter account that tweet at the same time.

5 days before the release of the trailer you release a short teaser which just shows the cave footage which fades to black and then gives a date for 5 days time with a message. "See the full trailer 22.08.17." You release this short teaser around 4:30PM BST. That way everyone on the West coast of America sees it before work, east coast sees it at lunch and Europe see it after work so you're striking when everyone is looking on Twitter/YouTube. This will create news articles and start 5 days of hype rather then the one day if you just release the trailer in full straight away. As much as people moan about teasers for teasers the fact is they work and this will get Shenmue talked about on places like Twitter and NeoGaf with people getting excited for 5 days creating their own hype. It also gives an impression that this is a big deal and something worth waiting for which can get people who aren't normally interested paying attention. Humans always want to know more and being teased makes them curious.

Every day leading up to the date at the end of the teaser you post an image or two on Twitter of a screenshot, like the ones which were posted on the PlayStation Blog. You do this at the same time everyday at 4:30PM BST. This keeps adding fuel to the hype fire for the five days between teaser and trailer.

The day of the trailer. You release the trailer yet again at the peak time for maximum coverage and exposure. Before the trailer there is a short message by Yu Suzuki who says something along the lines of.
"Hello everyone, it's been just over two years since we launched our Kickstarter and thanks to the support of our amazing fans Shenmue III will be a reality. You may have also seen recently that we've partnered with Deep Silver who're giving us amazing support which will make the game better then originally possible. I will now be able to make the Shenmue III I have always dreamed of making. To celebrate this we have a short trailer for you but I want to stress the game is still in development so some things such as the animation will not be exactly what you get when the game is released. Also I have something else very special. *Yu pulls out something that was laying around the office like a signed copy of Shenmue I on Dreamcast or a signed piece on concept art* . We will select a person at random from the list of people who retweet this video from the Shenmue twitter account to win this prize. Thank you for your time, please enjoy. *trailer plays but cut out some awkward parts*.

The result. Shenmue has been one of the most talked about games in a day for at least two different days. You're controlling the message by getting ahead of any issues which may be raised and creating hype. You've set up a contest which will make people promote the game for you and all it costs is the price of a stamp. After E3 and now 5 days of hype at Gamescom you're setting a precedent that Shenmue news is big news. News sites such as IGN and Gamespot will write first about the original teaser and then the second one, this keeps people coming back to their sites for Shenmue news and the more clicks they see for the series the more they will talk about it any chance they can which creates more hype for Shenmue. There is no talk about the faces as you've nipped it in the bud before it's become an issue and all talk focuses on how excited people are and how Deep Silver is making the game better.

If YsNet want to talk to me about the next push I'm willing to talk.

It's quite surprising just how dead this forum is outside of the Shenmue III forum. The whole time we were waiting for SIII,
GD was the most active and now SIII is a reality everyone has fucked off.

For me it’s 2 things:
1. I don’t like the random thoughts or random gaming thoughts topics. I think after they were created people stopped making topics and just posted in them and if you missed the conversation it was too late to jump in.

2. The Shenmue III announcement brought a slew of people who don’t stick around and just want to talk about Shenmue. Before Shenmue III we had a strong 20 or so regulars that got along and knew each other’s likes and dislikes. If someone recommended me a game I took the suggestion seriously as I knew they knew what I was into. Even the general topics were normally a laugh from anything to people talking about their life, funny news stories or serious debates.

We even put rules in topics like the gaming music thread that no Shenmue music could be shared because we knew everyone liked it and we didn’t need to just talk about Shenmue. After 10 years of no Shenmue news most of the regulars were bored of talking about it, I’m still bored of talking about Shenmue and I’m just waiting for Shenmue III which I’m really excited about but have no interest disecting every screenshot. I imagine most of the old regulars feel the same as I don’t see many in the Shenmue forums and although they all at least liked Shenmue to most it wasn’t the best thing ever.

I’ve thought about trying to inject life into the forums and just posting tons of topics to try and get conversation flowing again. The thing that put me off was that I didn’t know most of the names posting anymore, I used to know every name that posted here and their personality. I don’t really have much interest in talking to a bunch of people who don’t hang around like 95% of those who posted in the introduce yourself topic. I’d take 20 people who come onto a forum to bullshit, have a laugh and discuss their hobby over 50 that have an interest in one topic. This forum has always been a Shenmue forum in name but the 10 odd years I was posting here it was more a general gaming forum with down to earth people.

Thinking this looks awesome. I liked the Galaxy games but they were a little to linear and I prefer the hub like worlds of 64 and Sunshine which this seems to be going back to. The only thing that's stopping me getting this is that there are no other games I want on the Switch since I played Zelda and Mario Kart on the WiiU, but this will be one of the first games I get when I do.

https://youtu.be/Wef0OjBuOTc

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

I'm always interested in David Cage games but I just want to see how these changed can effect the overall game rather then the single scenes. I know most Quantic Dream games don't change their story much depending on your decisions but I got the point people can react differently 7 years ago when I saw Heavy Rain.

The recent release of the JFK files made me think of this. A lot of people thought that wth the release of these files ‘the truth’ would finally come out.

If you could be allowed to find out the truth about one topic what would it be? You’ll get all the details. 9/11? Is the moon landing real? Is God real?

Whatever you pick will be delieved to you in the form of an essay that will be written so that you can understand it. Also you can’t tell anyone else about what you find out, no running to the press or anything like that.

For me I’d want to know about life outside of earth and how much we really know about them. Does the government know and keep the news hidden? Do aliens know about us and we don’t know about them? Or are we really alone?

The United States Central Intelligence Agency released a cache of files found on Osama Bin Laden's personal computer taken from the deadly 2011 raid on his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Among the 321 gigabytes of files found on his computer, of which many were related to his operations for Al Qaeda, were copyrighted materials the CIA could not republish. These included several animated movies, TV shows, as well as a copy of Final Fantasy VII.

http://www.usgamer.net/amp/the-cia-released-321-gigabytes-of-files-from-bin-ladens-computer-which-had-a-copy-of-final-fantasy-vii

The more I hear about the guy the more I like him.

^Before Odyssey and Breath of the Wild they had released three 3D Mario games and one Zelda game in the last 10 years on home consoles. People can claim they milk their franchises all they like but between Galaxy and Odyssesy how many Assassin Creed and Call of Duty’s have we had? That’s milking something.

I’ve not been the biggest fan of Nintendo’s output in recent years but even I’ve played plenty of other Nintendo games in that time. If you look at the list of Nintendo games and say there is nothing that interests you then it’s probably your problem not theirs, they cater to enough different markets that 95% of people will find something to like.

To answer Hyo Razuki Nintendo probably cover more genres then any other developer, I can’t think of many genres they don’t cover. To answer the ones you asked:

JRPG’s: Xenoblade, Fire Emblem, Pokemon
Fantasy Adventure Game: Zelda.

You're still missing the point, Sonic Adventure and the power of the Dreamcast hardware is what allowed Sonic Team to finally integrate a higher level of storytelling into Sonic game. Trying isolate specific qualities like voice acting alone is far too reductionist, it's everything from the animation to the 3D landscapes that provide context to that voice acting for multiple characters. That in truth huge and epic stories, where Sonic spoke, have always been a part of the Sonic series. Sonic Adventure simply marks the point when modern technology caught up with what the cartoons and comics had been doing from the beginning.

Games like Metal Gear Solid literally had a 2D picture move it’s mouth slightly for 90% of the game and told a more complex story and built a world better then a Sonic game could ever dream of. You don’t need a fancy machine to make something immersive, radio can be immersive just using sound if done right. The reason there wasn’t voice acting before was because the games didn’t need it, Sonic was about the gameplay and still should be.

I doubt that the Sonic Team was sitting around saying they wanted the technology to get better like James Cameron did for Avatar so they could do Sonic justice and then produce gems like this:

https://youtu.be/ZB8CflwVwWY

As for Sonic Forces, you shouldn't pay much attention to such poorly made videos. There are plenty of branching paths and exploration in Sonic Forces, especially when it comes to the later levels. Just take a look at the late game Null Space to consider when Sonic Forces can achieve with its more complex examples of level design:

Grind on a rail for 20 seconds
Land on a platform, get surrounded by enemies and spin in a circle to kill them
Jump on a rail and grind again for 20 seconds
Land on another platform, more enemies, spin in a circle and jump on another rail.

Having 3 different routes that result in you just doing the same thing no matter what route you go down is not complex level design.

The game is being made by a guy who hasn’t released a game not on a mobile phone since 2001. I’ve always found it strange that Yu has always said he pretty much doesn’t touch any video games so how much understanding does he have of modern games and their mechanics? Reading his interviews the guy has always seemed to live in a bit of a bubble from the rest of the industry. I hope Yu does some proper research on current games and learns from them otherwise this could end bad. Fans may still think Shenmue is the best thing ever but things in the Shenmue series have been improved by others since 2001.

Outside of that the game will at best get a mixed reception. The Shenmue series has always been a love or hate thing and isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, people need to prepare themselves for people really not liking it. Although I still can’t wait for the review thread here and watching everyone cry when someone dislikes the game.

^Not every penny goes back to Sega. Shops like Walmart and GameStop get a cut, you have to pay for manufacturing like boxes and discs, shipping and the console makers get a cut.

Most third parties make about $12 for every game sold at $60 and then most studios have bonuses that the publisher have to pay should they hit certain milestones

The Kickstarter May have been successful but so far the game hasn’t even sold 100k copies which if Sega had funded themselves would have been one of the biggest flops ever. Only chance we have of Sega jumping back in is if Shenmue III sells well enough at retail for them to want the profits of Shenmue IV for themselves.

Even with a budget of 10 million a game has to sell well over a million copies to be a success.

If a game people don't like get's above a 9 then the website is shit and obviously has been paid off.

If it's a game the person likes and it get's below a 9 then then reviewer only like's shit games.

Call of Duty get's amazing reviews every year because 99% of the people who play it love those games and consider it one of the best first person shooters out there. It wouldn't be the best selling game year on year if people didn't love it. I'm not a Call of Duty fan but I can understand it's more loved then most of the games I like, talk to your average person who doesn't post about games online and I bet they'd say they love it. At my old work most of the people who worked there would go home each night and play Call of Duty for a few hours because they fucking loved it, guess Activision payed them off...

I love that people seriously think that every single year Activision must pay around 100 websites thousands of dollars each year just to change their review score.

To do this you would need to make sure your offer is so good that they don't turn it down, the offer has to be so good that they take it and keep quiet about it. You're talking thousands for each person. Let's say they offer each person $2,000. They then need to offer this to about 100 reviewers. That means every year for one game Activision has an outgoing of about $200,000. If they did this for every game they release that would creep into the millions. They're also a publicly listed company so that much money disappearing is going to lead to questions which they would have to answer with proof of where that money's going.

Guess that's much more believable then maybe people like things I don't like and that's ok.

I'm sure the odd bit of money has been slid across the table over a dinner but if corruption was as common as people think we would know about it because someone would sell the story and get rich. I work for one of the biggest insurance companies in the UK so we're always accused of being corrupt since insurance companies are an easy target. If even 1% of what people claimed we did was true the company would be shut down within a week but guess what it's not true, any of it. If it was I'd call the press right now and negotiate how much they're willing to pay me for bringing down the insurance industry and have an early retirement.

It's voting time people.

https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/sh-petershillprimary-org/media/images/large/ballot-box-graphic.jpg

2015 Awards: http://www.shenmuedojo.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=49511
2016 Awards: http://www.shenmuedojo.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=50562

Let's hope for another amazing award ceremony. Due to Kelsey Grammer getting drunk at the after party last year and punching Kiba we've got a new host:
Jeff Goldblum!
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_9jk8sA8xxkw/TPk92hd5_3I/AAAAAAAAATY/zDTAGg9pPtw/s1600/Jeff-Goldblum-jeff-goldblum-13452924-1280-960.jpg

The rules are the same as always:

Rules:
No voting for yourself. Ever!
You don't have to vote for every award but those you take part in you must fill all 3 places. You can vote for just best member if you want.
Voting someone as 1st gets them 3 points, voting them as 2nd gets them 2 points and believe it or not voting them 3rd gets them 1 point.
No voting for people you thought were great in 2006 this is 2017.
Keep your votes in a PM to myself. Any posts before the results are announced that reveal your votes before the winners are announced will make your votes null and void.

The categories:

Member of the Year
1.
2.
3.

Worst Member
1.
2.
3.

Funniest Member
1.
2.
3.

Coolest Member
1.
2.
3.

Buzz Killington
1.
2.
3.

Biggest Punchbag
1.
2.
3.

Biggest Bully
1.
2.
3.

Game of the Year
1.
2.
3.

There is currently no prize but if someone is willing to donate one let me know.