If we're going to be negative, can we at least report actual facts? This type of thread lowers morale.

I agree with everything described in the above post, though. The fact they haven't even changed the layout of the main page is really annoying.

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If we compare the Bloodstained Kickstarter to Shenmue 3's one side by side, Shenmue 3 already hit its lowest point with $31,704 early in the campaign period while Bloodstained hit $36,589 as its lowest around the half point period. One point to note though is that Bloodstained had from the very beginning a bigger "drawing power" to its name as it's at the same time a brand new IP and a familiar series, so it was easier to market to both old and new gamers.

But even having said that, there's no reason to be ENTIRELY negative about the current situation. If you look at the initial pledging days, you can see why Shenmue 3 broke all records. We are still in early stages of the campaign and Shenmue 3 managed to gather $3,591,739 within 9 days compared to $2,429,094 from Bloodstained in the same period. That's over a million! I attribute this to the fact we got to know Shenmue 3's ideal target ($10 Mil) and the relentless work done by all of us to help generate hype and gather funds, without the help from even the people behind the campaign (thanks Awesome Japan)! And we got YouTube celebrities like HappyConsoleGamer and Adam Koralik behind us too!

So if we keep this up, things will certainly turn around. Awesome Japan is already starting to listen to us, as they have implemented new stretch goals, reward tiers and finally built an official twitter page. It's still not the ideal, but we are certainly getting there. The Gods of Lucky Hit are with us!

Yu Suzuki will be attending the MAGIC event on February 27, 2016.
Monaco Anime Game International Conferences (MAGIC) is an open event organized by Shibuya Productions, so expect the presence of Cédric Biscay there as well.

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For more information, here is the MAGIC website:
http://www.magic-ip.com/en/1044/

Someone pointed out "magic maze" was something Suzuki-san discussed during his Shenmue postmortem. In that he described creating complex algorithms that would create large landscapes but wouldn't take up much data/storage.

I wonder what this means in the context of Shenmue III...

You are right about the Magic Maze meaning the use of algorithms to replicate large areas. Yu Suzuki used that term on occasional times when talking about creating the Guilin forest part in Shenmue 2. I recall this feature is often used by Naughty Dog in their games as well to avoid use of loading screens.

Though the idea of a literal Magic Maze is far more interesting.

My Spanish is really rusted by now, but I can vouch that what you wrote sounds almost if not entirely native like. It's very intelligible to me, and I can't even spot typos. Good Job!

PS. I think I would though change "Pero ya no es hora de tener vértigo" to "Pero ya no es hora de rendirse". Vertigo sounds a bit strange to me, but probably you know better.

I wrote one in Portuguese if you want it too.

Então Yu Suzuki precisa de $11 milhões. Isso não é impossível. É na verdade muito possível. Se o time do Awesome Japan abrir a opção do Paypal para doações como eles já sugeriram, isso se tornará um novo meio para Yu poder alcançar o seu objetivo. Se continuarmos a realçar o nosso esforço em doar $30 dólares no dia 3 de cada mês nós certamente iremos atingir a meta.

Se $30 dólares é muito para alguns, não tem problema. Afinal a sua saúde e a sua família tomam precedência acima de tudo. Mas para aqueles que possuem equilíbrio financeiro, nós podemos fazer uma grande diferença para Shenmue 3. E eventualmente $30 dólares de cada um todo mês virarão 11 milhões!


PS. I used this little excerpt as a base:
So Yu Suzuki needs $10 million. This is NOT unreachable. It's actually VERY reachable. If they open donations to PayPal as they've suggested it will become the avenue to Yu's goal. If we continue with the monthly thunderbolt and focus our efforts on donating $30 on the 3rd of each month we WILL hit that number. I anticipate the Kickstarter will end up earning between $6 millon and $8 million because at the end everyone who hasn't donated will scramble to get their rewards and those who have extra cash to throw at it will do that. Even if it only makes $5 million that's fine.

PayPal is the ticket after July 17! If they keep PayPal open indefinitely we can continue to give month after month. And that's where the "$30 on the 3rd" makes BIG strides for the campaign.

$30 is nothing to most people. If you are struggling to make ends meet, please take care of yourself and your family first. But for those of us who are stable enough financially we can make a HUGE impact for Shenmue. $30 each month adds up, fast!

Sony's involvement was more than welcome for the sake of the campaign. The problem is that whenever bad publicity is on, Awesome Japan doesn't do much to try to address the issue on the spot.

I feel bad for Yu Suzuki, as Awesome Japan is his only avenue of communication and he can only depend on them to make this work.

It's unlikely to me that it's possible to change teams now (they could hire external help though if budget allows Yu to do so), otherwise we will just continue to do what we must do.

It was no kidding when Yu Suzuki said that the future of Shenmue 3 was in our hands, literally. :rotflmao:

I made attempts at contacting the Shenmue 3 Kickstarter team regarding the explanation of stretch goals, new rewards, VO choice and budget, redoing the video campaign, the reason for the choice of multiple playable characters and how to reel in the general gaming community when most never even heard of the first two games.

My plead yielded the following reply:


Hello,

Very sorry for not getting back sooner! Ok, here we go:
Stretch Goals - Thank you! We are working on it! Trying to be more specific with the SGs and will try to get the explanations moved over. Mr. Suzuki does not want to get too deep without giving all the story away!
Mirrors - Trying!
Video - Still very early development, so there is not much game footage yet. As for scene requests... I think we will have to leave that up to Mr. Suzuki. Again can't give away the story!
At the current stage of funding, it is still hard to know how much voicing there will be. There have been lots of comments for language switching and Mr. Suzuki is aware of the situation.
Why multiple characters? Mr. Suzuki has stated this is one of the things that he really wants to do with Shenmue 3. Will definitely let him know though!
Why care about Shenmue 3? Got it. You are very right. Top priority now getting the message across. We will have the page updated soon.
More rewards? Yes working on them now. Thank you for the ideas!

Thank you very much, please keep your ideas coming, because they will keep us going forward.

Joel &
the Shenmue 3 Kickstarter Team


PS. I did not question the integrity of the work done by his team, because I believe it's counter-productive and unnecessary at this point.

Joel Tess wrote:
At the current stage of funding, it is still hard to know how much voicing there will be. There have been lots of comments for language switching and Mr. Suzuki is aware of the situation.



Sand4fish - what was your question here? Were you asking about the the likelihood of English VO's or whether everything (ie. Non-cutscene gameplay) will be voiced?

I questioned specifically on whether having both Japanese and English VOs would be detrimental to the budget towards other game elements, such as sacrifice of NPCs and extended dialogues or refinement of certain game mechanics. That's why I personally prefer Shenmue 3 to have only Japanese VO, as Masaya Matsukaze is already attached to the project, but I understand my view is on the minority side.

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Shenmue tree in Bailu?
Edited.

Real Bailu Town, Pengzhou city
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I know what I say here will make no difference as the whole of this site seems to be intent on this "$30 dollars on the 3rd thing". But I really think this has been a misguided idea and not thought through particularly carefully because:

1. Most Shenmue fans aware of the kickstarter will have already have pledged as much as they can afford
2. Even if they haven't, just yelling at them to up their pledge will unlikely provide much motivation for them to do so
3. The whole thing is insulting for the fans who can't afford to up their pledge
4. It will come across as pressurizing, and may even put people off pledging at all
5. Since this new initiative is essentially hijacking the long established tweetathon which uses #SaveShenmue, a slogan Yu Suzuki and his team now also embrace, people may assume this initiative has Yu and his team's blessing (when it doesn't), or was even organized by them themselves, and as such, this runs the risk of reflecting badly on them.

As I said, I'm sure no one here will listen, but this idea smacks of desperation and lack of forethought.

The tweetathon you've mentioned mostly likely reached its maximum function by now, so yes we are desperate. We had other ideas, but it seems the $30 on the 3rd is the one the collective fans agree to most. We are all adults here, so the idea of feeling pressurized by the internet is a bit silly IMO. Besides all of us, including the person who came up with this idea (elfshadowreaper), state clearly, while spreading the word, that taking care of yourself and your family should take precedence over a game. This is good community effort.

Wait, so magic maze is an idea from 1998? When was that presentation? Because 1998 was from before Shenmue 1 and that stuff looks like it's from Shenmue 2...

GDC 2014. The magic maze idea was being played around before production of Shenmue 2. In the Saturn version, there was a section of a demo which had Ryo running through the Guilin forest, and Ryo exploring buildings in Kowloon. Probably at that time they were already thinking of ways of replicating large areas within the memory constraint of CD-ROMs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-O8jRokADU&list=PL6C3CEE910876223E

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They need to add some stretch goals between $5.1m and $6m. That's too wide of a gap to not have one.

Yep, the only way we really have any chance of hitting $5.5M+ is if there's some good stretch goals added between $5.1M and $6M. Letting Awesome Japan and Ys Net know this should be priority #1 right now. Look how quickly we're hitting these $200K stretch goals.

We can do this if we were all together in pleading AJ Japan to do so through the KS page. They listened to us before after all.

Yu Suzuki's Kickstarter for Shenmue III has climbed its way past Torment: Tides of Numenera to claim its place as the second highest funded video game on the crowdfunding website.

With regard to all Kickstarter projects, Shenmue III currently stands as the 10th most funded campaign.

The project, which still has another 11 days left in its campaign, is currently sitting at $4.3 million in funding, trailing behind Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, the current leader in the video game category, with a whopping $5.5 million.

Just last week, we learned that the original Shenmue voice actor will be returning for this third installment. Additionally, PlayStation 4 owners will now be able to get a physical version as one of the campaign's newly-added reward tiers.

Some recognition from the gaming media without the usual Backlashing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDsGVNILB1o
Source: IGN

I can't get behind this idea as well. Games like Tomb Raider (reboot) and The Last Of Us have multiplayer components outside the core game, and though they are a welcome diversion, no one really remembers them. It simply doesn't enhance the core experience, and so it's deemed to be a waste of resources. It's something Shenmue 3 specially can't spare.

I really have very little experience with kickstarters, but is it unusual to have so many exclusive non-overlapping tiers? Like an RPG where you level in a different job class? It's like there's a capsule toy job class and a temple visitor class and then there's the portrait class not to mention the grab bags, jacket, watch, dinners, NPC, etc.

It's totally not common for a project to have as many reward tiers as Shenmue 3 has. Up until the middle of the campaign I thought the rewards kind sucked, but now I'm on the fence on whether I should switch my pick as the price gap among the tiers is pretty small and rewards kind distinct from each other. My head would definitely explode if they decide to put out mirror replicas or physical Lucky Hit boards.

VIDEOGAME INDUSTRY TRIBUTE TO SATORU IWATA

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Last call to hop in to this train.

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I went to Portugal and got by speaking only Spanish (albeit slowly and staying away from idioms). They would understand me well but I would understand only about 30% of their Portuguese-language answers. Native Spanish speakers told me it's the same for them.

For some reason it's easier for Portuguese speakers to understand Spanish than the other way around. But I might be biased here as I actually learned Spanish for a while long ago, and Spanish is the more popular language worldwide with people just inclined to learn it even if just a bit.


Hope you'll introduce Shenmue to some non-english-speaking friends, dude! :D Find some friends to buy the game for! =D>

I guess you can forget about African countries and Timor as video game markets but having Brazil and Portugal with over 200 million speakers will hopefully make a difference for Shenmue 3.

In Macau, Portuguese doesn't seem to play that much of a role anymore, though. According to the impeccable Wikipedia, only less than 10% of the population speak it even though it will still be an official language over there until 2049.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macanese_Portuguese

I did =). But I could have enticed more backers if Paypal was an option. Not everyone has a CC or one that works internationally.

$39 Digital Upgrade & Collector’s Shenmue Character Busts
Posted by Ys Net
Happy Shenmue to You!

Here we go, the final rewards for the Shenmue 3 Kickstarter! This is your absolutely last chance to get these Kickstarter only rewards and help #SaveShenmue !!!

SAVE SHENMUE DIGITAL UPGRADE - $39 Kickstarter exclusive Shenmue III wallpaper set. The wallpapers will feature the Real Deal Ryo & Sure as Sugar Shenhua - the perfect models of our heroes as they were always imagined to be! + Your name on the official Shenmue III website. Includes the $29 Reward.

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Only backers pledging at the $100 tier or above will have their name credited in the game.
This reward will be included in all higher rewards.

SHENMUE CHARACTER BUST - $2,500 Concept design models of the main characters, produced for the development of Shenmue 1. These busts were important stepping stones in the design phase to make them as life-like as possible, and were the first time the characters took shape (literally). Good condition, with wear and discoloration from all the loving hands that went into making Shenmue.

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Choose one: Ryo (2 available), Shenhua (4 available), Ren (3 available) or Lan Di (3 available). First come, first serve! Limit 12. Includes the RYO VOICE MESSAGE BY COREY MARSHALL Reward.
Campaign Final Hours Twitch Broadcast

Yu Suzuki will be joined with the Shenmue 3 project members in a special live broadcast to count down the final hours as the Kickstarter project comes to a close. Scheduled to make an appearance are animation producer Hiroaki Takeuchi and main character designer Kenji Miyawaki.

The official Shenmue 3 Twitch channel can be found at:

http://www.twitch.tv/shenmue3official

The festivities will start at the following time:

Yokosuka: July 18, 8:00AM JST
Hong Kong: July 18, 7:00AM HKT
Bailu: July 18, 7:00AM CST
Los Angeles: July 17, 4:00PM PDT
New York: July 17, 7:00PM EDT
Berlin: July 18, 1:00AM CEST
Paris: July 18, 1:00AM CEST
Rome: July 18, 1:00AM CEST
London: July 18, 12:00AM BST
Moscow: July 18, 2:00AM MSK
Seoul: July 18, 8:00AM KST
Sydney: July 18, 9:00AM AEST
Rio de Janeiro: July 17, 8:00PM BRT

Is Shenmue 3 cursed or what? Is everything against Shenmue 3, even electricity? LOL
Next stretch goals revealed:
$6.7 Million so Yu can pay the electricity bill
$6.8 Million Power Generator
$6.9 Million Joel, the Fanta guy is back

http://www.twitch.tv/shenmue3official