Would you rather?

[SMDzero]

In this scenario we will assume that Shenmue 3 would end up being a AAA quality game which would exceed your absolute wildest dreams.

The prison would be Pelican Bay Penitentiary and you would face 23 hour lock-down. However you would NOT be abused nor hurt in any way during your 2.5 year incarceration.

[Three Blades]

In that case, do we have access to reading materials, and materials to allow us to pursue any artistic pastimes such as drawing? And can we exerise freely?
Also, I assume that this does not give us a criminal record, since we are there voluntarily for the sake of being able to play Shenmue3?

[Thief]

I've already wasted enough of my life, i'm not going to waste any more of it over a video-game. Not about potentially being abused or whatever, nah, Shenmue 3 just isn't worth giving away 2.5 years of my life. No way.

[SMDzero]

No artistic endeavors or reading material. You'd basically be in solitary confinement 23 hours a day in a small cell.

You would have 1 hour each day to exercise in the prison yard.

You would not have any kind of criminal record upon release and would be allowed to instantly continue your life where you left off without any consequences in terms of finances/job/school/relationships, etc.

Upon release Yu Suzuki would personally pick you up from the prison and give you a signed copy of Shenmue 3.

[Zoltor]

That's not a very difficult choice, never playing Shenmue 3 is not a option, I would gladly take the Jail time

[Three Blades]

Mhh, being in the cell alone with no stimulation of any kind might be tough on sanity, but damn, if there's no other consequences at all, then yeah I'm in
Are we at least free to move around within the cell?? We aren't chained to the walls to restrict movement?

[Henry Spencer]

...I'll say it again like a I did a month or two ago, this place is weird.

[SMDzero]

I just think we've all spent a decade and a half agonizing over Shenmue 3.... what would another 2.5 years in the slammer be anyway? We have to wait 2.5 years anyway for Shenmue 3.. why not spend it in prison if you had a guarantee that you would never be harmed while incarcerated?

Can you imagine being forced to live out THE REST OF YOUR LIFE being sentenced to never play Shenmue 3 just to get out of a little jail time??

[Thief]

Can you imagine being forced to live out THE REST OF YOUR LIFE being sentenced to never play Shenmue 3

It would be no different than the life I've lived up until now.

[Zoltor]

Can you imagine being forced to live out THE REST OF YOUR LIFE being sentenced to never play Shenmue 3

It would be no different than the life I've lived up until now.

The difference if, such a fate was forced upon us, but now things are different

We don't need to continue living in agony, so why the hell would we choose to?

[OL]

I just think we've all spent a decade and a half agonizing over Shenmue 3.... what would another 2.5 years in the slammer be anyway? We have to wait 2.5 years anyway for Shenmue 3.. why not spend it in prison if you had a guarantee that you would never be harmed while incarcerated?

Can you imagine being forced to live out THE REST OF YOUR LIFE being sentenced to never play Shenmue 3 just to get out of a little jail time??

You make it sound like the only thing any of us have done for the past 15 years is sat in a corner waiting for a game. There's a chance that most of us have enough going on in life that the loss of 2.5 years over a videogame would be, y'know... pretty effing retarded.

And I just have to say, "agony" is a pretty strong word. "Mild annoyance" might be a better descriptor for how the wait has been, and even that's pushing it.

[amiga1200]

miso soup?
it fucked me up, so share the wealth!
a, red miso and sea veg?
or...
b, white miso with tofu?
(answer TOTALLY dictates how many RANK BASTARDS WITH ZERO TASTE there are.)
[edit]
goddamnit!
same title as that other 'would you rather?' subject, didn't read the very thing i chipped into earlier on this one, sorry guys.
can a staffer please move it to the other subject of the same name. (different context.)
thanks, and again, apologies for the screw up!

[KiBa]

You make it sound like the only thing any of us have done for the past 15 years is sat in a corner waiting for a game.

Well....

[Zoltor]

I just think we've all spent a decade and a half agonizing over Shenmue 3.... what would another 2.5 years in the slammer be anyway? We have to wait 2.5 years anyway for Shenmue 3.. why not spend it in prison if you had a guarantee that you would never be harmed while incarcerated?

Can you imagine being forced to live out THE REST OF YOUR LIFE being sentenced to never play Shenmue 3 just to get out of a little jail time??

You make it sound like the only thing any of us have done for the past 15 years is sat in a corner waiting for a game. There's a chance that most of us have enough going on in life that the loss of 2.5 years over a videogame would be, y'know... pretty effing retarded.

And I just have to say, "agony" is a pretty strong word. "Mild annoyance" might be a better descriptor for how the wait has been, and even that's pushing it.

It's much more then a mild annoyance, Shenmue wasn't designed like anything else in the gaming industry, the "endings" for lack of a better word, aren't open ended endings, like any other title that wants to tell a single cohesive story through multiple games. They are literally cliffhangers, and to make it worse, they execution is beyond godly(the first game's cliffhanger ending, is as good as the best wuxia series out there, but the 2nd game's cliffhanger ender far succeeds that. Yu took one of the most gipping aspects from wuxia series, which are made by people far more experience in this type of story telling, and someone manage to far exceed anything that was done before or even since).

Then there's the game its self, yes It's hard to believe we're talking about a game, that is created by use of a computer programing code, and some art, because it sure as hell doesn't feel that way.

If the only game that exist, was Shenmue 1, it wouldn't be this much of a problem, because even with how amazing Shenmue 1 was, and infact still is, you can still tell It's a computer program(From what I can tell, why the first game doesn't really get there, is the NPCs don't have enough dialog options, so It's really easy/common to hear everything most NPCs have to say).

Well Yu Suzuki, being Yu Suzuki has to always be constantly improving upon a formula/something he created, thus enter the holy grail that achieved what so many developers at the time were wanting to accomplish, yet never getting close. A game with a world that feels literally like a real, living, and breathing world(if you want me to list all/try to list all the things that make it feel so real, just ask, but for the time being, since you're on this site, I'm just going to assume you know these things already).

Now this whole thing is as great, as it is a serious problem, you see, Yu Suzuki did such a godly job, it set the bar to such a height, no one else would even try to make such a game ever again, so all there is, is Shenmue 1, and Shenmue 2, there is no bandaid substitute out there for either of those games or for a potential new entry in the series.

A series so great, only became a possibly because of a phenomenon that happen in 95ish, with a window lasting until 2001, and it just so happened, it landed in the hands of the best developer possible, to be given such a once in the lifetime opportunity(hell such a event will never again happen in the industry in general, It's a downright miracle it happened at all, nevermind also managing to fall into the hands of someone like Yu), boy did he run with it too.

This so called "game" series, is so realistic, and indepth that it really has changed lives in the real world, and effected things in the real world, that has nothing to do with the gaming industry at all, so you really can't treat this series as just another game.

Hell 14 years later, we're still finding new things about as well as even meaning from such(we live in a internet driven world now, you know, the so called information super highway, yet there's still new things being discovered, now that's beyond impressive. That's how dynamic the world is).

[SMDzero]

It's not like after the 2.5 years in prison this would happen:

Warden : I'm sure by now you've heard. Terrible thing. A game that anticipated.. less than a week to go before release..... broke my heart to have to cancel Shenmue 3 truly it did. We just have to put it behind us... move on.

OL: I'm done. Everything stops. Get someone else to stay locked up in here for Shenmue.

Warden: [icy] Nothing stops. Nothing... or you will do the hardest time there is. No more protection from the guards. I'll pull you out of that one-bunk Hilton and cast you down with the "Sailors". You'll think you've been screwed by a train! And Shenmue 1 and 2 HD? Gone, deleted from PSN forever. We'll have us a Shenmue disc barbecue in the yard. They'll see the flames for miles. We'll dance around it like wild Injuns! You understand me? Catching my drift?... Or am I being obtuse?
[beat]

Warden: [to Guard] Give him another 2.5 years to think about it.