Perfect summary. And indeed, it doesn't make sense. Net neutrality was the whole fucking point when Tim-Berners Lee created the Web while working at CERN! And he has stated this several times, adding that corporate influence was removing some of that democratic aspect.

Speaking of food and regulation. Over here there's a large group on social media who believe/spread that the establishment is deliberately poisoning us by recommending "dangerous food". Practically everything is dangerous to them for various reasons : bread, fruit, cheese, juice,... Behind it is a PR-guy without any chemistry/medicine background, misinterpreting studies. The few scientists who then bother to respond with facts are of course "paid shills". Funny enough his "questioning" followers always happen to be against the scientific consensus. As you said : paranoid shit.

And you're totally correct about those excuses for firing people.


Internet conspiritard Alex Jones ranting about it.
Haha, I've seen his name show up many times when looking up countless topics. He was always delivering "the hidden truth".

I saw someone remark that it's a step forward for landing techniques too. They were discussing the importance of it when it comes to (far) future space colonization.
It appears to be stuck in a cave now in partial darkness : http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2832751/Rosetta-s-probe-stable-Philae-confirms-s-holding-67P-scientists-fear-tumbled-side.html
Without sunlight things get a little difficult.

It thought that it looked weird though. Approaching the landing site :
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2014/11/12/1415826407405_wps_17_RESTRICTED_TO_EDITORIAL_U.jpg

I liked the "selfie" at 16 km with the comet in the background :
http://www.esa.int/var/esa/storage/images/esa_multimedia/images/2014/10/rosetta_mission_selfie_at_16_km/14968938-1-eng-GB/Rosetta_mission_selfie_at_16_km_node_full_image_2.png

You know, according to EA, paying extra is what the people want . They only provide what modern gamers expect as part of the gaming experience. Well, that was their answer at least after an outlash regarding DLC with cut content.

This sums up modern gaming : http://www.vgu.tv/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/DLC.jpeg

@Sonikku : Suuure, no worries ;)

Very detailed work.
I don't have any pictures myself (or an installed game with character creation so I could take some) but I know what you mean. I always try to get as close as possible to what I envisioned though never tried to recreate characters. Lately, I forced myself to stop customizing a bit earlier though since it's easy to keep on changing and make things worse eventually.

But I remember that between Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 there was a change in settings so an imported character from the first game didn't look exactly right. I remember looking for (and finding) some patch and tips to make the character look like the one you originally had. It's not important for gameplay but having a different looking character would have bothered me.

You're not alone though since my girlfriend and my brother also spend a while creating characters. And I saw Angry Joe mention liking character creation before now that I think of it ;) I guess that it's not too uncommon.

Ok I would like to first bring up N00DL3S, and what started the Jeff vs Jeff (me, the other Jeff) rivalry, even though it was only really a rivalry in the mind of Mr Noodles, and the battle for our affection and lust for our ass holes.
Hilarious way of summarizing/expressing the situation :lol:

Ah, such good times here. In a little over a day, I'll have been here for eleven years.

The one time reporter actually broke some Shenmue news: http://www.shenmuedojo.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=14892
Yeah... I still remember his E3-sessions when he was extra active trying to "provide news".
When asked for proof that he was there he did eventually post a picture. Then claimed that some random guy in the background with his back to the camera was him :lol: I'm not sure now but I think that it was a picture of Yu.
Reporter during E3 :
I'm expecting big things, as my connections in Japan have been on the phone all night.
So, if nothing happens, I'm gonna be giving a half dozen apparant insiders a sev beat down!

http://www.shenmuedojo.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=15894
This topic about some short film aimed at homosexual viewers which used Shenmue references always sticks in my head as a perfect example of over reaction. Some people were seriously outraged! :lol:


I reread a bit of it and was surprised by the different opinions. I remembered it as a bit more one sided for some reason.

Another "revelation" maybe was a member who claimed to have done a porn movie. As proof he mentioned the title months before anything about it was online.

I find it more irritating to think what will happen when Shenmue III is out and the saga is done.
I do remember Yu talking about Shenmue IV a couple of times more recently. So who knows? Maybe it could depend on the funding.

From one interview :
Yu Suzuki : Yes indeed, the story is far away from being completed and to be honest, I do not think that it's possible to end it during Shenmue III. If I had to do it my way, players would experience the ending during Shenmue V. But that seems to be a lot so I'm going to try to finish it within the next 2 games.

As I've said through the years : I would rather get a stellar third game that doesn't conclude the story than get a shitty rushed version that lacks attention to detail and the right Shenmue-spirit. Just so it can be wrapped up in one game. I care more about the journey so to speak than the end in itself in a way.

A great game would make people long for more. A bad one could kind of ruin the legacy instead.

And as Yu said before, the end of the third game is somewhat of a satisfying conclusion. That combined with recent interviews could mean that they might choose not to cut parts of the story to fit it all in one game.

Well, regardless of this Joel Tess thing, Naughty Dog might be involved in a way. The ICE team works there after all so it's not unlikely that they might help out as they do for many Playstation titles.

Naughty Dog is home to the ICE Team, one of Sony’s World Wide Studios central technology groups. The ICE Team focuses on creating core graphics technologies used by all PlayStation developers. The ICE Team has been involved with the development of the PlayStation®4 since its inception, including hardware design, graphics libraries, performance analysis tools, and developer support (hardware evangelism).

Just like Santa Monica helped with Journey and more recently the technical side of The Last Guardian.

I wonder if it's a coincidence that a Shenmue documentary is being made now? It's just that the last years had other things going on like action figures, new jackets, Ryo in All Star Racing, Yu being more public etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIaoXjzIARE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJHv-Mo2j3U


Why does Corey wear two belts?
Common for those who are twice the man. You know, double the stuff to hold up. I'm just guessing though as to its necessity in this particular case.

I think that he was referring to using the touchpad to flip the pages. Not the journal in itself being an interesting idea.

It's good to know that 10 million number. But I'm also slightly worried due to how the Kickstarter campaign is going. Articles like the one from Forbes at the least created extra confusion which was really not needed at this point.

Regarding horses, Besides Shenhua we also had this :
http://www.shenmuedojo.net/gallery/albums/userpics/10001/REN_03.JPG

It's a nice idea and someone I know also talked about this and would like this.

Just some things that I thought of (not shooting down the idea) having worked with sound, from recording to mixing and mastering. For the English dub, fans would likely have to travel to a studio in USA or Canada where a lot of voice work is done. Using different studios close to people could result in different sounding recordings due to the equipment being used, recording technique etc. This sounds weird in game and I've noticed this in a few titles. Even with communication, the sound engineers might not always be able to replicate results from other places.
Having the director at one place is also better to guide everyone.

For the other games Yu made people fly to Japan instead so he could follow the process closely. The cost of this, and the directing got criticized though: http://www.shenmuedojo.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=40831

What happens though when they don't like the performance? Or a foreign accent which clashes with the native English voice cast? Quite difficult situation, especially when the fan has paid for it. Just using the voice as background murmur seems anticlimactic.

Seriously, have a look at this. Real integrity. The man doesn't want to promise too much so backers wouldn't feel betrayed. Compare this to certain huge titles getting released with features missing, downgrades,... Usually with excuses afterwards that it "was just a goal that they strived for during development".

Great interview. I'm glad that he decided not to condense it all in one game. And I likely got the right impression of him since the Shenmue Online days. He never seemed really into it which one of his remarks seems to confirm.

Doesn't the part about the "smell of the graphics" seen sort of pretentious? Or is this some sort of Japanese thing Im not getting?
Not to me and I understand what he means. Maybe it's because I've worked with music? Some of us can describe the sound of an album as colors. Or as dry and wet. One album that I mastered could be described as dark brown and dry, another blue and wet, someone else described a guitar sounding as sulphur etc. I don't think that the intention was to be pretentious. Common language just isn't adequate to describe these things so extra metaphors can help a bit.

There are many former members of the Dojo who have not even logged in. We will be updating said members who hopefully still use the same email addresses they signed up with. Yama and Sean are currently organising this.
Damn, I also want the privilege of a special customized e-mail from the Dojo. Just for the hell of it.

I think a lot of shenmue gamers stopped playing games long time ago. Hopefully if they find this on not gaming media, it'll spark some good memories and back it.
They clearly forgot about a few of these :
Gon - Everyday, without neglect, to keep training
Dan - Be brave and stay calm to make the right decision
Jie - Judge yourself without conceit and do not show moves thoughtlessly
Yi - To act without hesitation, to do what is right

Ideally, initiatives like this should come from the people running the Kickstarter campaign I think. It seems like it would be easier for them to unite different communities. Besides NeoGAF etc. the people commenting on Kickstarter also have suggestions. Ys Net should make more use of their page as a central point. For example by being active in some of the discussions.
As for people reaching out from here. I'm mainly on this forum but some others here could reach out I guess?

He also mentioned in another interview that he had finally decided not to conclude the full story in Shenmue III.
I prefer this since it will at least be closer to his original vision that way. What's the point of rushing through a story and cutting out parts to make it fit in one game? If he does that it will likely not feel like the previous games at all. And the way the series immerse you with its pacing and daily life is also a big part of it all, not just the storyline itself. The other option would be to have the full story but due to the budget, the game would likely be very downscaled and closer to a collection of cutscenes.

They also know more about the funding than we do. Maybe they can already see that it's worth taking the risk? I also assume that more people would return for the "full experience" actually than the bare bones alternative.

Is the internet still going on about this? Fucking hell, people are stupid and/or desperate for clicks.

Suuure, it's obviously a scam. Yu didn't even want to promise too much in an interview just in case it doesn't make it into the game. Since it would feel like betraying the fans he thought. Now that really sounds like the type of guy who wants to scam people. Combine that with Sony officially providing support and proudly showing the game on E3.
It's of course totally worth it for a multinational company as Sony to be associated with a scam. Who cares about reputation (extending to banking) when they might earn a few million dollars on top of their tens of billions ? #-o

There are quite a few AAA-titles out there with missing or broken promised features. Maybe these "Internet journalists" can go the extra mile to sabotage those as they're trying here. And where were all of them during the Bloodstained campaign? There were also unknown funders there but they didn't seem to care as much for some reason.

Disclaimer : there will be some generalizing but most will likely get the main point.

Difficult thread by the way since it's hard to stop when listing a few things that you hate.

Facebook, Twitter,... due to large parts of their users being part of the hive mind.
The majority of self absorbed Youtube-personalities.
The overuse of the word "social media" by journalists here. As if Facebook is the first "social" communication channel in the history of mankind.

Seeing an article almost everyday in our papers about someone getting offended by the most trivial things. That, or some dumbass "warning" people. Like recently, a mother told us some tooth paste was dangerous since her kid's teeth fell out. Of course, it had to be the tooth paste and not at all the little detail that the kid drank enormous amounts of cola at a very young age. Something a dentist had told her not to do.

Realizing that you need to buy new clothes or shoes since shopping is boring.
Our current politicians and their view on a myriad of issues (don't get me started).
Politicians speaking about things that they have no clue about while looking down on an actual expert in the field.

The stupidity of terrorists who gladly fight for the cause and the afterlife without wondering once why their top leaders don't feel the urge to do as they preach. The afterlife is so great but still those leaders run away from bomb attacks. Weird.

Internet, blessing and curse but I hate that stupidity is able to spread much faster than before and often becomes fact.

Those people on Facebook who share I Fucking Love Science stuff and suddenly feel like they are part of a scientific elite above the "common people". All because they share a nice picture of a galaxy now and then with a witty little fact (sometimes wrong). Here, find the eigenvalues and eigenvectors for this ordinary homogeneous differential equation instead. Boring and difficult you say? Yeah, that's the daily grind for scientists.

Traffic jams
Myself
"Social experiments" on Youtube. Fake shit most of the time trying to score some PC points.
Judging by the comments on Facebook, everyone is pretty or smart or brave,...

I'd better stop.
:-({|= ](*,)

I also liked those and wouldn't mind if they keep them. What's still amazing now is that they bothered with details like different lighting behaving in a different way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IOiyNYWqis

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5__PiaV8Ww
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1laFdRH7TA

If looks could kill...

http://i.imgur.com/kYR4ZD0.png

Gotta watch this later now. :lol:
Haha, I noticed it a few times during the stream. I felt a bit bad though for the guy. I got the impression that he was nervous and overreacted a bit due to that. But as I wrote in the chat here. You could see that Yu and the other translator had a look at one point that said : What the hell?

I wonder though why they even used Twitch if it was just an interview anyway? I registered there but it felt kind of pointless. Personally, I would have chosen "Google Hangout on Air" for this purpose. It would have been better in this case.
It immediately uploads the video to Youtube so that's less work for people here ;)
And instead of messages flying by you get the questions in the comment section. So they could have more easily picked out questions and people could give thumbs up to the best ones and downvote worthless spam.
Another idea is that they could have looked for representatives from different communities to talk to them live. I can assure you that we would have had more focused questions (instead of partly repeated ones) immediately directed to Yu. Twitch was a horrible choice I think.

In a way, I would give them a break since they're probably nice guys trying the best they can. That being said, a project of this scale is maybe a bit out of their league.

The interview didn't hurt pledging but it's crazy that they, at this level, didn't test their setup (judging by that common echo issue). Before the start, I actually expected technical issues and mentioned it in our chat. Personally, when I record something we go through a full test first before we start for real.
And they also needed to evaluate Twitch first. Not react afterwards : "Wow! This chat is fast! I can't read anything." That's stuff you consider before going live.

Sure, the project is doing well money wise but that's largely due to the fans. Not really how it's run. It just feels like it could reach a bit higher with the right approach (engage outsiders etc). Maybe someone experienced could step in to help them out?

It wasn't THAT bad. He was just rather disrespectful, especially when considering Japanese manners. How did he ever get this job in Japan? Maybe being quirky was part of his thing, not sure Suzuki knew this when signing up though.
I feel a bit sorry for the guy actually. Sure, he was overly enthusiastic at times but he was likely nervous and not used to interviews. As I wrote in the chat, he actually reminded me of two American guitarists who moved to Japan. They also acted in a similar way. Like they were trying to blend in somehow but with the result being over the top :P

I love when he writes like this. [-o<
Naughty? :heart: And isn't he dreamy? :heart: Just kidding :mrgreen:

The job of a producer is to locate the funds for a particular project, right? or set stuff up and things like that ?
It depends a bit from industry to industry but in most cases it's taking care of the business side of things, make people follow schedules. The overall picture.
There are producers involved in the creative side. Some on a general level, others more detailed. I myself did a creative producing job for bands before. Besides regular mixing they largely let me decide the overall sound and structure of the album (pauses in between songs, when to use fade outs etc.). This can alter how the music gets perceived.

I'm in the Mittz camp of I want a great game rather then a crap one that finishes the story. The story of Shenmue isn't something I would rate as one of the series highlights.
Likewise. I always thought that, even years before the announcement. The details and pacing contribute to the story.

even Yu should be at these guys to sort it out but as far as we can see his along for the ride. Sure this is the 3rd game in the series but then you have the stretch goal of the cinema shorts, explain what they are and how they will help newcomers. If you aren't even going to attempt to bring in new fans then don't bother hiring a team and put up the kickstarter yourself.
Either he doesn't really know what to expect from Kickstarter. Or he's very confident due to the extra funding. That's one of my biggest criticisms though : they're not really trying to bring in new people which is needed at this point. They should explain more and maybe tell how certain game features stand out compared to other games.

It wouldn't surprise me if people started getting the wrong rewards or ones that have changed entirely when the post comes in 2017.
Would they still be on the payroll during development? I first thought that their job ended after the Kickstarter but maybe not. YS Net should be able to update during development themselves though. And maybe they or Shibuya could take care of sending rewards?

I maybe haven't been as negative as others but find quite a few things not very positive either. You mentioned a few things that I had also been thinking about.


2) The success of the kickstarter is even more impressive when you consider Shenmue III is only on two platforms.
Yeah, and the game is also from a period when gaming wasn't as mainstream so sales weren't as they are now. It pissed me off when I saw comments about Shenmue's awful sales. What they didn't think about is that games selling over 1 million were seen as best-selling games. Even huge games like MGS3 and God of War were in a 2-4 million range on PS2. The Platinum series for example started from 400 000 copies sold.

3)The number of backers != total number of pre-orders or sales.
Yeah, Divinity : Original Sin had around 20 000 backers and sold 500 000 from what I read. This being an old school turn based RPG.

4)I would argue that while the kickstarter announcement at E3 helped the overall numbers, it also made us reach a saturation point much sooner.
Likely. And the fanbase is maybe more invested compared to other a few other franchises on Kickstarter leading to this peak.

5)It's fine if we don't hit $10M - they'll figure something out. The success of this campaign could help ease investor risk, so it's possible the money is covered elsewhere (a post KS paypal option probably covers the rest, honestly).
I was also thinking that they maybe could figure something out during development. Be it Paypal or maybe some more support from Sony or other investors if they're close to a huge milestone. As Jeff pointed out, it's possible that they get funding depending on the Kickstarter amount.

All in all, what bugs me is not the fact that it's bad in itself but that there might be more potential.
PS Hi Bellator.

I already happened to contact YS Net about Google Hangout on Air actually. I did so right after the Twitch-interview last week. I told them that comments get saved on the page and that people can vote for the best questions. So it's easier for them to find relevant things compared to a chat. When a question is answered they can then mark it as "answered" to keep track of things. I also mentioned that several participants could take part, like maybe representatives from the community, voice actors, Shibuya, YS Net. No answer yet but maybe they saw it?

Different people will indeed view this in a different way. And many times those with kids (sometimes) wish they didn't. And vice versa. It's simple, as with all things you get good and bad sides.
I've seen the prostitute argument being mentioned by business men actually. Some said that they didn't have enough spare time for a family so they preferred that kind of clear "business deal". On the other hand, I've seen interviews with male pornstars who do nothing else than long for a normal relationship and got depressed.

I personally am not married, have been a long time with someone and don't have kids. Considering my life it wouldn't really be optimal either to have some. For their sake :P
Sure there is the argument that they're there when you're old. But I've seen statistics (not global) that show that a very large part of the kids aren't really there anyway later on. So you can't count on that 100%.

As for the genes, I don't know. I've also thought about that a while but does it actually matter in a way? I mean, look at for example a guy like Einstein. He lives on because of his work while the general public doesn't know his offspring at all. This goes for lots of others like musicians etc. And eventually the human race dies out anyway. Either by itself after a few million years (average for species), by the death of the Sun which will scorch the Earth, or the inescapable death of the universe aeons away in the future.

Basically, the choice is about what makes you happy this very moment I guess. Or what gives you a purpose right now.

The beta screenshots from Shenmue I and II were also quite different compared to the final product. In this case now, we're not even close to the final production stage. Besides that, out of these three months, most of it seems to have been used for planning, story boards etc. So I personally prefer to wait and see for the moment.

Also, Yu is someone who cares a lot about details so things could still change a lot. Someone caring about the right feeling/smell/humidity of a gaming engine probably doesn't ignore things like the look of the protagonist.

I guess that they'll manage. He has some experienced people there and hired new ones who know C++ (works with Unreal Engine 4) as well as higher level languages. Also, Yu himself will likely not have huge problems since I read before that he sometimes codes a few things to "keep in shape". I get the feeling that he is competent enough.

YS : There was also one more problem: dedicated 3D processors didn’t exist yet, and so I had to manually write a 3D graphics engine that would compress and process things faster. Just using assembly language. Now, of course, everyone writes in C++, but back then there was no other choice than machine code, otherwise we wouldn't be able to make everything fast enough.
YS : From my personal standpoint, though, I don't have much need to write final production code any longer; instead I can concentrate on logic and algorithms and other things like that. As a result, I never feel constrained by changes in language.

While Shenmue's world might be smaller in area size compared to some current games it somehow "feels" bigger to me due to its deliberate design. The fact that you travel to several locations for example increases the epic, grand feeling. And the density of stores, people,... then helps to establish the feeling of a living world. So I'm glad that Yu is concentrating on this at the moment.

Many open world games don't really feel like such a living world though which kind of nullifies that intended big scope. Several times I felt as if I was just wandering around a very empty map with specific NPC's waiting for me at a specific time. As said above, like completing a checklist. I really felt this open world fatigue in Fallout 3. The world building was already a bit suspect at times and the map felt like a way for Bethesda to pad playing time. I am never able to really get immersed in those games due to the design.

Have to say, at first I thought the beginning was dragging a bit, but once it got to the point of Nakajima telling Kazuma about what the other taxi drivers say about him and the reasons why, I was laughing my ass off. Suddenly I appreciated the slower pace because it allowed for charming moments like that.
This made me think of the slower pace in Yakuza 3 when they show Kiryu's life at the beach, taking care of those children etc. I remember that some people disliked that but I somehow found that it added something instead. Almost a bit Shenmue-like in the sense that it immersed you more in his daily life. It will be interesting to check it out myself later today.

I personally haven't encountered disc rot yet. I sometimes record, mix or master music and now and then I had to burn a cd for a band or requested by their company (besides standard harddrive backups). Because of that I searched information about disc rot long ago but when I tested cd's from 10-15 years ago they still worked. And note that professionally pressed discs are better quality wise. Albums that I own on cd from the early 90'ies also work.
But still, it is something to consider, as mentioned. In case of.