Random Shenmue III Thoughts

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Re: Random Shenmue III Thoughts

Postby Spaghetti » Thu Jun 14, 2018 5:33 pm

Valascaziel wrote: Realistically speaking, we should get our first true look at the game in August. They will have had(counting the age of previous footage) almost a year and a half to show us what they have accomplished for the game.

It really needs to be on-point, though. I'm not saying "zOMg blown away" like RE2Make did visually, but a very substantial and worthy AA Shenmue look in many ways, not just visually.

They can ill afford another debacle like MAGIC, especially this late and at a bigger stage they've already confirmed to be at. If they show marginally improved footage of the same scenes again, it'll be a disaster and people will be quite justified in asking the tough questions.

MAGIC was... I think ultimately we can look back on it as a miscommunication, one way or another. It was also basically the last hurrah of the previously fairly informal approach to showing the game. If it wasn't for the eagle-eyed keeping tabs on the THQ Nordic financial presentation, it would have been the last time we saw Shenmue III in several months too - keeping the promise of shifting into a traditional PR cycle.

It's easy to see from the last KS update and how the delay was handled that Deep Silver now have the reigns on promotion, so I don't expect MAGIC 2.0 personally. One point though, they didn't show marginally improved footage. They just busted out the unseen press cut of the Gamescom progress video, along with the new screens. Don't be surprised if we see updated versions of the same scenes in future videos though, they'll be wanting to show off their iterative improvements over the last year.

It's also important to keep in mind what Yu has said before; that you can't tell the full story of game development in a minute, two minute video. Even if Shenmue III is at Gamescom, I think it might be best to remember that there may be another 12+ months before the game launches and they can't/won't blow their load at the first opportunity.

Mr.Jigen wrote:Oddly enough depending on the budget given by DS Shenmue could very well be classed as a AAA game, one of the recent updates even said they have 40 or so people working on the game which is in the area of modern AAA games, which usually have 50-100 people on them. Maybe we will be greatly surprised, I know I at least enjoy the new models (expressions need more time).

Are you sure about that (R.E AAA team size)?

Uncharted 4's team has very nearly as many environment artists than there is total of staff at Ys Net, and Naughty Dog are considered one of the smaller AAA devs. I won't even get into the amount of people who work on stuff like Assassin's Creed, considering it takes a 30 minute sitting to get through the credits for one of those games.

Ys Net's numbers are more in-line with AA and "triple indie" teams like the ones who worked on Nier Automata, and Hellblade; even if you account for possible extra developers not listed in Ys Net's totals.

Reprise wrote: I still don't get why it's so controversial in the gaming world to show off unfinished, early or rough footage. I really appreciated the Gamescom teaser and took it for what it is.

If I was a pizza maker and someone wanted to see me make pizzas, I would demonstrate the dfferent stages, e.g. rolling the dough, applying the layers of ingredients and sauce and cheese, adding the seasoning and drizzling the olive oil, before baking the pizza.

I wouldn't make perfectly formed small slices of pizza to show off and then make the rest of the pizza, slice at a time.

I don't know if that analogy works, but it's a game IN development. It's a work in progress. As a backer, I want to see progress.

Unfortunately gamers have been fed a steady diet of bullshit smoke and mirrors demonstrations over the years to the point where they don't recognise what the true face of game development looks like, and are more likely to expect downgrades rather than upgrades when the finished product releases.

What's more puzzling/annoying are game journalists who should know better because of industry links/privileges, and frequently seeing pre-release materials behind closed doors.

I totally agree with the assessment of the Gamescom progress video. In the proper context of what it actually is, it's a good general snapshot of what the game is about. It works a lot better as a pitch video than the initial one on Kickstarter, and I wouldn't be surprised if something similar was shown to Deep Silver while the publishing negotiations were happening. The game knows what it is, and there's clearly a vision there.
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Re: Random Shenmue III Thoughts

Postby Mr.Jigen » Thu Jun 14, 2018 5:39 pm

Reprise wrote: I still don't get why it's so controversial in the gaming world to show off unfinished, early or rough footage. I really appreciated the Gamescom teaser and took it for what it is.

If I was a pizza maker and someone wanted to see me make pizzas, I would demonstrate the dfferent stages, e.g. rolling the dough, applying the layers of ingredients and sauce and cheese, adding the seasoning and drizzling the olive oil, before baking the pizza.

I wouldn't make perfectly formed small slices of pizza to show off and then make the rest of the pizza, slice at a time.

I don't know if that analogy works, but it's a game IN development. It's a work in progress. As a backer, I want to see progress.


Using your analogy, someone ignorant to the process of baking a pizza may question things like the blend of spices used in the sauce, since they do not understand the integral process of making a product one step at a time, they assume games are automatically beautiful without process, that anyone even without skill can in a half-hour make a beautiful piece of art. This is the typical mentality I see, video games are like making four different pizza's; the first is only the dough, the second the dough with the sauce, then add the cheese and finally giving the dough it's flavor, adding butter, seasoning the sauce, choosing a strong variety of cheeses and perfectly browning in the oven, right now I think Shenmue 3 is still adding the cheese.

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" this quote from Arthur C. Clarke perfectly describes it. I don't think these people are stupid like a lot of other fans seem to but, they are ignorant to art and technology that is for sure. Although, some of them do have good criticisms and a knowledge of inner-workings but are impatient, who knows maybe they're right but I wan't to remain optimistic.
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Re: Random Shenmue III Thoughts

Postby Spaghetti » Thu Jun 14, 2018 5:45 pm

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Re: Random Shenmue III Thoughts

Postby Mr.Jigen » Thu Jun 14, 2018 5:54 pm

Spaghetti you may be right, I am just going off of like BOTW numbers which were around that size (50-100 with Monolith as contracted designers for a few months) plus Shenmue 3 has a Miyamoto type working with them so it gives them an advantage, many critics forget what a visionary Suzuki is and I still think he will find ways to innovate without a massive budget because, frankly he is a master and can look at the medium in a completely different way than most can. The mainstream press have gone after Suzuki because with ambitious projects comes a perceived sense of arrogance and the egomaniacs in mainstream gaming hate when something goes against the grain and does it so well they have to give it a good review like in the case of the original games. (In my opinion).
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Re: Random Shenmue III Thoughts

Postby Spaghetti » Thu Jun 14, 2018 6:17 pm

Mr.Jigen wrote: Spaghetti you may be right, I am just going off of like BOTW numbers which were around that size (50-100 with Monolith as contracted designers for a few months) plus Shenmue 3 has a Miyamoto type working with them so it gives them an advantage, many critics forget what a visionary Suzuki is and I still think he will find ways to innovate without a massive budget because, frankly he is a master and can look at the medium in a completely different way than most can. The mainstream press have gone after Suzuki because with ambitious projects comes a perceived sense of arrogance and the egomaniacs in mainstream gaming hate when something goes against the grain and does it so well they have to give it a good review like in the case of the original games. (In my opinion).

Ah. Nintendo aren't AAA, at least not in the traditional sense. They're kind of in a class of their own where they don't have enormous teams using cutting edge tech, but still put out fantastic games thanks to inventiveness, innovation, and their "finding the fun" mentality (not unlike Yu's Agile methods). It's a good reminder that quality video games do not come solely from budget and team size alone, or pushing the bleeding edge of technology.

Shenmue III is a big task no matter which way you cut it, but a tremendous amount of hard work has gone into the project so far, and a lot of prudent decisions have been made about the game that give it the best chance of success; like using UE4, using Agile, expanding inwards rather than outwards, mechanical changes the increase the depth in the gameplay, and ultimately wanting to focus on being unique rather than chasing the pack and the AAA crowd.

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Re: Random Shenmue III Thoughts

Postby Mr.Jigen » Thu Jun 14, 2018 6:47 pm

Spaghetti wrote:
Mr.Jigen wrote: Spaghetti you may be right, I am just going off of like BOTW numbers which were around that size (50-100 with Monolith as contracted designers for a few months) plus Shenmue 3 has a Miyamoto type working with them so it gives them an advantage, many critics forget what a visionary Suzuki is and I still think he will find ways to innovate without a massive budget because, frankly he is a master and can look at the medium in a completely different way than most can. The mainstream press have gone after Suzuki because with ambitious projects comes a perceived sense of arrogance and the egomaniacs in mainstream gaming hate when something goes against the grain and does it so well they have to give it a good review like in the case of the original games. (In my opinion).

Ah. Nintendo aren't AAA, at least not in the traditional sense. They're kind of in a class of their own where they don't have enormous teams using cutting edge tech, but still put out fantastic games thanks to inventiveness, innovation, and their "finding the fun" mentality (not unlike Yu's Agile methods). It's a good reminder that quality video games do not come solely from budget and team size alone, or pushing the bleeding edge of technology.

Shenmue III is a big task no matter which way you cut it, but a tremendous amount of hard work has gone into the project so far, and a lot of prudent decisions have been made about the game that give it the best chance of success; like using UE4, using Agile, expanding inwards rather than outwards, mechanical changes the increase the depth in the gameplay, and ultimately wanting to focus on being unique rather than chasing the pack and the AAA crowd.


I can agree with you there, let's just hope Yu and his team pull off some Nintendo spit and shine.

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Re: Random Shenmue III Thoughts

Postby Mr.Jigen » Thu Jun 14, 2018 7:08 pm

I know I have posted here a lot today but there is one more thing I wanted to say.

I am confident about two things:
1.) Shenmue 3 will most probably be a good game and most fans will probably like it even just a little bit.
2.) The mainstream critics will not especially Giant Bomb, it will be hated.

These conversations have made me re-evaluate my thoughts.
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Re: Random Shenmue III Thoughts

Postby The_Intruder » Thu Jun 14, 2018 8:56 pm

I really think Shenmue 3 is in good hands and will be well received by most critics and fans I just want the game to sell lots of copies so we can get Shenmue 4.
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Re: Random Shenmue III Thoughts

Postby Mr.Jigen » Thu Jun 14, 2018 10:34 pm

I'm just kind of nervous that not everything is in the hands of YS Net directly, if the other entities involved fuck up with delivering KS rewards it will be a disappointment to many and tarnish the Shenmue name, not that media has helped with that anyways.Also it's disadvantaged because of KS I have seen average games get treated like they're the worst games of all time simply because they were crowdfunded. Not that I am mad at backers for being disappointed, it's just a lot of angry people can spread the word real fast.
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Re: Random Shenmue III Thoughts

Postby WildManofBorneo » Thu Jun 14, 2018 10:59 pm

Mr.Jigen wrote:
Oddly enough depending on the budget given by DS Shenmue could very well be classed as a AAA game, one of the recent updates even said they have 40 or so people working on the game which is in the area of modern AAA games, which usually have 50-100 people on them. Maybe we will be greatly surprised, I know I at least enjoy the new models (expressions need more time).


YSNet may have a current core development staff of 45, but the number of people who will have worked on Shenmue 3 by the time it's completed will likely be triple the current figure (mainly comprised of contract studios which haven't yet been publicly released.)

As an aside, I recall an interview with Ninja Theory regarding Hellblade where they had mentioned that the development team comprised of only 15 individuals. However by the time the game was completed there were more than 50 people who had contributed to the development of the game.

http://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/h ... ce/credits
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Re: Random Shenmue III Thoughts

Postby Spaghetti » Thu Jun 14, 2018 11:15 pm

WildManofBorneo wrote:YSNet may have a current core development staff of 45 but the number of people that will have worked on Shenmue 3 by the time it has been completed will likely reach triple that number (mainly comprised of contract studios which haven't yet been publicly released.)

I recall an interview with the Ninja Theory regarding Hellblade where they had mentioned that the development team comprised of only 15 individuals. However by the time the game was completed that number had more than tripled.

http://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/h ... ce/credits

I think I saw the same interview with Ninja Theory, and if I'm remembering the details right that original 15 were the core team until they scaled up into full production.

Shenmue III is already in full production, and has been for about a year and a half. They've already scaled up in terms of team size (if you remember the hiring leaflet from around September/October 2016), so it won't magically triple just because. They're in Alpha with a view to ship in the next 18 months, the team just won't grow exponentially in that time.

Mr.Jigen wrote: I'm just kind of nervous that not everything is in the hands of YS Net directly, if the other entities involved fuck up with delivering KS rewards it will be a disappointment to many and tarnish the Shenmue name, not that media has helped with that anyways.Also it's disadvantaged because of KS I have seen average games get treated like they're the worst games of all time simply because they were crowdfunded. Not that I am mad at backers for being disappointed, it's just a lot of angry people can spread the word real fast.

Unfortunately this will be unavoidable.

Law of averages dictates somewhere in those 70,000+ backers there will be an issue with fulfilment, be it a stocking problem, wrong address, lost in the post, didn't fill in the survey, wrong items sent, etc. Even with absolute competency from whoever administers the rewards (be it Awesome Japan or Fangamer), things can still fuck up because of the backer, or the postal services.

If everything goes out on in unison, even if there are issues they should happen fairly quietly because the game itself will be dominating the conversation. If the game itself is received okay it will hopefully just fly under the radar.
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Re: Random Shenmue III Thoughts

Postby WildManofBorneo » Thu Jun 14, 2018 11:28 pm

Spaghetti wrote:

Shenmue III is already in full production, and has been for about a year and a half. They've already scaled up in terms of team size (if you remember the hiring leaflet from around September/October 2016), so it won't magically triple just because. They're in Alpha with a view to ship in the next 18 months, the team just won't grow exponentially in that time.



YS Net may only have a team of 45, but there are additional contract studios aside from Lakshya who we have yet to learn of. I haven't the slightest doubt concerning these figures and the final number will easily surpass 100.
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Re: Random Shenmue III Thoughts

Postby Mr.Jigen » Fri Jun 15, 2018 12:00 am

Woah, I was WAY off on my BOTW estimates, they had 300 developers on that game. Let's hope Suzuki is 250 dudes worth of DEV POWER (I know it does not really matter I am just being silly at this point.)
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Re: Random Shenmue III Thoughts

Postby Reprise » Fri Jun 15, 2018 1:48 am

Spaghetti wrote:Unfortunately this will be unavoidable.

Law of averages dictates somewhere in those 70,000+ backers there will be an issue with fulfilment, be it a stocking problem, wrong address, lost in the post, didn't fill in the survey, wrong items sent, etc. Even with absolute competency from whoever administers the rewards (be it Awesome Japan or Fangamer), things can still fuck up because of the backer, or the postal services.

If everything goes out on in unison, even if there are issues they should happen fairly quietly because the game itself will be dominating the conversation. If the game itself is received okay it will hopefully just fly under the radar.


Backers who are relatively new to crowd funding need to be prepared for this. Like you said, there hopefully won't be many issues, but there's bound to be some.

Something I've noticed in my experience too is, depending on your country, it can take a long time to ship rewards and backers often receive their rewards after the product can already be bought by average joes on retail shelves. Sometimes you might receive your rewards separately in parts if there's stock issues etc.
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Re: Random Shenmue III Thoughts

Postby Let's Get Sweaty » Fri Jun 15, 2018 2:54 am

Mr.Jigen wrote:right now I think Shenmue 3 is still adding the cheese.


And what would Shenmue be without lashings and lashings of cheese? :)

I think the PR masterstroke that Ys Net/Deep Silver ought to pull near release is to make a public statement along the lines of "Shenmue III wasn't going where we wanted it to, but the feedback we received from the gaming community and the media helped us correct course and now we feel we have the game we all wanted and can be proud of, so we want to say thank you to everyone for your input and your assistance in creating the true Shenmue III experience." That way, arrogant journalists can embrace the game and extoll its virtues without feeling like they're begrudgingly contradicting their former stance, because "Hey, this is what happens when you listen to us - you make a good game. Kudos to Suzuki for recognizing our brilliance."
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