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.