People should lie to you

[Shibiryo]

I think that Shenmue 1 and 2 were missing something very crucial in making it much more diverse. People never lied to you and always told you the right direction to travel, and always told the truth. Hopefully in Shenmue 3, people can lie to us meaning that every NPC would be different and it would be much more challenging to complete the game.

[johnvivant]

just ignoring you is the more common response from strangers, since why would they care about helping you? to lie implies they have some sort of interest, motive, or sadistic pleasure in seeing you fail.

npcs making genuine mistakes would be more interesting.

charlie lies in that he fails to keep his promise of meeting you outside the Yu arcade.

i think i know what you mean though. there should be more regular npcs which are also your enemies, not just thugs in battle but also surprise enemies who give false information, and later you find out their motives.

[Zoltor]

just ignoring you is the more common response from strangers, since why would they care about helping you? to lie implies they have some sort of interest, motive, or sadistic pleasure in seeing you fail.

npcs making genuine mistakes would be more interesting.

charlie lies in that he fails to keep his promise of meeting you outside the Yu arcade.

^this

To OP: Isn't telling you to piss off, enough lol. Seriously people are much more likely to just not help you or whatnot, then to lie to you.

[Yokosuka]

There was already something similar in Shenmue II with the talking Birds floor moved up to the roof. Or more classically, the Lishao Tao quest and the Wharehouse number 8. So if the purpose is to make the game more realistic or less linear, I don't think we should worry.

[Amir]

I want another NPC who nods off while you try to talk to him, like Pigeon Man in Shenmue II.

[Shibiryo]

I want another NPC who nods off while you try to talk to him, like Pigeon Man in Shenmue II.

Yeah this was proper funny. The guy was so out he was asking Ryo if he wanted pigeon food.

[south carmain]

just ignoring you is the more common response from strangers, since why would they care about helping you? to lie implies they have some sort of interest, motive, or sadistic pleasure in seeing you fail.

When I was a teenager me and my friends would often give wrong directions to people just to be dicks.

[shenmue852]

maybe there should be a character called M'aiq

[kuwakodono]

I specifically remember when traveling in Uganda and India, people would sometimes give the wrong information if you asked them for directions. The reasoning, I suspect, is that they didn't want to appear stupid and therefore decided to give some information, even if they weren't sure about it. It could definitely make the game confusing if random NPCs starting doing that.

[NeoShredder]

The shenmue story has plenty of examples of lying/deception. As for Npcs making mistakes etc? While I don't think every npc has to be as polite as they have been (yokosuka was a small town though), I don't think an outright mistake would be very good for gameplay unless it was related to the story.

[Himuro]

Why would you lie to a stranger other than it being a funny joke? Most times, people ignore strangers, and if not that, tell them to piss off. Both things happen in both Shenmue games.

[Shin Pan Tzee]

Why would you lie to a stranger other than it being a funny joke? Most times, people ignore strangers, and if not that, tell them to piss off. Both things happen in both Shenmue games.

Pretty much this. The only time an NPC lying to you would be ok and make sense to me, is if someone lies asking for help to lead you to a trap to be robbed, as it happened before.

Now NPCs lying out of nowhere seems a bit strange. People just don't go around doing that.

[Hyo Razuki]

I think making most NPCs be more Shenmue 1 and say something like "Dude, I'm busy now. Catch me later, OK?" or "I'm not from around here too. Ask one of the locals." would be a more realistic approach. This is what happens a lot in real life when asking people for directions.

People do give you wrong directions in real life too, but I think mostly it's because they got it wrong, not because they intended to do so.

[Henry Spencer]

Didn't this kinda already happen with the Chawan Sign where you're told to go to Man Mo Park and it ends up being a trap by Dou Niu's guys? And like others have mentioned, Charlie was lying too. So did Ren, many, many times. So did the sailors. And the Mad Angels. So did Jimmy at Asia Travel Agency. So yeah, there's been a lot of liars in the series already, wouldn't be surprised if there's more traps in 3 waiting for Ryo and his compadres.

For story purposes I'm fine with it, but it'd be really annoying if NPC people lied to you and you kept going to the wrong place. It would just be frustrating rather than anything else.

[Mr. Frozen]

It would be nice if there was a system like in LA Noire where you had to determine if someone was lying or withholding information by their facial expressions and body language. I loved the crap out of that, it was so realistic. People had different personalities so there was no universal tell. Like the used car salesman being a hard read but a worried pregnant wife gave things away super easily. If Shenmue III copied that system, I would cream my pants.