I've been quite obsessed with Shenmue story for all those years. I'm usually passing by the dojo to talk about this only subject and when I traveled 1200km to Monaco to have the occasion to ask a question to Yu at Mags 2013 conference, I asked if he would end up releasing the story in an anime or novel form if he couldn't make a game, which made some noise on the web after Yu's answer being badly translated.
I REALLY wonder what script was shared with the biggest fans. The reward picture showed "Akira's quest" script, which should be the 11-chapters original story Yu wrote back in 96 for Virtua fighter RPG, that he still considers to be the base of the saga's scenario.
However, the text of the reward suggests it could be the more recent Shenmue 1 & 2 scripts. And we learned from Switch's translation of March 2000 Dorimaga that Yu himself rewrote those scripts several times :
"But in fact, as far as the script for the main plot, I’ve already written and rewritten it several times. Firstly, so that it would work properly as a game. In front of me here is the script for Shenmue 2 that I made in mid-December. Now I’m moving this into the center, and developing the parts that are lacking."
If Peter, Landc & co. had the chance to receive parts of the original 96 script, I wonder if the contents are limited to chapter 1 & 2 (Yokosuka & Hong-Kong), or if he released parts or the totality of chapter 5 (Guilin) that may offer hints to the original story of Shenmue 3. Or...even better...the dropped chapters 3&4 (Shanghai & Suzhou). But I'm dreaming there...
I guess it's more realistic to suppose that they received the final versions of the 1999/2000 game scripts, in which I would be SO very interested to know if the chapter 2 : The boat from the Shenmue 16 chapters story remains...
I hope they will be allowed to enlighten us. Or if they are not, that they will anyway...one day.