Shenmue Dojo

I posted this on the Kickstarter comment section. Agree/Disagree?

Thank you Yu, and everyone else involved doing this. However, there's a lot of confusion with this Kickstarter. I think you guys are unknowingly damaging the potential for the Kickstarter. Besides revealing Sony's involvement on the first day of the Kickstarter, giving people the idea that there is no more need to back it on Kickstarter because a big company like Sony is supporting it, there's also a lot of vagueness in relation to the stretch goals.

For example, what exactly is Raport? What is the Skill Tree? What are Character Perspectives? No one knows or understands, and this vagueness leaves doubts not only on your potential backers but current backers. Could you further expound upon these features?

Finally, why isn't Yu doing interviews all over the place for the Kickstarter to give information? There was a French interview on Youtube, but not one available in English. A lot of the marketing so far is scattershot and unorganized. Please do better. Thank you, a grateful Shenmue fan.

Himuro wrote: I posted this on the Kickstarter comment section. Agree/Disagree?

Thank you Yu, and everyone else involved doing this. However, there's a lot of confusion with this Kickstarter. I think you guys are unknowingly damaging the potential for the Kickstarter. Besides revealing Sony's involvement on the first day of the Kickstarter, giving people the idea that there is no more need to back it on Kickstarter because a big company like Sony is supporting it, there's also a lot of vagueness in relation to the stretch goals.

For example, what exactly is Raport? What is the Skill Tree? What are Character Perspectives? No one knows or understands, and this vagueness leaves doubts not only on your potential backers but current backers. Could you further expound upon these features?

Finally, why isn't Yu doing interviews all over the place for the Kickstarter to give information? There was a French interview on Youtube, but not one available in English. A lot of the marketing so far is scattershot and unorganized. Please do better. Thank you, a grateful Shenmue fan.

I agree with you on the vagueness of some of the new system they're hoping to employ; a little more elaboration on the obscure 'Rapport System' and 'Character Perspective System' outside of how they sound on the surface (i.e., 'rapport' refers to relationships and an understanding between individuals) would be nice. The 'Skill Tree System' is probably just going to be new moves and passives that unlock upon reaching a certain amount of EXP or something, so that's clear enough. I'm sure they'll update the Kickstarter with what the mean soon enough, though.

However, I have to disagree with you about Sony's involvement. Sure, they're involved and are absolutely going to support the project, but just how far does that stretch? As it says on the page, "If we do not reach our funding goal, Shenmue 3 will not go forward," so it's clear Sony's support would only have gone so far and was always on a conditional basis. I'm guessing that was the reason for the Kickstarter in the first place: to show Sony just how high the demand is, and that people are not only willing to show their support in the form of a 'Yes, I want this game', but by pledging money to see the project go ahead. Needless to say, it has been a great success, and it's only going to see more and more success as time goes.

Maybe Sony themselves will even provide finances for the project now the demand (and the Kickstarter money) is there?

There really needs to be a Crowdfunding 101 crash course because some people are still clueless on how it actually works.

And on that note, some of those putting up a crowdfunding site need a course in Business 101.

Man, I love the watercolor (or whatever) filter on the kickstarter music image. And that synth and Erhu samples sound pretty dreamcasty!

My biggest fear with this game and it's budget is that it's extremely art heavy. In the past, every NPC was individually modeled (though I feel that I remember reading about a procedurally generated system for the old games in the GDC post-moderm), there's tons of world art and individually modeled objects, tons of buildings, etc. I guess that's not as big of an issue if the game takes place entirely in rural China, but still.

VO/Localization can get pretty pricey, too, but I hope an internal team at Sony can help out with this. We're probably not getting a live orchestra, either! (Add it to the stretch goals!)

Kenny wrote: some of those putting up a crowdfunding site need a course in Business 101.

It's hilarious how many of them don't realise taxes are a thing.

The Shenmue.link page is certainly more stylish than the Kickstarter one, but it also needs some proofreading for the English version at least. Took me a while to realise there even was an English version, the washed out navbar at the top doesn't help. I'd be happy to send them corrections for free, I guess I just contact Ys.net?

Ziming wrote:

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THIS! People need to pay attention to this! Extremely well executed and the best route they could have taken.
Bravo Sony and Yu Suzuki.

Just surpassed 40,000 backers.

Day 3 is just keeping the pace nicely!

Hey guys, not sure if this text was on the page before but under the next video on the Shenmue 3 site that is labeled as 'Coming Soon' we have this text.

"Ryo and Shenhua arrive at the Fairy Fountain after their long journey. Entranced, they watch the gentle flight of the lantern bugs upon the mirage-like oasis"

Sounds like that scene in from the Shemue II pre-release stuff to me.

Can't wait to see the first real trailer. I know yu isn't going to fuck around with any CG bullshit too.

Great, that is certainly gonna cause a spike in funding.

south carmain wrote: Can't wait to see the first real trailer. I know yu isn't going to fuck around with any CG bullshit too.

Depending on what you mean by "real", the kickstarter video is real.

But for a REAL shenmue trailer we'll probably have to wait a year or so.

BTW would be nice to see the fireflies scene recreated at night.

The kickstarter trailer isn't part of the game so no it's not a real shenmue 3 trailer.