Kickstarter Update #47

[Zoltor]

phpBB [video]

Kid NoCon's video's didn't have characters

Must've seen a different video of his, this one has some decent lighting effects considering it appears to be Sunset.

His video just further points out how pathetic the char designe, and lighting effects are in Shenmue 3 so far.

Kid Nicon did that in a single month, as a way to promote the KS.

You may be thinking well, Kid Nicon is working on Shenmue 3 now, so this is the quality we can epect.

Um not exactly, there's probally around a dozen artists working on Shenmue 3, and if the other artists aren't capable of his quality, he is going to need to lower himself to their lv.

For what little we see of Ryo in his video, we can already tell It's a million times better then any version of Ryo, Yu has recently shown off, and Ryo doesn't seem to be improving much from the concept art shown at E3, infact I'm pretty sure he has gotten worse.

Considering char models are very much a one person job, maybe we'll get lucky, and Yu will have kid Nicon handle him(and hopefully the other major characters as well).

It's a shame we can't clone Kid Nicon, because as it is, he's only one person, and Ys.net clearly needs more Kid Nicons.

If Kid Nicon proves anything, It's that the Shenmue community is not criticizing Yu enough.

Also I would like to point out, what 3 months of development means, going by the joke, that Yu is claiming will be the release date, it means 1/8th of the time they have, has been used up(that's a huge fraction for how little has been done, don't you think).

[Peter]

His video just further points out how pathetic the char designe, and lighting effects are in Shenmue 3 so far.

Opinion

Kid Nicon did that in a single month, as a way to promote the KS.

Complete and utter bullshit speculation.

You may be thinking well, Kid Nicon is working on Shenmue 3 now, so this is the quality we can epect.

Nah, that's just you thinking that.

Um not exactly, there's probally around a dozen artists working on Shenmue 3, and if the other artists aren't capable of his quality, he is going to need to lower himself to their lv.

Once again, complete and utter speculation.

For what little we see of Ryo in his video, we can already tell It's a million times better then any version of Ryo, Yu has recently shown off, and Ryo doesn't seem to be improving much from the concept art shown at E3, infact I'm pretty sure he has gotten worse.

Opinion again

Considering char models are very much a one person job, maybe we'll get lucky, and Yu will have kid Nicon handle him(and hopefully the other major characters as well).

I don't even know where to start with this one. Character models are for a 1 person job? Plus, you know that the kid has been brought onto the project specifically for. Stop talking absolute rubbish seriously, you know as much as we do.

It's a shame we can't clone Kid Nicon, because as it is, he's only one person, and Ys.net clearly needs more Kid Nicons.
If Kid Nicon proves anything, It's that the Shenmue community is not criticizing Yu enough.

Nope again that's just your opinions, and if you want to find a section of the community that agrees that we are not criticising Yu enough, then please go find it because it will not be here.

You have been warned because, honestly, you are just pushing some unjustified opinions with some crazy ways of thinking. I just quoted your last post, but your posts in general are scattered with some mad ass inaccurate claims, and pure childish drivel.

If you want to be critical then do it with some rationale. We will not censor negativity or criticism of anything Shenmue related, but if you are just flat out talking rubbish then you are just coming off as a troll to flame a forum which is already extremely supportive of Shenmue, which seemingly some members think you are.

[SledgeNE]

It's very amazing what Kid Nocon has created. It must be weeks of hard work. His works looks really fantastic.

[Amir]

Early Jianmin for Dreamcast:


.

Where is that from ?

It's from the Shenmue Premiere, 20th December 1998.

[-=SPZ=-47]

My two cents.
Unreal engine is just a tool. Important is - how you use it. It's a great tool though. Personally I think it's a God's blessing that Yu Suzuki chose this engine.

They do not have new models because it takes time. It's not like only the shape of a face. It also has to be applyed to the body and animated. It is helllotta work trust me.

There's nothing wrong with Yu Suzuki being a programmer. He rather has to. As well as he has to be a mapper, sound designer, architect, cg artist, musician etc. At least at some level. Like any producer has to plan the workflow of his team, givetasks, rate rresults in order to achieve the predetermined goal, and not just take the final product as is.

[ys]

He's refusing to accept a paypal window of more then a few months, because it will get in the way of his desired release date(that was Yu's reason he gave, for only having Paypal available for such a short time).

Trust me, Yu has "no" intention what so ever, in allowing Shenmue 3 to take longer the 2 years.

Either Yu is rushing or he truly has no clue on how long games take to develop, when you don't have 300 people helping with it lol.

That's kind of misrepresenting things. A set Paypal window allows him to know how much money he can work with. Development can be tightly planned that way.
You almost make it sound as if it's bad that he tries to stick to a deadline. The impression that I got until now is that he has respect for the fanbase and sticking to a realistic deadline seems to be a part of that. I don't think that many would like five years of development. I also believe that he knows how much work it is. Otherwise he wouldn't be working weekends.

And as I said earlier, those three months were mostly planning. This very update actually mentioned this :

Yes, we are in the third month of development of Shenmue 3. The story and scenarios are now out of the planning stage and it is time to get the people, places and things to start fitting together into a world with proper dimension, adequate space, and appropriate scale to keep the feel and essence of all that is a Shenmue game
...
The development team is in high spirits now that we have reached this stage where we are finally able to start testing.

[Zoltor]

He's refusing to accept a paypal window of more then a few months, because it will get in the way of his desired release date(that was Yu's reason he gave, for only having Paypal available for such a short time).

Trust me, Yu has "no" intention what so ever, in allowing Shenmue 3 to take longer the 2 years.

Either Yu is rushing or he truly has no clue on how long games take to develop, when you don't have 300 people helping with it lol.

That's kind of misrepresenting things. A set Paypal window allows him to know how much money he can work with. Development can be tightly planned that way.
You almost make it sound as if it's bad that he tries to stick to a deadline. The impression that I got until now is that he has respect for the fanbase and sticking to a realistic deadline seems to be a part of that. I don't think that many would like five years of development. I also believe that he knows how much work it is. Otherwise he wouldn't be working weekends.

And as I said earlier, those three months were mostly planning. This very update actually mentioned this :

Yes, we are in the third month of development of Shenmue 3. The story and scenarios are now out of the planning stage and it is time to get the people, places and things to start fitting together into a world with proper dimension, adequate space, and appropriate scale to keep the feel and essence of all that is a Shenmue game
...
The development team is in high spirits now that we have reached this stage where we are finally able to start testing.

Come on, 3 months paypal is laughably short, even for a 2 year project.


There is nothing even remotely realistic about a 2017 release date(It's super hard to create a 2D adventure game within that time, especially as a indie developer, yet he thinks he can get a 3D adventure game made in that timespan, and a Shenmue grade one at that). Planning, as if Yu hasn't had it already planned out, I doubt it took 3 months, to just adjust how the major scenes will be played out.

I'm positive he had it worked out already(he had nothing much else to do during the months leading up to the E3 announcement, but contemplating such, nevermind the past 14 years), as to how the story, and overall game would be laid out depending on various funding levels.

[Let's Get Sweaty]

Thirty-six...

[mrandyk]

Thirty-six...

If true, wow...

[sand4fish]

Seriously... Using decades old engine to make a new game out of it? Some people really don't know Yu Suzuki as a game designer at all. The UE4 powers next gen awesome games like Street Fighter 5 and the new Gears of War, so the potential is definitely there. But using Dreamcast tech to produce a 2017 title? Are you kidding, why stop there and not make Shenmue 3 as an 8-bit style game? It's definitely the new rad in the indie scene!

I'm really puzzled at what came to people telling a master how to do his craft (unless someone wants to dispute whether he's truly a master)? I personally wouldn't dare to tell an author how his characters should look or behave like. Now I read a comment about how Yu might be out of touch or that he is just an Arcade guy. Well, for a fact he is to this day still a Sega employee, and you might not understand how Arcade culture works. Taking the player directly to the heart of what the game is all about, without embellishing it with stuff like cutscenes, endless backtracking, tutorial stages and grinding. That's hardcore gaming. All in all, if you really enjoyed Shenmue, it's in great part thanks to its arcade elements even if you never realized that.

At this point, all criticism is unfounded simply because there's not even a playable demo available, like some people already mentioned. If we are starting to criticise pre-alpha aesthetics, we might as well pitch in our vision of the story and have Yu scrap his own (it worked for Mass Effect 3 after all). How about that for a Shenmue 3 game?

[killthesagabeforeitkillsu]

Why can't we be carefully optimistic? (for now)

It's always the end of two extremes... either eternal doom or "looking at that pre alpha Ryo model I can see Shenmue 3 is going to live up to the hype because Yu Suzuki is a wizard".

Regarding engine talk, there is a reason why Fallout 4 was made on Gamebryo. The amount of resources needed to create a open world engine from the ground up is ridiculous especially on a weak budget.

[Sh3ppy]

Personally, I think Zoltor is undoubtedly a troll. How can someone come up with so much unfounded conjecture & speculation with the sole purpose of bashing the game creators. He comes out with these so called opinions & presents them as fact, and frankly it's getting a bit tiring as his sole m.o seems to be trashing Yu. Not only is it disrespectful, but it's getting wearisome. You don't know what's going on behind the scenes, so please stop posting as if you know exactly how things are panning out (after 3 months!). And lastly, you must be quite a knowledgeable & accomplished individual to be so certain that you know better & Yu has 'lost it'.

[NeoShredder]

Come on, 3 months paypal is laughably short, even for a 2 year project.

On this point. That's just it though, you can't have on-going funding indefinetly, you have to lock it down at some point to fit in the time frame. This isn't a Patreon drive. Decide on the scope and make it happen. Don't forget you have to hire people, allocate resources and R&D knowing where you're going development wise without it chopping and changing down the line. Hell, KS's can last longer than one month, but obviously they've gotta draw a line and say 'this is what we're going with'. Paypal is there because people asked for it. You get the money first then plan what you're doing. Shenmue III isn't some incremental/episodic release with content packs ala Star Citizen.

I'm positive he had it worked out already(he had nothing much else to do during the months leading up to the E3 announcement, but contemplating such, nevermind the past 14 years), as to how the story, and overall game would be laid out depending on various funding levels.

You've almost answered the above point yourself here (albeit these last few weeks have the actual practical planning stage with actual team members etc.). It's also about how the actual development is laid out.

Generally speaking and a point that I don't think has been picked up on alot is that I think a lot of the confusion here about what the KS is asking for. It's talking about development concepts and game features as stretch goals, which is quite different from other games which withhold levels/chapters/characters/entire modes based on stretch goals but the gameplay itself is largely the same. But really when you look at it, I think this is a testament to that fact that Yu is prioritising delivering the full story as a full sequel, which I think should be commended. He hasn't gone "Shenmue 3 Episode 1", can you even imagine that?! I trust in Yu.

Early Jianmin for Dreamcast:


.

Where is that from ?

It's from the Shenmue Premiere, 20th December 1998.

Man just like the Saturn version I'd love to play/have a look at these early builds, so interesting

[Himuro]

He's refusing to accept a paypal window of more then a few months, because it will get in the way of his desired release date(that was Yu's reason he gave, for only having Paypal available for such a short time).

Trust me, Yu has "no" intention what so ever, in allowing Shenmue 3 to take longer the 2 years.

Either Yu is rushing or he truly has no clue on how long games take to develop, when you don't have 300 people helping with it lol.

That's kind of misrepresenting things. A set Paypal window allows him to know how much money he can work with. Development can be tightly planned that way.
You almost make it sound as if it's bad that he tries to stick to a deadline. The impression that I got until now is that he has respect for the fanbase and sticking to a realistic deadline seems to be a part of that. I don't think that many would like five years of development. I also believe that he knows how much work it is. Otherwise he wouldn't be working weekends.

And as I said earlier, those three months were mostly planning. This very update actually mentioned this :

Yes, we are in the third month of development of Shenmue 3. The story and scenarios are now out of the planning stage and it is time to get the people, places and things to start fitting together into a world with proper dimension, adequate space, and appropriate scale to keep the feel and essence of all that is a Shenmue game
...
The development team is in high spirits now that we have reached this stage where we are finally able to start testing.

Come on, 3 months paypal is laughably short, even for a 2 year project.


There is nothing even remotely realistic about a 2017 release date(It's super hard to create a 2D adventure game within that time, especially as a indie developer, yet he thinks he can get a 3D adventure game made in that timespan, and a Shenmue grade one at that). Planning, as if Yu hasn't had it already planned out, I doubt it took 3 months, to just adjust how the major scenes will be played out.

I'm positive he had it worked out already(he had nothing much else to do during the months leading up to the E3 announcement, but contemplating such, nevermind the past 14 years), as to how the story, and overall game would be laid out depending on various funding levels.

3 months is fine. They're going location testing this month if what Suzuki-san said a while back is true.

[LucBu]

My two cents.
Unreal engine is just a tool. Important is - how you use it.

I want to make a certain joke.

Why can't we be carefully optimistic? (for now)

It's always the end of two extremes... either eternal doom or "looking at that pre alpha Ryo model I can see Shenmue 3 is going to live up to the hype because Yu Suzuki is a wizard".

Yu Suzuki is a wizard though. So...

The jacket will probably be toned down abit but it is obvious that they're still experimenting with the lighting. They're also not utilizing any Post Processing at the moment and if they are it's only for a slight color node but I don't think they're using any in the second and fourth screenshot. I think it goes without saying that this will change and right now they're experimenting with an engine that they probably never used before so it takes abit of time and energy to figure these large frameworks out.

Hey, welcome. So in your personal opinion, do you think there's plenty of time for Yu and his team to master Unreal and learn to use it to its fullest (or at least to a high degree of proficiency) before Shenmue 3 releases? I know Yu has been out of the loop a while, and I don't think refusing to play modern games helps that, but, I'm curious to ask, from someone who has experience in UE, how realistic it would be for Yu and his team to catch up fairly quickly? What do you think?