Return of the Passport?

(Shenmue I & II Re-Release Discussion)

Return of the Passport?

Postby BlueMue » Sat Apr 14, 2018 10:00 am

This is the most important question to me right now. Will we see a return of all the features on the Passport Disc?

It was one of my dearest wishes to see the leaderboards and stuff go active again, there is loads of extra replay value if they bring this all back. The old urgent messages section could be used to bring in Shenmue III news, if the games releases are far enough apart.

It will definately take them quite a lot of extra effort to deliver this but man do I hope they do!

BlueMue has received 5 thanks from: Elevensixty, johnvivant, mikec_ct, Mr357, myshtuff
User avatar
BlueMue
Machine Gun Fist
Machine Gun Fist
 
Joined: August 2008
Location: Germany
Favorite title: Shenmue II

Re: Return of the Passport?

Postby myshtuff » Sat Apr 14, 2018 10:33 am

70 person battle leaderboards will get intense.

myshtuff has received 2 thanks from: BlueMue, Elevensixty
User avatar
myshtuff
Dojo Dirtbag
"After Burner...Great!"
 
Joined: April 2005
Location: Cincinnati, Ohio
PSN: Myshtuff
Steam: spivakar
Favorite title: Shenmue
Currently playing: Yakuza 6

Re: Return of the Passport?

Postby Hyo Razuki » Sat Apr 14, 2018 10:33 am

I'd rather Sega drop the passport and use that money as part of the funding they give Yu for S4, tbh.

Hyo Razuki has received a thanks from: VukBZ2005
User avatar
Hyo Razuki
"After Burner...Great!"
"After Burner...Great!"
 
Joined: June 2015

Re: Return of the Passport?

Postby BlueMue » Sat Apr 14, 2018 11:31 am

Now that is the far more wishfull thinking. :lol:
User avatar
BlueMue
Machine Gun Fist
Machine Gun Fist
 
Joined: August 2008
Location: Germany
Favorite title: Shenmue II

Re: Return of the Passport?

Postby Miles Prower » Sat Apr 14, 2018 12:05 pm

I do wonder how/if they'll handle the Passport. There's also those exclusive capsule toys you could only get by trading on that market thing...
User avatar
Miles Prower
"Keep Friends"
"Keep Friends"
 
Joined: May 2003
Location: UK
XBL: sppeac1987
Favorite title: Shenmue II

Re: Return of the Passport?

Postby javier himura » Sat Apr 14, 2018 4:13 pm

I want Passport to return. I do not think it cost a lot to have this again. Actually most of Passport content is not truth online content. Most of the content was stored inside the disk. The text with the information of places, people and attacks was not in the disk but should not be a problem to have that data inside the HD game, it is just a few extra KB.

The only Only content will be leaderboards and message of the day, to have it or not wont make any big difference in cost.

javier himura has received a thanks from: Elevensixty
User avatar
javier himura
Funny Bear Burger Clerk
Funny Bear Burger Clerk
 
Joined: March 2004
Location: Madrid

Re: Return of the Passport?

Postby Hyo Razuki » Sat Apr 14, 2018 4:46 pm

BlueMue wrote: Now that is the far more wishfull thinking. :lol:


Wishful thinking is what got us SHD and S3 in the first place. :) But I'm not wishing for anything here, I just think that if Sega are more willing to invest more money into the Shenmue brand they should rather invest it in S4 than into extra stuff for SHD.

I guess it boils down to S3's sales figures. If S3 sells well enough, I can well immagine Sega smelling money to be made from making S4 and funding it, especially with the groundwork of S3 in Unreal 4 engine. From a corporate point of view, if S3 does well enough (we don't know how well "well enough" is for Sega, of course), it makes perfect sense to fund S4. And Sega have clearly stated their interest in reviving the Shenmue brand today by giving S3 the greatest suport it could have gotten by announcing the remasters.

On the other hand, I don't see how the passport is gonna move even one extra copy of SHD for Sega.

Hyo Razuki has received a thanks from: VukBZ2005
User avatar
Hyo Razuki
"After Burner...Great!"
"After Burner...Great!"
 
Joined: June 2015

Re: Return of the Passport?

Postby johnvivant » Sat Apr 14, 2018 5:43 pm

i really hope they include the passport features. all those stats, character and location info, cut-scene viewer. wont even mind if its just a 4:3 straight port

also it would be great if they include the What's Shenmue playable demo. too much to ask i know. i hope the dev team look at the forums and consider some of the fans requests. these things could still be feasible within their budget.

johnvivant has received a thanks from: Elevensixty
User avatar
johnvivant
Alpha Trading Boss
Alpha Trading Boss
 
Joined: November 2008

Re: Return of the Passport?

Postby Telekill » Sat Apr 14, 2018 5:49 pm

I'm not sure if Sega would be willing to have to put up money for leaderboard servers and what not.
User avatar
Telekill
Man Mo Acolyte
Man Mo Acolyte
 
Joined: July 2015
PSN: Telekill
Currently playing: Detroit Become Human

Re: Return of the Passport?

Postby starscream178 » Tue Apr 17, 2018 6:46 pm

that would be amazing.
starscream178
Master of the Three Blades
Master of the Three Blades
 
Joined: November 2007

Re: Return of the Passport?

Postby Sappharad » Tue Apr 17, 2018 9:22 pm

Telekill wrote: I'm not sure if Sega would be willing to have to put up money for leaderboard servers and what not.

In the case of PS4 and Xbox Live, that's not a problem.

Leaderboards are hosted by Sony & Microsoft on their respective servers and are part of the console's integration with trophies/achievements. The native functionality is generic and provided at a console level, so it will continue to operate as long as PSN / XBL are supported on those platforms. I can't give you proof of this for Sony since their stuff is only available for developers, but here's Microsoft's leaderboard API for Xbox live.

The only stuff you'd have to worry about being shut down would be game specific content. In Shenmue passport's case, since none of it is realtime they could theoretically just build some web-based APIs and those would be cheap to maintain since they could be hosted by the same servers that host their other websites.

I don't think we'll get a direct port of Shenmue Passport though. It's just not something that games do nowadays. I would be surprised if some of the features did not return as extras, but I can't see them keeping it as-is for a direct port.

Sappharad has received 2 thanks from: Elevensixty, Telekill
Sappharad
Man Mo Acolyte
Man Mo Acolyte
 
Joined: October 2015
Favorite title: Shenmue II

Re: Return of the Passport?

Postby NismoZZzz » Wed Apr 18, 2018 8:06 pm

Lets get those Dart leaderboards online baby!

NismoZZzz has received a thanks from: Elevensixty
User avatar
NismoZZzz
Funny Bear Burger Clerk
Funny Bear Burger Clerk
 
Joined: December 2008
Location: New Jersey
Favorite title: Shenmue

Re: Return of the Passport?

Postby javier himura » Sat Apr 21, 2018 1:20 pm

Sappharad wrote:The only stuff you'd have to worry about being shut down would be game specific content. In Shenmue passport's case, since none of it is realtime they could theoretically just build some web-based APIs and those would be cheap to maintain since they could be hosted by the same servers that host their other websites.

I don't think we'll get a direct port of Shenmue Passport though. It's just not something that games do nowadays. I would be surprised if some of the features did not return as extras, but I can't see them keeping it as-is for a direct port.


All the features of Shenmue Passport except Leaderboards and Message of the Day are not real online content. The content is stored inside the GD but they make it to require internet connection to promote that Dreamcast was capable to have online features. Passport Disc requires to be connected to view that content even for features that are 100% inside the GD like change of capsule toys.

The only content thas is not available inside the GDs are the text of places, moves and peoples profiles but that is just a few KB of txt files. Even the character models loaded in their profiles are stored in the GD, the only online content is the text.


If they will make a direct port of the original games i dont think it will be too hard to keep Passport but make the game not to require internet connection. They only need to add the profiles text and maybe disable leaderboards in the PC version.

javier himura has received a thanks from: Elevensixty
User avatar
javier himura
Funny Bear Burger Clerk
Funny Bear Burger Clerk
 
Joined: March 2004
Location: Madrid

Re: Return of the Passport?

Postby Elevensixty » Sun Apr 22, 2018 5:02 pm

Agreed that this is:
-important
-shouldn't cost much
-will probably need to be modified from the original
-could include new features such as leaderboards for various mini-games

I worry about features "shutting down" as next gen consoles come out etc. The fan base will help with that, but still.. I don't have an answer for that.

*Unless* it were fan hosted??? how about hosting on the dojo or something lol
Elevensixty
Funny Bear Burger Clerk
Funny Bear Burger Clerk
 
Joined: January 2013
PSN: elevensixty
Favorite title: Shenmue
Currently playing: Polybius

Re: Return of the Passport?

Postby GYO6161 » Sun Apr 22, 2018 5:31 pm

I guess we know what we gotta do every 3rd of the month now.

#SaveShenmuePassportHD :lol:

I kid of course but this is definitely something that should be done.
User avatar
GYO6161
Man Mo Acolyte
Man Mo Acolyte
 
Joined: September 2015
Favorite title: Shenmue IIx
Currently playing: God of War

Next

Return to Shenmue I & II Re-Release

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest

Powered by phpBB © 2000-
ShenmueDojo.net