Shenmue Online?

SEGA
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Online RPGs tend to sacrifice depth of story in favour of tons of action almost as a rule. Hopefully Shenmue Online will help the series rise to the heights of popularity. More exposure means there’s a greater chance of us seeing Shenmue III one day.

I’m wondering how Shenmue Online will play. I can imagine thousands of Ryos sweeping across a virtual China beating to death anyone who dares to stand in their way. Of course, in traditional Shenmue fashion, they will all speak in complete monotone (actually I’m sure the voice acting in the Japanese Shenmue games sounded more natural).

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[quote=“Geoffrey Duke”]

Hopefully Shenmue Online will help the series rise to the heights of popularity. More exposure means there’s a greater chance of us seeing Shenmue III one day.[/quote]

i just don’t see it happening :frowning:

shenmue did get a lot of attention amongst those that played the DC. the official dreamcast magazine had something about it in just about every issue. so i don’t think that lack of popularity is the main problem, it’s that most people didn’t like the series. so if anything, that is another reason NOT to try and make an MMO out of it.

i’m almost certain this idea will fail or be canned before it sees the light of day, and if it does fail, that will just drive the stakes further into the shenmue 3 coffin.

not trying to be pessimistic, this idea just doesn’t agree with my logic.

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I think it’s a good idea that CAN work. I imagine it’s going to be something like The Matrix Online except in a more traditional and oriental setting without any kind of super powers. The Matrix Online sounds quite interesting, I don’t know if it’s developers can pull it off but even if they can’t maybe Sega can and Shenmue Online will be good. Also, if this is a Sega decision and not something from the Sammy “heads” I’m sure they are certain they can make it work just like they were certain for the original Shenmue and I have no reason to doubt that yet.
The only bad thing I have to say for now is that I really wanted Shenmue 3 first. I wanna see how the story ends already… And that since it’s on the PC Sega might not be able to pull off a good enough PC game for most people to buy into it and instead make it more console-ish and repel them. Let’s hope that won’t happen.

For the people that say there’s no potential here, let’s not forget how “real” the Shenmue world was for it’s time, Sega can do that kind of “jump” in quality again and make a MMORPG that allows you to actually have a virtual life complete with actual jobs (forklift style, not MMORPG “sit here and let your script click that thing into infinity” style) and lots and lots of character interaction with you able to do pretty much anything you’d do in real life rather than a game based on bashing “monsters” (or whatever enemies there are) into infinity. Ppl would buy into that imo and it’s a good possibility. And ofcourse there WOULD be fights (hopefully with a much more refined system this time around, perhaps an EXACT copycat of Virtua Fighter 4: Evo or Final Tuned) but I imagine it will be restricted duel style things rather than “walk around and beat down anyone you don’t like his face”. There’s LOTS of potential here IMO, not “none”.

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But part of the charm of Shenmue was being able to beat up on mass gangs and then that one lone kung fu master. I still don’t get how this is going to work in an MMO setting. There can only be one Ryo. Everybody else were just faceless NPCs or characters that pushed the story forward. Are there going to be thousands of players with personal quests of vengeance running around asking inane questions? And who would want to constantly live the “normal life” aspect of Shenmue?

A Highlander game would be a much better idea for an MMO. :smiley:

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Feast your eyes on some screenshots:

http://premium.uploadit.org/dsn2000/sen2.JPG

http://premium.uploadit.org/dsn2000/sen.JPG

http://www.ystart.net/upload/20040803/1091587325.jpg

http://www.ystart.net/upload/20040803/1091587358.jpg

http://www.ystart.net/upload/20040803/1091587395.jpg

Here’s an article that describes the core gameplay:

[quote]Translated summary of Yu Suzuki unveiling Shenmue Online)

We released Shenmue 1 in 1999, and Shenmue 2 in 2001. I?d been interested in MMO very much, but I had no chance to materialize it as there?s not much know-how on MMO in Japan. But finally, I made this project come true with the help of JCE in Korea. As Shenmue involves vast fields and plenty of characters, as many as 1300 people, I believe it?s the best suited game for MMO.

We?ll import about 150 events from the original games to cover the whole story and we?ll add 100 - 150 new events. We?re also planning to include our ?mini-games? as we did in the past. People tend to think Hong Kong is the main stage of Shenmue, but originally, the story should be unfolded mostly in the main land China. It begins in Hong Kong and expands into the other areas, such as Guilin, Suzhou, Xian and so on, both in the minor version-ups, or the major version-ups.

This game will contain all the general MMO components, such as communities, level-ups, items, etc, but the most distinctive feature would be ?the battles.? It?s the battle-centered game featuring the Chinese martial arts, for I?ve been craving to introduce the martial arts into MMO properly. But, we won?t make it as maniac as Virtua Fighter, but would like it more suitable for MMO that can be played by anyone.

The characters that were already employed in the original games would appear as ?the Game Masters,? and we?ll make new playable characters as ?the player characters.? Players will pick out one character from the three groups of militants and customize it. The first group includes fighters that use traditional martial arts. Some of them use weapons that we?ve never allowed in the past. The second group includes people who use mysterious powers, such as qigong, magic, etc. The third group includes strange characters for Shenmue, kind of ghostly ?enemies? as variations.[/quote]

So far, the game seems workable. I hope it becomes a success if only to give Sega all the incentive it needs to develop Shenmue III.

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[quote=“Megatherium”]i’m almost certain this idea will fail or be canned before it sees the light of day, and if it does fail, that will just drive the stakes further into the shenmue 3 coffin.

not trying to be pessimistic, this idea just doesn’t agree with my logic.[/quote]

I thought Sega had already tossed the Shenmue series aside as worthless. After all, if a game doesn’t sell billions of copies then it must be worthless…

It’s nice to be wrong for a change.

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WTF ENERGY BALLS??? I thought that was a rumour! Thats appaling

I don’t think it would end on Shenmue III, there is a LOT of chapters left

EDIT: ok i’m calmed down now, thx geoff for the screens… but here:

I hate MMORPG’s where you level up… I doubt I will like this game… waits for it to get canned, or displayed as a big hoax

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So you want the characters to remain static from start to finish? Where’s the fun in that? Ryo’s learning of new and better moves and the refining of them with more and more practice is, in a sense, levelling up… It all depends on how it’s done.

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THIS IS THE WORST DISASTER EVER!

… ok that might be a little over the top but to be honest I would prefer for the shenmue series to die than for this to happen.

The strength of the Shenmue series were in:

  1. Strong story
  2. Realistic and involving environments
    I may be generalising when I say this but the storylines of MMOs are generally a lot less involving than that of single player games. One of the strengths of Shenmue’s storyline was being so involved in Ryo’s quest to avenge his father, in the MMO you will not be Ryo and I dont see how his quest to avenge his father will be motivating for the player.
    The realism has totally gone out the window too, Ryo and some other unknown character with magic energy balls? This is just insane! The ending of Shenmue 2 hinted towards magic becoming involved in the storyline and that could possibly have been worked into a shenmue 3 however potentially thousands of people running around casting magic? Realism is a no no.

I have no idea how Sega intends to make money from this or why people think it will increase the series’ fan base. I have been a fan of the series for a long time and I am horrified by this info. It may turn out that with more info the game will get better but I would not buy it anyway as I am not into MMOs that much. I doubt this will get wide appeal from the fanbase judging from Shenmue Dojo’s reactions so that leaves new fans as a possibility. But who is going to buy an MMO with magic kung fu based on a series that they have not played? I think gamers within that demographic would much more likely go for the Matrix Online.

To me this seems like Yu Suzuki spitting on Shenmue’s grave.

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Whens the last time you saw someone training martial art and then creating a fireball? Realism was one of the reasons why I loved shenmue. I this this game will be terrible, and i hope I am proven wrong.

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Scott, what you quoted of my post was obviously and clearly aimed at your comment about level ups, I don’t see why you wanna make it sound as if it said “Magic is cool!!!” or something. I disagree with special powers too, I still don’t want a static character though, wether there is “magic” or not.

And Jameth, ofcourse storyline in MMOs is not as good as in single player games, it’s just not feasable to be like that until we have AI powerful enough to act as a human Game Master and keep creating quests and storylines for every person in the game world according to what they do. Yes we aren’t going to see that anytime soon :slight_smile:
However in MMOs you can have your own storyline which is something you can’t have in single player games like Shenmue. If you are not into actual role playing then I suppose I can see why MMORPGs appear shallow but for RPG fans they can be very enjoyable and almost alternate lives…
This is why as I mentioned earlier I hope there’s lots of character interaction with people having to basically lead everyday lives with the need for a job, food, sleep, perhaps even going shopping and the like… Like some of what Ryo did in Shenmue 1 & 2, in order to reinforce the ability for Role Playing. When your character can do all those “real life stuff” you can customize him and give him personality much more.
And I feel that the ability to do such things would also introduce other elements like people hanging out at the bar and playing games after a hard day at work for example… Yes just like real life… So you won’t have this grand quest to take part in so what? Your grand quest will be your character’s life just like your grand quest here is your own life. Except your character’s life is bound to be more exciting in a game world based on Shenmue when for everything you do there’s the possibility some bully will appear (try and kick his ass? obey him?) or you will spot someone trying to steal something frm another player (help him? laugh? ignore?) or you will see people fighting at the marketplace (cheer? bet? kick the winner’s ass?) or spar with a friend at the dojo, or go out in some bar at night, or organize a coordinated attack to an enemy faction or…
So you won’t have a Lan Di to fight… You may very well have a player named “Geoffrey” that is very powerful and he and his gang terrorise the whole town you live into and have killed many many people… Are you going to train yourself like Ryo does in Shenmue and eventually overthrow Geoffrey with your friends? Or do you find what he does exciting and will train in order to join him? Or are you just going to try and move to another town hoping no bullies are there or atleast hoping there’s some “good” powerful characters there to protect people? Or indeed move to another town and do the same thing Geoffrey does but in a place you can call your own where you don’t have competition (for the time being)
I really can’t say many things like this now since we barely know anything about the game but the more depth they build into the world the more things will have the potential of happening and the more exciting that alternate life will be…
The game might end up NOTHING like I’m imagining and also NOTHING like you are imagining but saying there’s no potential in a title like this is just plain wrong.

I can see why people aren’t fond of this turn of events especially in regards to the introduction of special powers, whatever those may be, but I really don’t understand all the hostility and the certainity that this is going to suck or get canceled. We barely know anything about it. And it’s the team that brought us Shenmue on first place. What do you have against them to be certain this is just a cash in or something? As other people mentioned they could have picked another more popular game if it was just a cash in since it would have a much better chance of good sales. Though MMORPGs need much more than good sales, they need to be good enough to get people to keep playing them for a long time to come. I hope Sega can pull this off and make a game as groundbreaking as the original Shenmue was.

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Many fans of this series loved the combat found in the games for its realism…

I can’t help but wonder if “fireballs” were introduced in order to appeal to a wider audience (it wouldn’t be the first time the mechanics of a game were changed for the benefit of potential new fans).

The question is: will there be an uproar in the Sega/Shenmue community if this game fails to reach our shores?

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I don’t see how anyone can “love” the combat in the games when the controls are just so wrong and innacurate… If a Shenmue III is made they better keep the EXACT control scheme of the Virtua Fighter series rather than a chunky imitation of it…
Wether there is powers or not Sega better make a good control scheme for Shenmue Online… Which is going to be extremelly difficult seeing as how this going to be a PC game. Why is it a PC game anyway? With the cancelation of the X-Box’s Fantasy Live Online or whatever that MMORPG was called they could fill that gap themselves… Or try for a next gen console…

And like someone said earlier, with the ending of Shenmue II we see the potential of “magic” being introduced to the series, I don’t think the fireballs or whatever are introduced as something to make the game more appealing… After all Sega is going to publish The Matrix Online and there’s no powers like that in it are there? Though there are other kinds of powers it’s definitelly something that appears more realistic than “fireballs” coming out of people’s hands… And something closer to the japanese/chinese since they have all those Kung Fu movies with people nearly flying around and such…

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Is there even a market for a game containing realistic martal arts anymore? Let’s hope that this is a change for the better as opposed to a change for the worse.

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You are right Al3x, we lack the information to make any meaningful conclusions about the game, you can no more say that the game will be good because it will allow strong community aspects and real ife mirroring that we saw in shenmue that I can say it will suck because of crazy magic.
One thing we can say for certain is that there is a strong backlash against the information from the shenmue community, this isnt the info they wanted to see. It may be that the game turns out to be more attractive to the fans however the initial reaction is bad and not many game continuations are sucessful by shocking their fans. Either way it is a sign that Sega’s PR is not very good, there shouldnt be this arguement about whether the game is good and uncertainty about the magic + fireballs, Sega should have release info on the cool stuff in the game and some reassurance to the fans that shenmue online will at least resemble the feeling of shenmue.

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Ah, but where you are wrong is, I never said that the game will be like this or will be good for SURE. That kind of replies I made were, as stated in my previous posts, merely showing that there is POTENTIAL in this kind of games when a lot of people here said there is no such thing about it. Saying it has POTENTIAL doesn’t mean I’m 100% sure Sega will expoilt that potential and make the game good. And I’ll quote the ending of one of my previous post’s paragraphs to show I clearly stated that in it as well.

“The game might end up NOTHING like I’m imagining and also NOTHING like you are imagining but saying there’s no potential in a title like this is just plain wrong.”

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Sure there is a market for a game with realistic martial arts. VF4 and VF4: Evo sold really good didn’t they?

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i still know enough to know that this is the stupidest idea i have heard off in at least the past 10 years XD

can we not agree that a skies MMO would have near infinitely more potential and DRAW to it? sega really makes the absolute worst decisions of the industry. sega seems to fall further each time they come up with a plan to get back on their feet.

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There’s not much to say here that hasn’t been said already, but I’ll add my opinion that idea does have potential, depending on the creativity of the developers, and how well the final product is executed.

I’d be disapointed if it turned out to be a stereotypical MMORPG (where you fight “monsters” as somebody here put it), but judging my what Yu Suzuki did with the original Shenmue, I think we can expect greater things than that.

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An MMORPG in the real world seems to defeat the object if you ask me…