Shenmue 3 - 'Rag Doll' Stretch Goal Reached!

[Sharky]

71,250 backers passed the 6,500,000 stretch goal last night.

Congratulations Yu Suzuki!

[Tad]

Excellent news! Congrats to Yu Suzuki.

I'm itching to play this

[Centrale]

That's great news! Here's a statement from Yu Suzuki from a few months ago, trying to clarify what is meant by this stretch goal:

"Some of you may know what the Ragdoll physics is. If you release the strength of the body, it becomes like a doll, that's not really natural. That's why we're working on the Motion Blending, adding some resistance to the muscles for example, to obtain realistic moves.

"In a Virtua Fighter scene, patterns were determined by the Motion Capture, but with the Ragdoll physics, moves won't repeat over and over. If you get into something (like a wall) the reaction won't be the same. In fact, I'd like to combine the Ragdoll Physics, the Motion Blending and IK Constraint to make the NPC and battle's reactions as real as possible."

So rather than a completely limp ragdoll, characters will have some kind of realistic musculature and constraints that will influence how they fall and bounce off of objects. A subtle effect, maybe, but it should help with realism to not have characters falling into a twisted, twitching heap as they do in some games.

[Moody]

So when are they gonna swap out the ugly placeholder logo for the one shown at E3 that actually looks like the Shenmue logo?

Also, sorry to hear that Paypal ain't gettin' no extra rewards.

[George]

6,333,295 is where the Kickstarter ended at, so it got 200k from the slacker backer so far?  Thats alright, not going to get over 7 million probably

[Tad]

Can't they just keep it open? I suspect once people see more of the game they'll know what they're getting into and might actually desire to back or pre-order it.

Edit: Obviously there's a cut off point where they're too far into development to add new stuff due to new goals reached, but I doubt they're near it yet.

[Ben]

I imagine they'll need to set their final budget soon though.

Games are complex things, they're probably planned out pretty thoroughly before development and pretty soon they'll probably be at the point where they'll have to work with what they have.

Everyone (For the most part) who was going to donate to the game probably did already. People waiting on footage probably aren't true fans and it's unlikely that they'd be convinced by it. At the point where they'll begin showing real footage is at the point when they're just hyping the game up for its actual release.

[Barry the Nomad]

I want more promotional materials that look legitimate. Right now a lot of the stuff they've shown look fan made. The logo seen at E3 looked great, but they hardly ever show it now. I'd like to see some new high quality renders in new poses, showcasing the game's story and environments. Stuff like this: http://shenmuedojo.net/new/media/wallpapers.html

[Ben]

Yeah it'd be nice to see the promotional material stepped up a bit, but honestly I'm fine with them just focusing on making the game right now.

That's sorta my thinking on it. I've also pretty much already accepted the fact that this will never be marketed the way the first 2 games were, just because it no longer has a major publisher behind it, unfortunately.

It's an indie game now, it sorta is what it is haha.

[Centrale]

They'll probably have something to show at the Monaco event in February. Still, it's early days yet.

[Phantasos]

It's unbelievably lazy if not half-hearted. This localization group is a fucking disgrace and the fact that they locked the kickstarted rewards from slacker backers is so god damn stupid, it boggles the mind. This is like the anti-Bloodstained campaign in every way.

Thank God the Shemnue name and Yu Suzuki still has a lot of weight because this project is still horribly mismanaged in the crowdfunding department.

[Centrale]

Bottom line is, KS backers still get their rewards. Paypal backers still get their rewards. Nothing has changed and nothing was "taken away." Arguably, Awesome Japan shouldn't have run a poll at all, but the "controversy" is generated by mendacious gaming journalists who are trying to get those daily click quotas.

In more positive news, Cedric Biscay hinted that there might be new screenshots shown at a Jan. 20 press event publicizing the February 27 Monaco Magic event.

[George]

I don't think the Kickstarter awards staying exclusive is bad. I think the issue here is that Paypal Slacker Backers aren't being offered their own exclusives that is the tragedy. Hey, if its not mean't to be 'Kickstarter exclusive' than don't entice people during your kickstarter with the goal. Thats my view. I really dislike 'fans' on reddit saying that anyone that thinks 'kickstarter exclusives' should stay exclusive is a 'bad guy' that doesn't care about the franchise.

I agree with everyone else that this KS has been mishandled and I hope Yu Suzuki has a real ad agency for real promotion. I mean, the kickstarter could have been a whole lot bigger if the people behind it where a bit more creative.

[Ben]

It's unbelievably lazy if not half-hearted. This localization group is a fucking disgrace and the fact that they locked the kickstarted rewards from slacker backers is so god damn stupid, it boggles the mind. This is like the anti-Bloodstained campaign in every way.

What do you mean?

They held a Kickstarter campaign, they made it incredibly clear that you had to donate to the campaign to get the rewards.

For people who (for some strange reason) didn't donate to the Kickstarter campaign, they held (very generously) a Paypal campaign for people who didn't donate to the Kickstarter. Which was...very nice of them. You almost never see that happen. Usually there's a Kickstarter campaign and if you miss that, you miss it.

Kickstarter backers were promised exclusive rewards, and this was made clear. People chose not to donate to the Kickstarter campaign while others did, so they miss those rewards. Too effing bad.

So I'm not sure I understand that argument. It was nice of them to consider making the KS rewards non-exclusive but I guess ultimately they realized that they weren't comfortable with it, and with most fans voting that they didn't really care one way or the other, they opted to leave it the way it was.

I agree with everyone else that this KS has been mishandled and I hope Yu Suzuki has a real ad agency for real promotion. I mean, the kickstarter could have been a whole lot bigger if the people behind it where a bit more creative.

Dude it's being run by like....4 people. Or something. I mean I dunno. Like it or not man Yu Suzuki is an arcade developer from the 1980s-90s, he's not exactly on the cutting edge of modern game development and promotion, he (and his studio) have no idea how to publish a game or how to create a Kickstarter, they're doing the best they can and it is what it is.

Unless someone else funds the ad agency, I'd almost rather they not bother with it because I don't want the money being taken out of the game's pocket. That said I hope someone does fund it, because I want the game to do well.

[Tad]

Slightly off topic, but SEGA just tweeted about Shenmue merchandise. Is this the first time they've so much as mentioned Shenmue in years?