Random Shenmue III Thoughts

There are other occurrences going on behind the scenes too, from what I can see looking at SteamDB and Completionist.

SteamDB updates temporarily stopped and have been occurring at a slower rate than in March so far. I assume they're using Steam to control pre-release access to those 20 people play testing the game for feedback purposes, so the reduced and temporarily halted app updates might mean they've come to the end of that process for the moment - or Ys Net took a week to assess what they've been told and figured out what they can do with that information.

Since the last time I checked Completionist, some of these test players have also been able to trigger the full game completion achievement too. I figure that backs up my theory a little, but this is all guesswork.
 
Spaghetti said:
There are other occurrences going on behind the scenes too, from what I can see looking at SteamDB and Completionist.

SteamDB updates temporarily stopped and have been occurring at a slower rate than in March so far. I assume they're using Steam to control pre-release access to those 20 people play testing the game for feedback purposes, so the reduced and temporarily halted app updates might mean they've come to the end of that process for the moment - or Ys Net took a week to assess what they've been told and figured out what they can do with that information.

Since the last time I checked Completionist, some of these test players have also been able to trigger the full game completion achievement too. I figure that backs up my theory a little, but this is all guesswork.
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It certainly makes sense that they would take the time to take stock of the information these testers will have given the development team.

I'd expect something to pick up around mid-May possibly on that front once they have processed/implemented any feedback.

With the Shenmue 3 social media pages now regulrly posting it seems they are slowly, but surely building towards the main marketing push. Maybe with an end of May/early June start.
 
Spaghetti said:
There are other occurrences going on behind the scenes too, from what I can see looking at SteamDB and Completionist.

SteamDB updates temporarily stopped and have been occurring at a slower rate than in March so far. I assume they're using Steam to control pre-release access to those 20 people play testing the game for feedback purposes, so the reduced and temporarily halted app updates might mean they've come to the end of that process for the moment - or Ys Net took a week to assess what they've been told and figured out what they can do with that information.

Since the last time I checked Completionist, some of these test players have also been able to trigger the full game completion achievement too. I figure that backs up my theory a little, but this is all guesswork.
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I checked completionist and I saw that the completion rate for "fishing all" and "crude_drug_all" is always the same rate as the smaller completed city, indicating that it is unlocked when both are unlocked.
Although "complete" has a smaller rate than hakkason and chobu completed. Which would indicate it's not unlocked when both are cleared. Considering though the rate is the same as the lowest rates of unlock, it could be either because it's unlocked after unlocking everything or unlocked after Baisha. But then again, nothing indicates so far Baisha specific achievements which indicates imo a more story driven zone than the two previous ones.
 
GhostTrick said:
But then again, nothing indicates so far Baisha specific achievements which indicates imo a more story driven zone than the two previous ones.
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I am just throwing it out there for people to keep an open mind and that anything can happen with this game, in terms of its content. Just my 2 cents, but I would advise against casually waving away any and all possibilities of what now may or may not be in the game. The facts are that is zero footage of Baisha released, zero reference to it in interviews, zero achievements, Ben Judd stating the game has 2 areas at the Reboot Developers Conference. You don't have to of course, but looking at what's in front of us, at face value, all I am saying is to at least keep an open mind to the possibilities that could come to be, in terms of what was initially planned, and what could have changed along the development process.
 
GhostTrick said:
I checked completionist and I saw that the completion rate for "fishing all" and "crude_drug_all" is always the same rate as the smaller completed city, indicating that it is unlocked when both are unlocked.
Although "complete" has a smaller rate than hakkason and chobu completed. Which would indicate it's not unlocked when both are cleared. Considering though the rate is the same as the lowest rates of unlock, it could be either because it's unlocked after unlocking everything or unlocked after Baisha. But then again, nothing indicates so far Baisha specific achievements which indicates imo a more story driven zone than the two previous ones.
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So, if I understand correctly, it could just be that "complete" unlocks after the final cutscene or whatever, and doesn't necessarily mean there's a whole other area? So the only thing that really indicates Baisha exists (within the achievements) is more people have unlocked the "all" achievements than the "complete" achievement? That would be pretty telling if we knew more about the state of the build, what specifically they're testing etc.
 
GhostTrick said:
I checked completionist and I saw that the completion rate for "fishing all" and "crude_drug_all" is always the same rate as the smaller completed city, indicating that it is unlocked when both are unlocked.
Although "complete" has a smaller rate than hakkason and chobu completed. Which would indicate it's not unlocked when both are cleared. Considering though the rate is the same as the lowest rates of unlock, it could be either because it's unlocked after unlocking everything or unlocked after Baisha. But then again, nothing indicates so far Baisha specific achievements which indicates imo a more story driven zone than the two previous ones.
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I'm taking a neutral approach on this for the moment, personally. As it's a testing environment, I don't want to discount the idea someone was playing purposefully to unlock all achievements; rather than them popping automatically once reaching the final area of the game.

Peter said:
[...] zero reference to it in interviews [...]
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hazuki00 said:
I can't understand why anybody haven't asked Suzuki about baisha.
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As I understand it, SEGASaturno asked a question about Baisha at MAGIC 2019. Their interview hasn't been published yet, though.
 
orient said:
So, if I understand correctly, it could just be that "complete" unlocks after the final cutscene or whatever, and doesn't necessarily mean there's a whole other area? So the only thing that really indicates Baisha exists (within the achievements) is more people have unlocked the "all" achievements than the "complete" achievement? That would be pretty telling if we knew more about the state of the build, what specifically they're testing etc.
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Nah, my point was that for the "all" achievements, they always have the same percentage of the area which has less percentage. Which would indicate completing both area unlock the "complete all" for the fishing and drug.


Peter said:
I am just throwing it out there for people to keep an open mind and that anything can happen with this game, in terms of its content. Just my 2 cents, but I would advise against casually waving away any and all possibilities of what now may or may not be in the game. The facts are that is zero footage of Baisha released, zero reference to it in interviews, zero achievements, Ben Judd stating the game has 2 areas at the Reboot Developers Conference. You don't have to of course, but looking at what's in front of us, at face value, all I am saying is to at least keep an open mind to the possibilities that could come to be, in terms of what was initially planned, and what could have changed along the development process.
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I'm taking the same stance here. I dont think Baisha might have been moved out... But I just think it's not a traditionnal area hence why indeed we never got footage of Baisha, or why when the map size compared to Honk Kong in Shenmue II was Bailu + Chobu.
People need to keep in mind though that I'm talking here about areas with side activities and such. It doesnt mean the game wont have more area (In fact, some screens and videos might indicate maps outside of these 2 locations).
 
If Baisha isn't in there, I'd definitely be forgiving of that. As Peter said, game development is hard to predict, difficult and complex. You can plan as much as you like, but there are always unforeseen challenges, circumstances.

I want them to deliver the best possible Shenmue III they can within the time and budget, and all evidence suggests Yu and his team have given it everything they have. If Baisha isn't in, it wouldn't be for a lack of trying.

If, hypothetically, Baisha wasn't coming together -- the gameplay wasn't fun, or they simply didn't have the time to make it up to standard -- and it made more sense to flesh out Bailu and Chobu into deeper, more substancial areas and push Baisha to Shenmue IV, how could you fault them for that? I wouldn't want them to include a subpar area just to tick a box, or to say they didn't "break a promise". I care about getting an enjoyable game worthy of the Shenmue name -- the rest I'll leave to Yu Suzuki and his team.

That's not to say I'm convinced it's gone, but if it is, best to "announce" it sooner rather than later so the fan backlash doesn't stink up the release window.
 
orient said:
I wonder why? Is there an embargo, or are they just waiting on an accurate JP translation of the answers?

It sounds like YS didn't answer all of the questions so the answer to Baisha might not even be in there.
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No embargo, as other interviews from the same session have been published, and I believe @Switch handled the Japanese translation (so it may or may not be done, depending on his workload).

EDIT: Checking their forums, the Japanese to English translation is done. Now it's being translated to Spanish, as of early April.

From memory, it took a little while for their interview last year to be published, same with ShenmueMaster. Maybe because they also release the interviews in video format, idk.
 
I'm certain Baisha will be in the game, just not as major as the first two areas. If I recall correctly, two of the main systems in Shenmue 3 happen in Baisha.

Infiltration mission
Character perspective system

Not to mention this is where the Chi You are located, Baisha was also heavily advertised during the kickstarter.
 
@ShenSun I'm with you -- my gut feeling is it is in there because of those systems you've mentioned. But...a part of me thinks, just because it was featured in the Kickstarter as a stretch goal doesn't necessarily mean it's made it in. A lot can change in 4 years.

I do think that if it was cut we probably would've heard about it by now, so there's that as well.
 
Seeing the infomation from the last few weeks it would suggest things may have changed. Also as controversial as this is, the kickstarter goals are always subject to change & the systems from that could well be implemented elsewhere in the game.

My feeling is, personally, that Baisha isn't there but in it's place is a more fleshed out 30 hour plus 2 areas for Shenmue 3, with a bunch of mini games and side stuff. This is fine by me. I'd rather they cut it if it meant a better overall game & then Baisha comes in Shenmue 4 maybe.

If Im wrong then this is also good. Means more Shenmue 3 for me and a new area to play in.

We shall see.
 
It's interesting because if you look at the Chobu/Bailu stretch goals that weren't reached, it feels like we're getting most of those anyway thanks to Deep Silver's backing, so you would think they'd focus on Baisha before adding extra stuff to the other locations...but who can say. It's just impossible to know right now. Wasn't there alpha footage of Ryo running round in front of what looks like the buildings in Baisha?

I had the impression Yu said Baisha was what "Shenmue III is all about" because he was really excited about the siege game stuff, which really feels out of left field for Shenmue...and I've always wondered if that's what Ryan Payton was talking about when he said he had arguments with Yu about delivering the game fans want.
 
I can understand the devil's advocate position that if we haven't seen it yet, it doesn't exist - but this can go for a lot about Shenmue III, and on the other side of that coin, there were things about the game we had zero idea were being included until the curtain was drawn back with the EDGE preview. The absence of knowing... is not necessarily the absence of being.

I mean in some aspects, we have actually seen Baisha through development.


The earliest test screens had rudimentary tulou environments, and Yu's research trip focused heavily one capturing reference material of the real ones in Fujian.

In the behind the scenes footage seen in the Kickstarter pitch for the Shenmue documentary, we saw Ryo approaching a tulou-like building - which was captured in the later days of their prototype.

The first Dev Room video had designers creating that basic rockfall event for Baisha (it's explicitly named in the file name visible in UE4).

In late 2016, Yu showed Tekken's Harada a fortified tulou building design (possibly the same one Ryo is approaching in the prototype footage) that he said would be in Shenmue III.


But, I will readily admit that past this point it has been absent (as far as we can tell) from Kickstarter updates and promo material. However, with the achievement tracking from Completionist, we can now safely (I think, at least) say without a doubt there is something beyond completing Chobu/Niaowu that requires player participation.

If it were just letting a final cutscene play and the credits roll, there would not be 6 times as many test players who completed Chobu/Niaowu, than those who finished the game entirely.

I just think they're keeping Baisha under wraps, for whatever reason.
 
Yea I mean it is confusing, and who knows, maybe there's nothing to be concerned about at all. Everything will be as it has supposed to have been. But I always try to do my best to look at things at face value to avoid disappointment, or over excitement, and the facts in regards to Baisha when you compile them all together, give me reasons to suspect that there could be changes to the initial scope of this specific game. I hate to say it, but when I watched the Reboot Development conference and Ben Judd specifically said "2 areas", my own personal opinion went from maybe, to yep, this game is going to have... 2 areas.
 
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