Shenmue Online

[~ ヒキ ~]

I saw the posts about Shenmue Online on the Shenmue Anime Random thoughts thread and i thought that it would be nice to have a thread specifically to talk about Shenmue Online.

It would be really interesting if we find more things about it like the client and things like this so this way the Shenmue community can make this game playable, or the community can try to make a Shenmue Online but this is harder to do.

The idea of a Shenmue Online is wonderful to me.

Imagine a Shenmue Online where we can create characters, train all the moves and max them, train and fight with other players, having fight tournaments, collecting items and capsule toys, earn money chopping wood, picking herbs, buying food and drinks and much more.

So many possibilities to a Shenmue Online, it would be beautiful to play a Shenmue Online with all the people of this wonderful community.

I love this screenshot of the client that Jibby posted in the other thread, really cool.

Here we can talk everything about the Shenmue Online and we can even share ideas for a Shenmue Online that maybe can be made by the community, this is a interesting subject, thank you.

 

[BruceWayne911]

TBH back in the day when Shenmue Online was a real possibility I didn't like it. It was completely different than the core Shenmue games. I would've given up on the series had this been the spiritual successor to the Dreamcast.

 

[~ ヒキ ~]

TBH back in the day when Shenmue Online was a real possibility I didn't like it. It was completely different than the core Shenmue games. I would've given up on the series had this been the spiritual successor to the Dreamcast.

Ryo trained with Goku and learned Kamehameha 🤣




Yeah, it was really different but i think the idea of a Shenmue Online game is wonderful, so many possibilities of things to put in a Shenmue Online game.

Imagine a Shenmue Online where we can choose which location to live, if the player choose to start in Bailu Village for example then the player would need to work in the game to go to Hong Kong/Kowloon, Yokosuka and Niaowu.


I would not like the story continuing with Shenmue Online of course but a game apart from the main series it's okay to me, it would be nice to have a Shenmue Online made by the community, if someday this happen i would like to help with the project.

 

[ShenSu]

We should form a team to hunt down the shenmue online file and resources. Seems like an area @Jibby @Spaghetti and @mjqjazzbar would specialize in given their amazing investigation skills

 

[Jibby]

Crossposting from the Anime thread for continuity sake

I wonder if NoconKid would be a good place to start? He is Korean and is a Shenmue super fan so surely would have had some interest in Shenmue Online when it was announced. I can't work out from the wiki if the beta client was actually released in Korean though, or if it was released after JC Entertainment dropped it. The video footage from China Joy was all in Chinese as far as I'm aware.

Edit:- After doing some digging, I've found a few screenshots which are Korean, so there was a Korean Client at some point. Never really looked too much into Shenmue Online so I've never seen these screen captures before, but they are much better quality that what I've seen through the video.
Edit 2:- Just seen the Gallery Section on the Dojo has a bunch of great screenshots which are all mostly in Korean

Shenmue Online - Gamersyde

www.gamersyde.com

Also realised this is an Shenmue Anime thread lol Sorry for adding to the derail

It was almost certainly released in Korean if this 'Time Limit Preview/Closed Beta' actually transpired:

 

[24Nathan]

Once I can get to my computer, I can look at whatever I have. The beta 100% did happen. There was a forum in Korean, I think before the JCE drama, that had players discussing it.

 

[RetroLord120]

Would love to get a search going down for this haha.
Found some neat photos http://www.gamejob.co.kr/community/news/detail?mode=V&comm_stat=11&Sub_Comm_Stat=0&idx=10118

 

[James Brown]

Just got to hope there's a Korean player out there somewhere that never uninstalled the client lol...or has the zip installation. It's strange actually that if it was released all records were completely lost...considering how big MMO's were at the time, normally i'd have imagined an installation file to have surfaced somewhere. But obviously it's a long long time ago now...and even less chance now I guess.

 

[RetroLord120]

Just got to hope there's a Korean player out there somewhere that never uninstalled the client lol...or has the zip installation. It's strange actually that if it was released all records were completely lost...considering how big MMO's were at the time, normally i'd have imagined an installation file to have surfaced somewhere. But obviously it's a long long time ago now...and even less chance now I guess.

There's still hope, roblox players had combined search efforts in the past to find clients from as far back as early 2007, when there was only a few thousand players on the platform. They're still searching for 2006 builds, but the fact is it is definitely possible to find something just lying around on a hard drive if you search hard enough. The language barrier for us makes it a bit harder though, for sure.

 

[RetroLord120]

Found the official korean forums, maybe some of these people are still online today using the same usernames on sites, you never know lol. (I'm using a flash emulator called ruffle to get into the page)
https://web.archive.org/web/20050305071558/http://shenmue.joycity.com/bbs2/bbs2_list.asp?cb_idx=3

 

[RetroLord120]

Here is a user submitted screenshots page:
https://web.archive.org/web/20050305075714/http://shenmue.joycity.com/bbs2/bbs2_list.asp?cb_idx=5
All the screenshots are dead and bring up dead links, but the usernames are still there. Could be helpful if any of these guys still online under these names as they definitely had the client.

Edit: Found one of the guys blogs already lol
Guy works at a game company that makes english games too, maybe I should find his contact haha

 

[24Nathan]

You got further than what I did into the BBS! Let's get in touch with him!

 

[RetroLord120]

You got further than what I did into the BBS! Let's get in touch with him!

I did! Messaged him on instagram. For reasons, I wont post the exact user here because I don't want people swarming his dm's, if you really wanted to you could find out who it is yourself though lmao. I'll wait and see if I get a reply!

 

[code l name]

Got to respect Shenmue fans and their ability to sleuth.

This is the only game community I hang out with but occasionally I will watch videos of SOTC fans and their ability to discover early beta versions and mine those disks and discover secrets. It reminds me of this community and likes of LanDC who early on found so much hidden content and the fans that would poke and examine every corner.

 

[Jigen]

Found some of the flash files for the animations and backgrounds on the site. (They're only up for 30 days so download them now if you want them.)

https://easyupload.io/srrbi6
https://easyupload.io/2rmex5

 

[Jigen]

Here are a bunch of cool photos I found:

 

[ShenSu]

You guys are doing God's work and i love you all.

Let's keep going down this rabbit hole. Who knows what treasures await us

 

[Jigen]

You guys are doing God's work and i love you all.

Let's keep going down this rabbit hole. Who knows what treasures await us

It's almost like a lost media hunt It's actually kinda fun.

 

[Jibby]

Using the Chinese name for the game (莎木OL) as your search term seems to bring up the best results I've found.

Here are a couple more interesting pictures I don't believe have been posted before (at least not on the media gallery)

 

[spud1897]

Using the Chinese name for the game (莎木OL) as your search term seems to bring up the best results I've found.

Here are a couple more interesting pictures I don't believe have been posted before (at least not on the media gallery)

Mind if I steal these for the gallery?