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Sega Announces Shenmue Online
Thanks to Gamesindustry.biz for covering the news that Sega has announced Shenmue Online, a PC MMORPG, "being co-developed and co-published by Sega and Korean firm JC Entertainment", as part of "its new plans to enter the Chinese online gaming market." JC Entertainment are the Korean-based makers of Rush Online (formerly Priest) and the popular-in-Asia Redmoon, and the press release on Shenmue-Online.com states the game, part of the sometimes adored Dreamcast/Xbox franchise, will be a "MMO Action RPG in which tens of thousands of players will participate in the virtual world of Shenmue staged in China including Hong Kong in 1980's. Players, acting as militants, will use mysterious powers, kung-fu, Chinese weapons and Qigong in real-time fight-action."
As long as I can look for sailors.
Do you know where I can find sailors?
--riney
Even Miyamoto couldn't have thought up the concept of putting together the boringness of Shenmue with the tedium of MMORPGs. This will be a legendary game if the universe doesn't implode from the combination.
Rob
Hmmm... maybe after 5 weeks of playing, players will have enough skill to load a gun and play a tape.
I have never laughed so hard. The translation was "technically accurate" but got the nuance all wrong, and made it look like you were on an urgent hunt for some oceangoing man-love.
Toss in raising a kitten, the interminable forklift job, great graphics, bizarrely detailed convenience stores (look! I can buy sardines!), and a great realtime fight system-- and you have the love-it/hate-it game that is Shenmue. Parts of it were brilliant, and parts of it were bad enough to make grown men call out for sailors.
Remember Alien Front Online, the game that went offline less than 10 months after it was launched because the server's IP address was hard-coded into the client?
Remember Phantasy Star Online, which was so buggy it allowed malicious players to delete other people's characters, didn't save anything on the server side, and disabled local backups?
Remember how Sega pretty much ignored the bugs, choosing not to inform customers about them, and not to update the client?
Remember Sega first announcing its online Dreamcast games would require a subscription (online play was free when you bought them), then terminating support altogether? It's a wonder no class action lawsuit was brought against the company.
I'll never pay for an online Sega game again, and if I play one for free, it will be a game that relies on short-term fun, not long-term character building.
I learned my lesson - and so have many one-time Sega fans.
Screw Qigong. I'm going to get myself a forklift and Fung Shui the crap out of Hong Kong with many many crates.