These "emulation" servers that are out there. There's atleast one for almost every mmo. While, some have gone deep underground, mostly anything to do with (sony or Square), theres alot your losing with them. Your never getting the true updates from the games. The events, or some of better momments.
The l2 emulator that was out was horried. There was more crashed with it, then it was worth and when it was stable, you began to realize you arn't enjoy the true game world. The npc's had to have new written text, that was not really what they were suppose to say. I wanted the deep rich back-story to play ingame for roleplaying purposes.
I play FFXI online, as well as L2. L2 i pay maybe every 2-3 months and play for a month to break up a slow month on FFXI. I love FFXI for it's deep storyline,cinematics, fun events, good comradery from my Linkshell. While, I love L2 for it's graphics and PVP.
MMO's allows for some of us to actually role-play. Paying 10 bucks a month which is like said earlier 2 hours of work, isn't that bad for me, for the now (listed directly from the game) 50days, 3 hours, 22minutes, I have played of FFXI in game. (this is actual count log).
Not too many other games have I put that much time into.
Anyways on topic now.
Shenmue ..
i suggest going to the shenmue dojo..which is here..
http://www.planetxbox.com/shenmuedojo/
from what is to be understood. The creator of Shenmue did not like the technology of the ps2. Instead he opted for the xbox. Sadly, the Shenmue 2 did not sell as well here, and niether did it overseas due to the already release of it on the DC. There was a movie compiled from the cutscenes in the game and released in movie theaters in japan. It did not do comercially well either.
Shenmue 3 wasn't pulling in the buz, so they opted for a MMO style game. It was not shown at this year's E3 due to poor respone from the creator on the inital look of the game. It is suppose to be in redesign.