How's it going Bully Board members? It's PuDzeh here and today I will be going through all of the deleted characters and leaders and speculating on possible factors and reasons for the deleting and hiding of these characters in freeroam or the game itself.
On the subject of characters who were removed from freeroam. Well, Bob was obviously taken out of the game quite late in development, otherwise R* would have replaced the cutscene in 'The Gym Is Burning' with another version where Bob is Ted or Casey. It was then not changed in Bully SE due to the fact that R* New England did not want to put up with the fag of recording new cutscenes and other rubbish. In other words, 'don't give yourself extra work from the work that is already being done' was their motto. Bob was also removed from Freeroam due to the fact that Rockstar wanted to even out the factions a little and the Jocks are already very powerful and well populated and any more characters would make the faction too strong. Evidence for this is that Bob's freeroam character audio is very limited when hex-edited into the game. To sum up, Bob was left in the cutscene because Rockstar didn't really think that anything would be affected by the fact he only appeared in a cutscene, supported by the fact Rockstar were pushed for time for release dates, I doubt they wanted to start fucking around changing things. We can tell Bob was removed close before the game's release as his animations are perfect and when he rides a bike, his animations are coordinated. It is also rumoured that Bob's audio about Wrestling being a sexual fetish for him and that he is openly homosexual and has various audio files demostrating this, that aspect may have contributed or been the reason for his removal from the game (Political ratings and such).
O'Rourke was not in freeroam because he never needed to be. Rockstar only scripted him to make a cameo appearance at the end of 'The Gym Is Burning' should the mission be failed. It is possible that Jimmy may have had a lighter in the BETA stage and that he could have started fires in the school etc, meaning O'Rourke would have appeared with a fire extinguisher to put it out. Due to political ratings and censorship, this feature was likely removed to prevent pyromania endorsement in schools. Also, it is rare that you see Firemen just walking around in uniform. To sum up, O'Rourke is likely to have only been put in the game to appear when 'The Gym Is Burning' is failed to add a sense of realism and to support the statement about 'Emergency Services have been called' by Mr.Burton. O'Rourke was removed early on in development, this is demonstrated by his cycling/moped/bust animations, in that they are all heavily unsynced and uncoordinated. Strangely he has a complete set of character audio files. Thus making it strange that he was removed from freeroam.
Floyd was removed from freeroam due to the fact his sole purpose was removed from the game early on in development. His character audio suggests that he runs a record store in Bullworth Town. This may have been a utility within the game but it was perhaps removed due to the hassle of paying royalites to music companies for adding music to the game. Or explicit lyrics.
Nate was removed from freeroam like Floyd, his sole purpose was removed from the game. His little dialog suggests he too works in a music store. Perhaps they both ran music stores at opposite ends of the map? Floyd in the upperclass area and Nate in the working class area? Perhaps with different styles of music?
Ian, a hippy styled character was likely removed from freeroam due to the fact his sole purpose was removed from the game. His diaglog suggest he works in a firework store (most likely Rocket In My Pocket). It's possible that Jimmy was able to buy fireworks and set them off. These may have caused fires which intern, spawned O'Rourke. He was likely removed from the game due to Politicians and Parents complaining that this may encourage children to commit such acts in a real school and cause potential deaths.
I, however, may be wrong on the subject of the removal of several shops and shopkeepers. They may have just been removed from the game due to the size of disc for the PS2(original Bully/Canis Canem Edit port) and fears that such a large amount of content may cause lag on the PS2. None of this was ever put back into the game when Scholarship Edition was released as once again, R* New England did not want to make themselves anymore work that is quite frankly 'unnecessary' in their eyes.
Now you ask, 'Why were the leaders of factions and major storyline characters removed from freeroam?'
The question is, 'Were they ever in freeroam anyway?'
I doubt that Rockstar wanted to add Gary, Petey or any of the clique leaders due to things that directly contradict the storyline or the current diplomatic relations between Jimmy and their factions or dealings. I also believe they did not think about this early on in development at the character audio recording stage. If they had done they would have likely recorded seperate audio for the clique leaders, Gary and Petey to make them talk about different things or act hostile towards Jimmy at certain times. An example of what Rockstar should have recorded: Situation:You meet Derby in freeroam during Chapter 2. Derby spots you and says : 'I don't like what you did to our chum, Tad's house. I'm going to beat you back to the poorhouse.' and then proceeds to beat you up.
This dialog and hostility would then be disabled after Chapter 2 and would not be played during Chapter 1 either. Another good example would be: Situation: You meet Gary soon after Chapter 2 had finished. Gary spots you and says: 'Those stupid, inbred rich kids couldn't beat you? Guess I'll have to do it myself friend.' and proceeds to beat you up. And that dialog would be disabled after Chapter 3 and not be played during Chapter 2 or 1.
I suppose you get the gist now? Rockstar would basically have to do a hell of a lot more scripting and voice recording to get this to work. That would also be too big for a PS2 disc (original Canis Canem Edit port). Once again Rockstar want an easy life and decided to make everything easier by just disabling them appearing during freeroam. One may also argue, why didn't Rockstar just make them appear after beating them, one by one. The counter argument is, why the fuck would Rockstar care about that? We as a community are too god damn sceptical about this game. Normal people wouldn't even bat an eyelid at that whilst playing this game. Rockstar just wanted an easy life guys.
