Bully-Board
Bully => Bully 1 Discussion => Topic started by: Razc01na on March 26, 2021, 07:55:05 PM
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So far, we have all looked at bully with good eyes, and for once (and I will probably get crucified :)), I would like to bring the bad side of it.
Let's be honest, the game is a masterpiece: the story (apart from a few incoherences), side activities, the freedom, etc...
BUT:
Many times, I just think "It could be better". There is just so much potential thrown to waste. And it's a pity to see so much unused and/or cut out content that could really make the game a more unique experience. What I read somewhere is that most this content was cut due to limitations of the ps2 at the time, and we can see even today how unstable the game can get if we push it too far with overloading mods. But... some decisions don't make sense to me. I will take the example of the highly famous beta boys dorm:
It was larger, with two floors and a bathroom (for all we know), seeing how many boys attend bullworth compared to girls, does it make any sense to replace it with the little shed we see in the final game?
If sleep there and wake up in the middle of the night and need to use a toilet, well, you have to go behind the bushes somewhere. Where is the logic here? :hmm:
There is also a school's third floor which, honestly, it doesn't make much of a difference to me except for the VERY CLEAR evidence of it's "have been" existence just by looking at the outside of the school (yeah, I mean the windows).
Also, the removed fireworks store which I believe would not have hurt to keep in the game.
When it come to missions we have the all-quiet-never-speaking Jimmy Hopkins, and, this one really upsets me, the replacement of complete missions with more generic and repetitive ones. It's one of those things that just makes you ask why??? Just why? What is a valid reason for this decision? I remember watching a video by deadpoolxyz where he recreated the beta Halloween and it's just soo much better that the final. Plus, the conversations Jimmy had with other mission related characters during specific missions, I believe would make the story a bit more... complete! Even if is just Jimmy commenting something like "I have to find someplace to hide!".
See, those small changes could have made the game better, and they have been implemented an one point, but instead, they were scraped and we have archives full of unused content
And then, there is the infamous crash on windows 10. Gotta love rockstar for that because it's been years and they haven't fixed this yet, and probably never will because someone has done the dirty work for them.
And please, don't even get me started for the fictional bully 2. We all hope it happens one day. I mean, It has to come someday right?...........................................................................right.....? :unsure:
And finally, we have modding. It's so hard to mod this game. I recently started working on a way to bring the scripts back to source code, but.... it's gonna take for ever if I keep the same methods I've been using. I mean, I spent a week trying just one script (the consumo minigame) and still the game crashes when trying to launch. Did rockstar really need to strip debugging info from the files? The only advantage is making the files take less space on the drive. But when you have so much unused content, I don't really think there is much of a difference, and besides, if there was debugging info, we would already have sources for every last script a long time ago (probably around 2011).
Rant is over! Maybe it was a little bit longer than I expected it to be :blank:
I'm sorry for making you read all that :biggrin:
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Unused/Cut content-wise most of it wasn't due to the limits of the PS2, but rather due to the rushed production of the game that had too many last-minute changes with not enough time for optimisation.
Stripping debug info from the scripts isn't just done to save space (Bully has about 600MB of free memory in its DVD, but space was still a concern, in general), but also because you don't want your product to be unnecessarily open-source.
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I really wanted to say something profound here, but my brain is mush.
Something, something, sequels generally expand and improve on core mechanics of game, flesh out the universe, etc etc...
Technology limitations wouldn't be a hindrance these days, so for a game like Bully that's rather small scale, cut features probably wouldn't be a problem for sequel. Please, go all out in the hypothetical sequel-
NOT a big map though. You don't need that. I also don't want to return to Bullworth, so expanding on that setting is pointless so uhhh
(Scholarship Edition is pretty garbo when you consider that yeah, we got a few shitty new classes and missions, but they could have done more with it still.
NGL tho, the fact that the boys' dorm is shitty as hell is like... perfect for what a shithole the school in general is.)
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Cut content is usually because the financial backers (take 2) rush the game to where the devs don't have time to complete it. Everything in gaming is less about quality and more about quantity because the backers want $$$$$$.
Also, the removed fireworks store which I believe would not have hurt to keep in the game.
I was not happy about there being no easy way to access fireworks in the late game. I wish the chemistry station just had more fireworks to build on it.
And then, there is the infamous crash on windows 10. Gotta love rockstar for that because it's been years and they haven't fixed this yet, and probably never will because someone has done the dirty work for them.
Bully was never made for windows 10 because it didn't exist when they made bully, lol. Keep in mind the era this was released. For PC this was the XP/Vista times. Bully was released around 2006 and W7 in 2009.
And finally, we have modding. It's so hard to mod this game.
This is mainly because T2 strongly fights modding and has even filed lawsuits against some modders. These games are always made hard as possible to mod.