jakejakejake1234: First thing I would like to talk about is that I saw some interviews conducted with Louis Castle one of the main directors of the blade runner game. I remember the interviewer asking whether or not Ray McCoy is a replicant and Louis said it was all up to the players decisions e.g. you play as a blade runner you're human, if you playa s a sympathizer you are a replicant. However if you've played the game many times like I have you will realize the game outright tells you the answer. It all has to do with whether or not the scorpions are on the peruvian womans counter when you first arrive at her store. The game is randomized and that includes this little scenario. Basically if the scorpions are on the Peruvian womans counter McCoy can get stung by them and he won't die because he is a replicant. However if the scorpions are not there that means Dektora has bought them and put them on the couch in Early Qs office. If my McCoy sits on the couch a scorpion will sting him but unlike in the other scenario he dies, showing that he is human. So the scorpions being on the peruvian womans counter is an indicator of whether or not Ray is human. Scorpions are there, replicant. Scorpions are not there, human. I also heard a rumour that you can find the original moonbus photo with mccoy in the background in the moonbus at the end of the game and this was the way you confirm if Ray is a replicant, whether or not he is in the photo. Since you have thoroughly looked into the games files would you be able to answer this once and for all.
From what I can tell, Louis Castle statement is correct here. The player decides how to play McCoy and what his nature or affiliations will be in the game (based on clues gathered and/or missed). The scorpions thing is not a clue. It's probably there to indicate that the scorpions are actually poisonous albeit fake, but the designers did not want an instant death there. And I kind of think that the Peruvian Lady who sells them would have to deal with a lot of lawsuits if her customers could drop dead by perusing an item she sold. So my guess is that one scorpion bite, is not enough to kill you. For the murder of EarlyQ Dektora uses the whole cage.
I'm pretty sure also that the scorpions cage missing is a timing issue (of when Dektora decides to buy it) and you can have McCoy find it at the Animoid stand and get bitten, and then Dektora buy it, and later on have McCoy sit on EarlyQ's couch and die.
About the Moonbus photo, there is no other version of it. The "interesting" part of this photo is the Moonbus reflection clue, which supposedly should have McCoy's reflection there but does not -- meaning that the photo was indeed doctored. However, there is minor dialogue nuances about the photo that are not used in-game, so maybe the game designers wanted to leave it to the player to figure this out, or ignore the clue.
Dialogue nuances example: instead of McCoy saying "That can't be me", he also has an usued line that says "That's not me".
jakejakejake1234: Another thing that Louis mentioned in an interview was a scenario where you could pretend to be on the reps side all the way to the point where you enter the moon bus and you can just decide to kill all the replicants right then and there. Even though you can do this in game it's odd because Louis mentions if you do this Crystal will be waiting for you outside and she says I didn't know you had it in you slick. This can't happen in the game because if you side with the reps you have no choice but to kill Crystal before reaching the moonbus. If you decide to turn on the reps and retire them when you are in the moon bus with them Gaff will be the one to greet you. This made me think, I remember looking at the content to be added page and one of them mentioned an alternate ending where you must race crystal so you can get to the reps first. I have a hunch this deleted scenario may be what Louis is talking about and you have to save the reps before crystal gets to them. If this is the case it would be very interesting to see Louis' reaction to this ending that he has always talked about finally being playable in game.
Yes, this is pretty much my intention although planning this out is tricky and I have yet to finish / decide the details for it.
jakejakejake1234: Probably one of the most interesting statements he made in these interviews is he mentions that the team recreated Rutger Hauers dialogue for the tears in rain speech and if you are on the top floor of the Bradbury just below the roof you can actually here some of the dialogue from that moment. He mentions this only happens if you are at that spot at the right time however after act 3 you can not re enter Sebastians apartment and enter the area below the roof. Even during act 3 when I return there I can not get it to play but since Tyrell is still alive at the end of act 4 it's clear this must happen in act 5, but as I said Sebatians apartment is inaccessible. Then I remembered the content to be added section and it mentioned a character who appears and doesn't say much. I wonder if this is the dialogue Louis was talking about and if not if it is still in the game files somewhere. If it is and is restored it would be great to see Louis reaction to this restored content.
I remember him saying something along these lines. I may misremember or misheard, as I was under the impression that the statement was that you could *catch a glimpse* of Roy on the rooftops.
Sadly, as far as I know (and I've looked quite exhaustively), none of this is in the game resources (neither Roy's monologue, nor a character model or a scene video loop variation).
jakejakejake1234: Also a couple of things I noticed while playing the restored content of the game. Some of the animations were a little off. When Moraji runs out of Dermo design he runs slightly slower and in a different direction. This was probably done to make the section easier since in the original you can run into Moraji and he runs offscreen and you are unable to talk to him. Another is the fight with Sadik on the Bradbury roof. The fight is a little out of sync with Sadik punching McCoy before he runs into position. Also in the sewers when the tram passes ahead of you just out side of the room where Baker and his lackey were about to torture you, you are able to move around while the train is moving whereas in the original game you had to wait until the cutscene had finished.
Some of these sound like bugs that could be fixed. Are these with the latest development build?
The fix(es) for Moraji could have side-effects, although I didn't notice anything last time I tested (it's been a while though)
The Sadik encounter was always a bit off-synch with the sound and finnicky with the animations synchronization -- even in the original. However, again this might be tweak-able and maybe there's some side effects from the animation fixes for the characters.
McCoy moving while the tram passes overhead is intentional in our engine -- I have noticed that it can be a bit glitchy, but previously having McCoy wait around could get frustrating for the player. We also removed the train from passing overhead upon every visit of that scene -- but it does always play the first time.
jakejakejake1234: Also I heard Nightdive studios was remastering the game, however from what I've seen I'm not really looking forward to it. It's going to be available on playstation which is cool but I've seen how they are trying to clean up the game and the results leave a lot to be desired. During the cgi cutscenes they have removed the pixelated effect which was caused by scene compression. However the program they used seems to be erasing certain details in the process. A clear example is Guzzas jacket. In the original during the opening cutscene you can see a striped pattern on his jacket. But in the remastered version the stripe pattern is gone, smoothed out by whatever program they used. They also seem to be doing this for the background animation loops as well. This is a big mistake since in one of the interviews Louis explained they used voxels for the game characters is because it blended well with the pixelated effect in the backgrounds. Both voxels and pixels are square so the fit is seamless. But if you remove the pixelated effect from the background the character models are going to stick out like a sore thumb. This will create the same problem that Louis and the team ran into when making the game where they used sprites at first, but it looked terrible because they didn't blend in well with the backgrounds. I have a feeling this is a reason why nightdive delayed the remaster. In the end in my opinion the Scumm version will be the definitive way to play the game. It contains all the effect and cutscenes which are unaltered just like the devs wanted and as a bonus we get the restored content, something which I doubt the nightdive studio version will contain.
Unfortunately we can only wait and see about how the remaster will turn out, and it's now been more than a year since communications between NDS and us have stopped. I am not very optimistic about how the remaster will turn out, but I would like to be surprised of course, since I love the game. I am however apprehensive of the amount of work that they will borrow from us (fixes, restored content, subtitles), without crediting our team and partners from the community as appropriate. They did state that they will do everything on their own... Anyway, we'll just have to wait and see.
