Oh for Christ's sake, not again. We have thread after thread asking this same question. But, to be fair, I will answer you.

The most likely answer is because the original Scorpion (and other ninjas plus Johnny Cage) actor, Daniel Pesina was fired between MK2 and MK3. He did an advert for a rival game while dressed as Cage, he had balls, gotta give him that.

As people have pointed out, MK3 was kinda work in progress, with UMK3 originally meant as the final product. I guess Midway didn't have the male ninjas finished (except a very different Sub Zero) in time for MK3's release, so saved them for the more complete UMK3.

Early on, there were plans to have Cyrax as a cyborg Scorpion, but this was quickly scrapped, thank fuck. Maybe this is how cyber Smoke ended up with the spear move.

Scorpion in not mk3 makes me like the game more.

Yeah, me too. Scorpion stinks.

As with EVERY MK game, they were all released unfinished. MK1 started with Beta 0.9 and ended with Revision 5.0, MK2 with Revision 1.0 and ended with 3.1, MK3 with Revision 1.0 and ended with 2.1. Anyways, UMK3 was supposed to be MK3 to begin with, but they didn't have time to add the other characters (like Scorpion) so they released it with less characters as MK3.

Agreed.

My question is if he liked Scorpion so much, why make him a watered down version of Human Smoke when he finally did get added?

Actually he was mk3 was like a beta mk3.When he talks about it he does say that he was in mk3 because he considers umk3 to be mk3.Watch the video on mkda and mkd and he talks about it.

That really isn't true. Everything Ed Boon says about Mortal Kombat contradicts somthing. For example, Shujinko being a next gen Liu. 1-How could he be next gen Liu if he started conquest before Liu Kang became champion of MK. 2-He has the same fighting styles as Kung Lao. See what I mean?!

If Shujinko doesnt change soon he will be gone faster then Reiko was. I dont really like the Idea of him copying a bunch of character's moves when he should have moves of his own. It just doesnt seem mortal kombat to me.

jajajajajajaja i would like understand this too!!!! i am the number 1 scorpion`s fan and i dont imagine an mk without scorpion

Read the second post.

Speaking of Scorpion not in MK3....I kind of liked the idea that mainstays were removed. It was just a different move, and I liked it. I love Scorpion and all but not having him in MK 3 made the other characters more interesting.

I definately agree. Change can be very good sometimes and it was nice to see a more dramatic-than-usual change to the character roster in MK3.

Deep-down though, I believe so many favorites were left out because they were planning UMK3 from the start, and realized right away that leaving out the ninjas was the best idea. That way they only had to add 2 sets of animation (female and male ninjas) which meant a ton of characters could be added in the update. If they had worked hard on getting the ninjas in MK3, and UMK3 still happened, you gotta figure they'd probably only add 2 or 3 new chars then, and that just wouldn't have been impressive enough.

this is how they could have made the perfect scorpion in umk3...

give him his foward teleport from MKT (awesome move)
launcher combo (even a 2 hitter would have done)
mid-air fireball (similar to sindel's, not kabal's)

maybe a couple other things but that about does it