User blog comment:Pawn of Atlas/Important Discussion for Rapture Storyline page/@comment-75.36.142.227-20140329223049/@comment-75.36.140.63-20140404225821

OK, the story line is a facade, a prop to give the player a context to do what they do in the game - mostly shoot up a huge bodycount of opponents, but with the squeamish need to make the 'enemy' the usual 'allowed targets'  (in this case pseudo-zombies, monsters and in Infinite's case stormtroopers and terrorists and religious fanatics, mixed in with alibi of 'they attacked me first' ... destroying other peoples property is a gimme). Mass-Killing -thats the money-maker and a meaningful logical plot is minor priority.

Motives painted rather simplisticly/obviously - Ryan the despot (and capitalist dog), Atlas the poor victim /humble rebel leader. Convenient lack of contrary evidence til a cliche plot twist is sprung 'Im your father Jack' and the bizarre 'Im disapointed, so now Im gonna commit suicide'. and Fontaines "Sucker!! now you die !!"

SO Fine its a game and is hacked together under a schedule and cash limitations. They wastefully back off from ideas they couldnt make work. Its sold as being more than a blast-fest, but in reality thats primarily what its really expected and turns out to be.

" You say you want more clear descriptions of time and date from audio diary characters           yet you complain that they are one dimensional when they give a spitball opinion.  "

First, stop fixating on time and date. The desire is for  better info to tell how the certain audio diaries fit in to the changing environment in Rapture - (WHY did that person say that....)

And those two conflict? roles of  one-dimensional cardboard cutouts  vs  lack of clear data to fill them in more accurately (or explain more than the current plots 'party line')  ?

McDonagh is a good case :  earlier (I assume) you hear his amazement at the mayhem of the Splicers and then of Atlas's terrorist attacks,   and then suddenly you hear 'surrender to the criminals' talk from him, his complaints against Ryans emergency measures (against CRIMINALS and TERRORISTS), and even his plan to assasinating Ryan.

What loyalty. What stupidity. He is made to tell Ryan rubbish 'suggestions'  which Evil Ryan turns down. SO he quits and turns to the other side.

WHY DID HE DO THIS?

No explanation (the novelist saw that and gave McDonagh a motive - getting his family out) for McDonagh abandoning Order and saying an anarchist is the answer (and McDonagh was supposed to be someone that knew solutions arent just solved by talk and promises).

Ryan stands alone - he isnt given any real help and is endlessly denounced for "going against his philosophy", even though he is doing what the majority of the population would need/expect him to do - to stop the Parasites from destroying Rapture and all it stands for. (But we never really hear from THOSE people,  just the whiners)

Ryan implements War measures obvious to anyone who knows any history of WW2 (and the people there had lived thru using those things to stop Hitler/Tojo)

They have Ryan suddenly turn surrender monkey and 'off' himself when he is winning (Atlas on the run) and confronting 'his greatest disapointment'  kills himself (and his City) instead of doing whast he did the rest of his life  -- acting to fix Jack and Rapture  as he fully has the power to. Its a load of rubbish to facilite  the shoot-em-up plot.

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What it comes down to is to have the plot/characters NOT be so strangely manipulated (again, the primary goal of the developers I$ to make a shooter game).

The issue I have is that it IS NOT THAT HARD to simply have it better written - have it make sense,  consistency in characters and how they fit into that World (and not be backed into a corner and try to shoehorn in things screwed up because of the lack of proper plot planning)