Make Columbia A City

* See also Columbia Construction
* See also Infinite_Stupidity So many Problems
* See also INFINITE-BS_REDO 
* See also Technology_In_Columbias_Era
* See also Show_City_Columbia
* See also Entertainment_In_Columbia
* See also Funky_Columbia_Machinery
* See also Faux-Economy (Needs Fixing ...)
 
==We Will Have To Trash That Mess And Begin Again== 
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Floating Like A Cloud :
Bits of the Columbia city floating 'in the distance' - WHY ? THAT Makes transport difficult and inconvenient when the place is supposed to be 'a City' ( and An American-style City ). If these bits are anything like the irregular/inconvenient maze you move about in the game, then it all is a pretty worthlessly contrived 'city'. Spreading the city out all over the sky just makes it even more bothersome to the inhabitants.
Why not have one big solid single floating block ? ( One cohesive 'piece' to be easily navigated around by the people who live there. ) Remember - this consortium of floating chunks supposedly moves around the US 'as one' - BUT HOW, when it is a bunch of separate chunks ?? Highly Problematic - added complications to something so routine. Columbia is supposedly all run through "Quantumz", SO they shoulda been able to make a nice one-piece Columbia ( There is NO real good excuse for avoiding something so simple in Columbia's design). (( If you need some symbolic height - You can NOW make it have the form of a Flying Hill ... "City on a Hill" (Matthew 5:14) ... to match the game's/Levine's faux-religion theme. - And with all the 'Lower Classes' needing to look up at 'Their Betters' ... )) 
Rapture didn't move, and had a regular network of transportation systems. Logical. Reasonable.
Paris - People don't need cars there - Things are easily walked to and with use of the systematic public transportation. In this game, Columbia was built so to look designed by a mentally-addled Splicer. We are shown a 'Clusterflop' of different half-arsed transports and a disjoint city layout. (( The New Eden/Ark isn't Supposed To Be A 'FusterCluck'. )) 
If you put yourself in the place of an Inhabitant, it would obviously be a pain to traverse any distance in Columbia ( They imply ordinary people 'worked' for a living ... ) Flying Autos MIGHT have been good, but It Wasn't To Be.
REAL GAME Reason : The gamemakers had to have 'pretty' stuff in the distance which the Player could not Access, and even could not get any good Look at (detail-wise). They also had design 'artists' who don't seem to understand basics about anything real or plausible.
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New Fangled Stuff - Inconsistently Done in Some Games :
The era had Telephone Wires - lots of them. If you look at old picture of cities, you see mass of phone wires ( power mixed in as well ) running every which way, space above was entangled in phone wires and poles. It was not so easy in older city spaces which had been built decades before those things existed, to have the wires retrofitted ( requiring significant expense to bury them like pipes ). 
Chicago (Loop Area) had an system of Tunnels and a Small RR system running below the streets in which ran telephone lines ( later was used to haul coal and ashes and some freight in that congested area ) and in the current day internet cables. Those tunnels had been easy to build because it was all clay under that part of Chicago. Subways in many places were similarly used to run wires.
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FIX THE F&^%^%$$^ GAME :
TASK for the MMORPG Solo game INFINITE REDO ( to NOT have it just be a hack writer prop for a Slaughter-fest game) :
* Make it a working city/town/cult-compound ( Tight societal control can allow easier justification than an organic city )
* FIX THE $%^&* Derp transport system
* Power - REAL Cities RUN ON POWER
* No separate clumps ( Why do they need to float apart, except to deny the Player access to them ? )
* Central City Flying navigation control - It is just basic logic ( Infinite - IT NEED NOT APPLY ?)
* Floatyshit(tm) system ( not even really shown - pointed out )
* Stealing shit to support it all (correct the Faux-Economy) A city needs STUFF.
* A proper Skyline - Make it actually useful to the functioning of a 'city' (But one fitting 1900)
* 'Roads/Streets' - have an even better/proper transport system - which any real city requires
* End the ridiculous gianourmization of game details. 
Require a proper Dystopia, damnit !!! ( Alot can STILL be demonstrated in the backgroundIf Rapture could have gallows and strung up corpses, then imagine how Columbia could have them ... )
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Infinite's Columbia is Hardly a City :
You look at pictures of 'Cities' around 1912 and you see Automobiles everywhere, and People everywhere ( and by 1900 Trolleys and Wires ... )
Needed :
* Crowds of Population ( cities have crowds - which can be interesting things in a game )
* An Actual Economy ( just add the needed things - more varied and additional setting terrains )
* Flat and Connected ( ie- that previously mentioned Hill for the height effects )
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Crowds might be possible for the MMORPG REDOs which would be using Computer game hardware 2 Generations later than Infinite BS could use.
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There was a whole Underworld below our feet. It is unfortunate that sewers are usually quite constricted spacesBioshock itself had rather oversized one near Tenenbaum's safehouse. A manhole down also requires climbing animations (both directions) and the engagement activation at the edge ( with or without ladder ).
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Game Engine will need Upgrading : You will notice how huge the interiors in Columbia are. You will also notice how you 'Clip' corners constantly when you go near obstacles. OTHERWISE : Any system of tight sewers/underground-areas would likely cause problems like in the current game movement ( and complicate better NPC AI actions ) .
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Columbia : Too Large, Too Expensive :
I've mentioned it many times : The Gianourmity of the Game's portrayal of Columbia's layout, and the general lack of understanding of what real things cost -- In Columbia's case, it being a floating microcosm WITHOUT any apparent external economic support, which any small REAL town requires.
So, with that said EVEN BEFORE THAT FANTASY EXISTENCE : WHERE did the Money come from to Pay for Building this so huge Columbia ???
That whole monstrosity was NOT paid for by the US Government nor (moreso) by the US Taxpayers. Even if the some initial SMALL Exhibition Columbia had some 'matching funds' put towards it, that does NOT explain how everything seen by the Game's 1912 time got built. WE CAN ASSUME the US Government WAS NOT going to pay for Fink's Huge Industrial plants, NOR for Ready-made Slums, NOR for a Bunch of Enormous Cult-ish Religious Statuary.
SO WHERE DID THE MONEY COME FROM TO BUILD Big Columbia ?
Remember (read your history) that the USA was heading into a Economic Depression even as the 1893 Exposition was being built. And NO, a flying Amusement Park is not quite as prestigious as they pretend ( nor likely something to waste millions of 1893 dollars on needlessly ).
WHAT MONUMENTAL SWINDLE COULD POSSIBLY PAY FOR ALL THIS ? ( It is unlikely Columbia could have massive foreign trade to pay for it all - without it being far too intertwined-with/connected-to those 'Hellbound Sinners' below. )
More and more delusional it grows.
(( I could suggest Merging many dimensions' Columbias together, but they left that kind of thing out of the game along with using Tears far more than the the Story did. )) 
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A big Flying Hill. Does that NOT make more sense ??
Huge gaps are inconvenient, and 'pretty' voids get old when THAT is the case.
Things are closer together for the inhabitants
Endless irregular stairs can go away. Space wasted railings, ditto.
Transportation is easier ( Trams, Streets ) - People can walk more ( Columbia exists pre-automobile, pre-truck ).
Solid. Not bits and bobs 'hanging in space'. GOOD SOLID GROUND under people's feet.
Orderly. Set down in a grid like modern towns and cities are.
One simple piece to move, to guide.
Best bits are up high - Comstock can 'look down' upon his work.
A massive interior space within the hill for all 'the works' the game had missing.
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Columbia's Laundry Wagons ( At Least For The "White" People ) :
pix ??
No doubt there would be a 'Chinese' laundry, which could be the only possible reason to allow 'those heathens' aboard Columbia. The laundry would be owned and run by a 'white' of course in Columbia.
Those Worship Robes must be BRIGHT white - there is an ordinance requiring that, and penalties if it is not followed. You probably don't really want to know where the 'bleach' which is used comes from.
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So many things the demented disjoint transportation arrangements make rather difficult in Columbia ( stairs, gaps, having to wait while bits of the city float around to connect, etc ... ). We didn't see many 'serfs' porting packages or manhandling larger items around the city, did we ? But Columbia is 'Pretty' and 'Awesome' in the way that game landscapes which are not actually function can be.
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A real city uses ALOT of water. The water has to be stored somewhere. Unfortunately, such things get ignored when people present 'a city' in a game. Having separate 'Chunks' free floating of Columbia just makes this needed infrastructure even more problematic. 
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Fitting Columbia's Population - It Is Limited By Building Patterns :
How may people could possibly live in palatial residences ( ie- the 'progressives' house ... ) in Columbia ?? 
Most 'white' people would need affordable living units being MUCH Much smaller apartments, to fit its imagined population. Apartment building's size is constrained by needing windows for ventilation (if not lighting) - The buildings floor layout can only be one layer deep with most rooms requiring access to windows. There would then be a central interior hallway and stair/elevator core. This is not even to accommodate Surface-city Summer heat issues ( something likely less an issue at Columbia's altitude ). Light ? Well, lightbulbs were starting to be common consumer items, but you needed MANY of them ($$$) to equal even indirect daylight lighting.
This isn't pertaining to the Untermenschen who can live in tenement cells 10 to a room - as the ruling class in control of Columbia don't much care to waste space on them.
Mentioned elsewhere is : The Problems with so much of Columbia's much too tall (shown) building heights, with all the complications of when the buildings are more than 5-6 stories - with the limitation of construction in those days, and the practical limit when you are without Elevators ( also it used to be because fire ladders could not reach further than that - a Rule dating back to Roman times ).
If you look at New York City ( the epitome of a 'City' ) decades after Infinite BS's story, the vast majority of building there are still only 6 (or less) stories tall.
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Ditch those Elvish Spires which have little room inside them, and which would afflict their occupants with endless Stairs. Buildings should be blocky/squarish to efficiently utilize space, and NOT be Too Tall ( 6 stories typical max ). Have lots of windows to let in light ( often with awnings when there was too much ). There would be blank side walls when placed adjacent together in a row. Fire escapes on buildings were well established by the 1890s.
The Essence of Columbia was to be BIG. But making it realistic/logical (like these pictures) would make it obviously TOO BIG. 
Really, Columbia was just alot of empty air. 
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Comstock could have just looked a few decades into the future for his 'Eden', AND really WOWED them at the 1893 Exposition.   But no, the game designers slavishly copied (and abused) the retro 'classicism' the city fathers of Chicago had decided upon for that real exposition.
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Making Columbia ART DECO would have better tied it into the REAL previous BioShock games a bit more than their strange Plasmid clones, and tardish Vending Machines, and all the other poorly copied game elements.
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Columbia was supposed to be all 'modern' ( indoor toilets and such ... ), so with telephones ( or at least 'speakers' ) blaring the prophet's propaganda day and night, you would have (need) wires strung everywhere like THIS. Booker 'jumpin about' would have been downright hazardous.
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People really don't like hanging up with nothing below them. Cable driven funiculars were popular hauling people to high places. They don't fall thousands of feet when something goes wrong.
People also don't like climbing uphill - especially day after day. Unfortunately, Infinite's game setting for Columbia was a linear maze. Hemming the Player in WAS REQUIRED, even with vast open vistas in view off the edges.
(( Perhaps more could have been made in the story about how Columbites were systematically drugged-out of such concerns -- maybe for the MMORPG-engine REDO this can be explored. ))
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Cityscapes are rarely shiny and gold plated. Levine's vision of A Capitalist Eden really did not work all that well. Having it be a Cultist Police State Faux-America simply makes it absurd.
"The Whole Place Looked Like A Prop" ( a real comment of a non-asslicking fan/player ).
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Real building just look 'real' - actually proper lighting has alot to do with it.
Look at the proportions.
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SO much for Comstock/Fink 'looking into the future'. You would think a 'floaty future' would have been the thing to 'WOW them' at the 1893 Exhibition.
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Pollution was a problem in cities. But way up there, with blowing winds, shouldn't the air been crisp and clean ?
SO Then why A constant smoggy/hazy essence to the flying monstrosity ?
Possibly it is the stench of Lazy Fantasy, and a wish for the Players to not notice how 'cardboard cutout' the game setting's views were ( hiding the pretense of it being a city ) ?
In the Chaos of the rebellion, imagine these pretty chunks on fire, colliding and Falling from the Sky.
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Real Cities have blocks and blocks, well interconnected. Columbia was more like a rather lopsided amusement park jumbled together in spaced-out blobs.
Note also : Most city buildings have square tops and a general rectangular shape. That is because taller buildings have to support themselves vertically with common load-bearing external walls. Any building framework gets ineffective when it has a series of many progressively smaller floors ( like too many in Infinite BS ). The gamemakers tried to make Columbia vertical, just were repetitively clueless about it.
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LOOK FORWARD JUST A LITTLE BIT ?
Real Streets. 
Trolleys. 
Automobiles. 
Modern space efficient buildings. 
Fire Escapes. 
Awnings. 
People.
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But then, IT IS more logical to just pipe The Sewage straight down Out the Bottom of Columbia - and certainly NOT dumping it into the Streets.
But the gamemakers just thought : "Lets show the pathetic-ness of the Poor People" ( Except it looks like it was specifically designed and built this way - Purpose Built Shantytown. )
Not Sure WHY there would be a Cap over an OBVIOUS Sewer Outlet ( and the bars existing there when the cap was serving to gain access ).
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Columbias Terrain was absurdly hugified to be game-impressive - A Size you might have in New York City, with its millions in Population. It was big. Were the gamemakers clueless about how extraordinarily expensive such things are to build ?Clueless Gamemakers - NOT clever enough to make things SMALL and Impressive. They are gamemakers : WTF do they know of Real World things enough to care how stupid what they created all looks ???? -HUGE MAZE-. -LINEAR GAME-. -REPETITIVE-. -DISTORTED-. -DUMBED-DOWN-. B-AD FANTASY-.
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I would have thought that Crass Commercial Signs would have been against a 'City Beautiful' Image that Comstock would want in the 'White People' sections.
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What a difference 5 years makes.
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Well, Columbia was mostly empty space, despite the monstrous building. We never hear what population Columbia had. Neither did we hear WHERE any supplies come from.
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Note the Sea and Railroad links connecting to the rest of the Country/World.
Columbia's World-building details were generally lacking/unexplained.
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Handling the Crowds might be done now on the newer hardware.
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We need a place for the Founders/White_Elites possible equivalent to that 'house' we go thru ( "Shhhh, Im a Progressive..." ). They cant be packed in like the Tenement we didn't really see in Shantytown. Emporia Towers would have to be a very large 'block' building unlike what we saw in Columbia with its weird tall pointy buildings. 
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