Those ideas are pretty much everything people have been asking for. As for CEA's forge engine, it's still Reach's forge engine, with no changes to it, because we'll be forging off maps playing on the Reach engine. Honestly, it'd be completely stupid of 343 not to include forge in Halo 4.
Though the last idea people can already do, it requires some subtraction but yeah. Each specific item has a count of how many you can use. So just subtract the total number of that item from the number left and bingo, how many of that item is on the map. But yeah being told that in like a map info pane would help.
Didn't Insane say that 343 was consulting the community cartographers to see what they'd wanna see in H4's Forge?
Yeah, probably. Though there are a few common things people have suggested that I haven't listed. Things like a full terrain editor or customizable weather I don't care that much about (I find the other things much more important). That, and it just sounds too complicated to implement without turning it to a full-featured map editor, which would probably mean custom maps in the hundreds of mbs instead of a few kb. You can use that to tell how many items you've used from a category, but wouldn't it be nice if for instance you could know specifically how many 2x2 blocks you've used, apart from simply knowing how many total blocks you've used?
I think the thing that separates Halo 3 forge's look to Reaches is Sand and forerunner structures. Why can't H4 have both? If the engine is a complete redesign then I don't think anything is necessarily off the table in terms of what it could do. Having a few "variants" of each object (5x5 UNSC wall, a 5x5 Covenant wall, and a5x5 stone or natural looking wall) isn't to much expect. That with the few other additions people have mentioned like glue/link objects and Copy would make forge so much more user friendly. 343 really seems to want to reach out to the community for feedback in the way Bungie did early on. I think Bungie got caught up in trying to do to much when it came to reach. I don't mind new things and I like some of it But I don't want 343 to lose the heritage and legacy of the Haol franchise just so it can compete or be more like COD. [br][/br]Edited by merge: I did not want to re quote your entire post because it was super long but I just wanted to say Bravo on your assessment of some much needed changes. Particularly the violent shaking of the monitor on the screen when forging in tight places. I think we can expect that at least some of these things will be fixed in H4. CEA of course will still run the Reach Forge but when the do the title update they may tweek a few things. I really hope that we get multiple different terrain maps or one large map like forge world that has various terrains like snow, sand, jungle, etc. in different locations on the map. One thing they could try is make the terrain part of the game type. That way it is the same basic map layout but with a different terrain skin on it. If that makes any sense.
I thought of something else I would like to see in Forge for Halo 4. I've seen other people suggest that at least one map be a plain skybox (which would be useful if you don't intend to use any terrain), but I personally would also like a "space box" for spaceship maps. That way, you could have the stars and the blackness of space, but still have well-lit structures. Currently, the only way people have to make something look like it's in space is to use special fx, which fails 99 times out of 100. Purple fx don't maps look like they're in space; it just makes it look like Forgeworld at night*. On top of that, purple fx tend to make everything dark, so you can hardly see the structures or anything inside them (actually, this is a potential downside even for night-time or infection maps, because any structures you make won't be able to have any localized lighting). *The only exception to this I've ever seen was a map of the Emperor's Throne Room on the Death Star, which actually included a really cool looking space view out the window. Was still dimly lit on the inside of the map, though.
Why is that? It would be a dumb move for 343 to sell a game for $40 that uses a 10 year old engine, especially when you could just buy the exact same game for under $10 elsewhere. I'm sure they'll find a way to replicate the gameplay of CE using the Reach engine. From the Campaign footage I've seen, the difference looks to be little to none.
The campaign uses the original Halo: CE engine with a separate (new) graphics engine if I recall correctly...
It couldn't be in the CE engine. CE didn't have multiplayer, and the engine's netcode wouldn't work for multiplayer.
First of all, CE did have multiplayer. Second of all, there is co-op campaign over XBL. (In addition, there's online competitive multiplayer on PC/Mac.) It's a poor excuse for them to use in my opinion. I can kind of understand why they stayed with Halo: Reach's engine though so I'm not complaining. I enjoyed CE's multiplayer over Reach's. Playing on the original multiplayer maps without most of the whacky physics just won't be as fun in my opinion.
Out of the reasons they've mentioned, I think it's pretty clear what the driving one is: not wanting to 'split the online community' or rather not wanting to deal a death sentence to Reach so soon after its release, instead taking the opportunity to (hopefully) revitalise Reach's population and interest. Plus it would have added to development time significantly, likely meaning that the 10 year anniversary release date would have been impossible, and it'd be closer to H4's current projected release, again further hurting at least one game's online population by having 2 potentially popular online Halos so close together. Would I love to have CE multiplayer with online capabilities? Hell yes, I'd probably never buy another Halo game, and tbh that's part why it's not the most practical move in many, many ways for 343. Plus, it'd raise the bar massively. They'd have to nail the netcode very well, with limited time and (I'm guessing) resources since I'd assume a good deal of what they have is tied to H4 development, and there would be changes. Part of the reason (if only part) that H2 was so different was to account for the problems presented by online play. The pixel perfect hitboxes and lack of any melee lunge could well have made online play a lot more problematic, simply because it reduces the margin for error. In the same vein, they probably would have had to increase bullet magnetism from CE, closer to H3/Reach levels. tl;dr: this was always gonna happen.
Saw a gameplay video of Beaver Creek. I saw lots of changes. And I don't like them. The map is visually stunning. Perfect actually. However, the shotgun and overshield at either ends of the stream have been replaced with a centralized sword. The shotgun is now two shotguns, spawning at the old BR spawn at the bottom of the bases. The teleporters are now grav lifts that propel you on top of the bases. There are structures that you can go in behind the bases. And thats all just from a 45 second clip. Now I worry about how Classic these maps are actually going to feel.
That just gets me so non-excite for classic maps. Then again, they were designed for a game that didn't support XBL; I could imagine that these changes were made for the better.
Watch this flythrough, some of the stuff you said isn't quite true: Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary | Beaver Creek Gameplay Trailer [HD] - YouTube The added area behind base (added lift rather than tele) seems to be modifiable since they show red base with the new doors blocked off and a tele in place of the lift. I'd guess this is part of the new corridor system that they talked about. Plus, from that flythrough it looks like the OS is still at one end of the stream, and Camo at the other. Also, Damnation vid as well. Halo Anniversary: Damnation Map Flythrough - YouTube Also, what looks to be Frankie from 343 has been posting on the MLG forums regarding these videos:
That video only backed most of what I said. Its even worse now that I saw that. Two shotguns plus a Sword, camo and Overshield in that little row? I do like the idea of the teleporter caves though. I hate this weapon layout. Luckily thats what forge is for. And no, its very clear that the lift is at both bases, and the teleporters are in little caved areas behind them. The blue side is all rock, while the red side is more "man-made" while being the same thing.
I am LOVING the area around the waterfall in Damnation, IE: the rock walls. Also, it seems to me that the only things they are changing are things that should be changed. Sure the teleporters were cool on beaver creek, but they were horrible for objective games. They really were only cool on FFA slayer games. I am LOVING the area around the waterfall in Damnation, IE: the rock walls. Also, it seems to me that the only things they are changing are things that should be changed. Sure the teleporters were cool on beaver creek, but they were horrible for objective games. They really were only cool where they were for FFA slayer games. Otherwise where they were sucked.
Yup, edited what I said about it being one base because I looked closer. I thought it was just blue base, but then noticed that one shot showed red base with the lift and then another shot without. I'm guessing the initial version will be true to the original, at least in geo terms, perhaps the CQC weapon/powerup cluster**** is a conglomerate of the two version. Here's hoping, I agree that if it is the weapon layout then it looks a little sucky.