Brimstone Brimstone is an asymmetrical, medium sized map build into the cliff side of the Hemorrhage area of Forge World. Brimstone is best played with eight players on the Slayer gametype. Brimstone Walkthrough Admittedly, this is my first complete map. I am the king of starting projects and then stopping them as they're almost completed because I am unhappy with whatever aspect. This map, however, I am extremely happy with. I've spent about two months designing and redesigning Brimstone, gave up on it multiple times only to come back to it a few days later. I have 4 almost complete designs of the same map on my hard drive, but I've finally arrived at the map I've been working towards. Brimstone's top priority was the game play. I really worked hard to make this a fun and unique map to play, and I am extremely pleased with the outcome. One aspect I feel I can really be proud of is the incorporation of the natural beauty of the area. I'm a huge fan of forgers that manage to integrate the terrain of an area into their maps, but it is SO hard to do. This was such a difficult space to build a map into, and I feel like if there is any one thing that Brimstone does really well, it was this aspect. This is my best map I've ever worked on by far and coupled with the feedback from the Forgehub community (I will hopefully receive), Brimstone will prove to be a huge learning experience for me! Thank you so much for all the help, in particular from SilentRaine and EpicChief117, Forgehubers that helped me test the map. Also, thank you to my buddy All in on JAQKs, but most of all to an Auror, my awesome girlfriend that spent weeks testing every minor detail on this map with me. Maps Screens View of South side: (Blue loadout camera) View of North side: (Red loadout camera) Inside North side: View leading up to the top floor of the North side: Inside the highest point in South side: View of the tree side of South side: View from inside the second floor of the South side: Top view into the cave: Bottom view into the cave: Weapons and Weapon Placement I put a TON of thought into this section of the map design. If you'd like to see an explanation for the placement of every weapon on this map, I go over them in this post. x1 Concussion Rifle (150 second respawn) x1 Grenade Launcher (150 second respawn) x1 Plasma Launcher (180 second respawn) x1 Shotgun (135 second respawn) x1 Sniper (135 second respawn) x2 Needle Rifle (varies) x4 DMR (varies) x2 Needler (30 second respawn) x1 Plasma Pistol (30 second respawn) x1 Spiker (30 respawn) x4 Frag Grenades x3 Plasma Grenades x3 Health Packs Placement underneath the spoiler: Spoiler Concussion Rifle: Spoiler Grenade Launcher: Spoiler Plasma Launcher: Spoiler Shotgun: Spoiler Sniper: Spoiler Needle Rifle: Spoiler DMR: Spoiler Needler: Spoiler Plasma Pistol: Spoiler Spiker: Spoiler Frag/Plasma Grenades: Spoiler Health Packs: Spoiler Thanks again! Download
I really like the look of this map, it probably something I'd never get around to. How can you make maps that look this good? I practice on making my maps alot and I never get a map looking this good. Anyway I downloaded it and I'll see it more for myself.
Thanks goodness you released Brimstone. I couldn't wait to download the finished version. The aesthetics are clean, flow looks in good order and i think this will blow most people's expectations of you as a new member out of the sky.
Really, the secret to making a nice looking map is knowing the forge pieces like the back of your hand. Also, give as much attention to detail as possible. If something even looks the slightest bit off to you, then try something new. Designing a map is not something that takes only a couple days, or even a week. The more thorough planning you do, the better your end result will be. Thank you again for all the help! I really appreciate the time you took to give me feedback. I just hope the map gets a little more attention so I can learn a bit more with this project.
I know that this is unofficial feedback, but here are my (detailed, yet not as detailed as the TG) impressions of the map, likes and dislikes. I've played Halo 3 multiteam slayer (2v2v2v2), team slayer (with only 6 players) and 4 player FFA on Brimstone, and I can say with confidence that I enjoyed every second of it. The map is built in practically unused spot that is very difficult (at leat for me) to forge in and is forged very well. The map does have a few flaws though, which I will kindly point out to you. dislikes: 1-confusing bottom floor (by shotgun) 2-power weapons/hoarding 3-one way shield 4-mini- spawn cave kill barrier 1-The bottom floor by the shotgun seemed to be maze-like and cluttered with pointless walls and whatnot. It's not bad a way to slow down people from going to the shotgun, but it seemed out of place and clunky. Things got vey complicated when trying to run from, or chase an enemy there and often resulted in someone unitentionally running into a glass wall. 2-Power weapons seemed to be spread around too unevenly, and being far too frequent. Hoarding power weapons turned out be be extremly bothersome, with at one point someone managing to hoard the plasma launcher, Shotgun, sniper and grenade launcher. So many weapons to choose from! Perhaps moving some of the power weapons around or removing the sniper would solve this. *2-The plasma launcher I have mixed feelins about. It's a great compliment to the map, but is located at too advantageous of a location. The ledge was always camped with it, resulting in cheap kills on unaware players. The tree is also annoying, providing camoflauge to said camper. A soft kill barrier would be appreciated there. 3- I undersand the one way shield is to prevent player from moving in a certain direction (aiding in 'flow'), and to prevent 'nade spamming, but it dosn't seem to do much. a shield door could be used intstead, with much to the same effect. 4-It's a small thing, but When I was exploring the map, I came across the mini-cave. After strolling near the back, I promptly died, with no explimation other than "you were killed by the guardians". I'm assuming you put a kill barrier ther to stop camping. I applaud you for thinking of that, but a soft-kill barrier would do a much better job It encourages exploration, yet tells players to leave promptly. Likes 1-Great layout 2-Forged in a difficult spot 3-Well polished 1-My favorite thing about this map was the layout. I think the 3-tiered layout goes perfectly with the environment and offers some very intresting matches. The verticality also offers a unique experience, not found on (m)any other map(s). 2-I loved the location you selected. It's easily one of the best aspects of the map, other than the gameplay itself. Evertime I went into the cave, or stood by the GL bridge, I thought to myself "I can't believe that this was done in/on the cave/ridge on hemmorage.". Great job 3- I also like the amount of polish that you put into the map. Exerything was aligned perfectly, and consideration was taken to predict playe movements and ations an place appropriate objects there. This is one of the best maps I've played on, and i'm glad to have given you some thoughtful feedback, and hopefully even useful. P.S. I'm thinking of joining the TG, or at least helping them out (I think they're kind of backed up). I'd like to know if this feedback was of any use.
They're vectors separating the floors by layers. I underlay the map and draw over the top to get the perspectives right. I say "draw" apposed to "trace" because I adjust the drawing to more of a 2-d perspective instead of 3-d, if that makes any sense. Wow, thank you so much for this. I wish I would have had this response earlier in the development so I could have fixed some of these points before I released this version. I tried to get some help in a couple of earlier post in the forge discussion thread, but almost nobody put in the effort that you put in (which was the help that I needed). A well thought out response deserves a well thought out reply. I totally see what you mean here, and I 'm pretty sure you're right. This is going to be a difficult area to fix, but I'll do some experimentation tonight. One thing that I think is worth noting first off, is I think you might have been testing on an outdated version of the map. This is no fault to yours by any means as you probably got the link off the thread in the TG forum that I thought was dead. It's evident to me that your version of Brimstone was outdated because I've since closed the cave that is later mentioned in your post. This is important because I had a few MAJOR weapon spawn mistakes in earlier versions. More specifically, most of the weapons (including the shotgun and the concussion rifle) were spawning every 30 seconds, which might account for some of the weapon frequency issue you spoke about. This might be a bit rambley but I promise I'm working towards a point!: This is actually quite interesting! Weapon choice/placement was something that I was worried about, as I really haven't had any terribly useful feedback on the subject. When choosing and placing the weapons on the map, I thought very hard about every weapon on the map. I kind of added them as I saw fit, as in, "Well if I have weapon A than I need weapon B in this area to balance it, but now I need weapon C to balance weapon B." and so on... The map having the weapon collection it has happened almost by accident, but my process worked in a way I really felt confident about my choices even though I obviously had a bit more power weapons on the map than most maps. I imagined the size of map, the space between the weapons, the careful weapon balance, and the number of weapons was going to make it to where weapon control was going to be very difficult. I was thinking that because the weapons are so spread out, it was going to be hard to keep complete control of both the South and North side of the map, hopefully eventually leaving a powerful weapon in the hands of an apposing team. This is what the testing is for! Your comments made me realize I needed to consider an alternative weapon setup. My current setup made sense on paper, but I don't think I really hit this area on the head. Right after I finish this post I'm probably going to update my map to a better weapon distribution. As for the Plasma Launcher issue. I'm not a fan of putting soft-kill barriers in spots that are easily accessible. My philosophy is if it doesn't look like it should be out of bounds than it probably shouldn't be. I think if it's a problem with the design than it warrants a redesign, but this is one of the only occasions in your post where I didn't completely agree with your comments. The plasma launcher doesn't seem to be that powerful to me, and the spot that it sits is extremely vulnerable. I can't see someone camping here and plasma launchering the opponents without others taking immediate notice. When I tested here with my buddies that spot was an automatic DMR or sniper death. The plasma launcher is so easily avoidable, I'm wondering if the testers that were complaining about this issue were merely a bit inexperienced? Don't get me wrong, I'm not disregarding your comments. Perhaps I'm totally wrong, but I'd really like another opinion to confirm this concern before I do anything too major. Let me explain first why I made it into a one-way shield apposed to a two-way shield. I didn't want this area to be easily campable. If there was a two-way shield here, people would have a very fast drop down to the Rocket Launcher. I wanted the Rocket Launcher to be more accessible to the more open south side of the map so that 1) the rocketeer is more vulnerable and 2) the south side could have a second chance to break up any weapon-dominating campers in the top north side room. However, your idea has got me thinking... Does this really aid the balance like I envisioned? Hm... I would appreciate a response on the subject! As noted above, this mini-cave is no more. I wanted so bad to make something work here, but I just couldn't come up with anything that would benefit the map. Thank you so much for all the wonderful positive feedback in this area of the reply. It's really motivating to know that someone that has such a good understanding of forge design had so many good things to say! I'm not going to go into the detail of the "Likes" section, but I can assure you every comment you made really helped me understand what worked! You really have my vote for joining the TG. I like how you always kept a positive undertone to your post, even when giving criticism. I feel that you really respected the project, even with its issues, and it has definitely motivated me to improve my map. EDIT: I just uploaded the latest, and final version of Brimstone. (Apologies to the 12 that downloaded the old version!) The new version fixed a lot of the major issues that firedune pointed out. 1) Opened up the shotgun spawn a bit. It's not so cramped anymore! 2) Took out the Rocket Launcher, re-balanced some of the power-weapon spawns. - The Sniper was moved to the center of the main bridge (where the grenade launcher used to spawn). Spoiler - The Grenade Launcher was moved to the center of the map, where the Rocket Launcher used to spawn Spoiler - The Concussion Rifle was moved to the cave, where the Sniper used to spawn. Spoiler I'm sure this will fix the grand majority, if not all, of the weapon issues on Brimstone. Thanks again, firedune!
Ill have to say that the mpa from this post looks really bland. When you downlaod it and check it out for yourself, its great. The pictures make you map look blocky but ingame it adds to aesthetics. The layout fits perfectly with the surroundings and the different levels of height work well too. Great man. The plasma launcher overlook area is sweet! 8/10 (no gameplay) -Im guessing its great.
Thanks for pointing that out. I embedded a video to maybe help a bit. You'll just have to forgive me for the lame camera work. I really appreciate your comments! If you ever get a chance to play it make sure you stop back and leave some gameplay feedback!
The thumbnail is a little bit bad though. It doesn't really show much. I liked this map before but after seeing the video, i love it.