Hello, I wasn't exactly sure where to post this but here goes. I've been thinking Halo Forging should have its own game. Reasons: -Seperation from the Story Game leaves a lot more space on the disk -More free space on the disk leaves countless possibilities of things add to make forging even better. -Could include everything a forger could ever dream for Such as: +Bots to test maps +Templates/weather +Terrain editing +Loads more building materials and Higher Budget +Creating your own custom gametypes(Not building off of given ones, though I'm not sure how possible that is) +Forging a Firefight map? +(Feel Free to add anything you can think of) Modes: -Forge(of course) -Multiplayer(to play your custom maps with friends and play popular ones) +Play as Human, Elite, Brute, (whatever the new enemy is), and maybe the other covies(Covenant for those who don't pay attention) if you want -Firefight(could be interesting inclusion to it) -Theater(can't take that out) This probably isn't gonna happen anytime soon but it'd be good filler between Halo games or just another branch of the brand (releasing whenever, not in synch with Halo releases, like has its own team that makes this game, with some collaberation with Halo to keep things compatible) either way it'd be good to have it separate from Story/Campain Game. Anyway share your opinions on the idea and if it seems popular enough we can try to propose the idea to 343 as a petition or something.
Certainly an interesting suggestion, but I think it's worth mentioning that Forge is actually a rather restricted editor for a reason -- the interface isn't great for doing the more in-depth level & game editing. Placing objects is very easy, and the ability to switch between player & monitor mode on the fly is great for getting a feel for how the map is working out (though many functions don't work unless you're in the proper gametype)... but main thing is that we can't get right into the coding of the game. Bethedsa's construction kits for modding and Starcraft II's (world?) editor allow for much more sophisticated work, and at least in the case of the latter it can get overwhelming very quickly (I haven't tried the former myself); however, you can practially make an entirely new game with them. While it would be nice to see Forge mode get all the bells & whistles needed to bring it up to par with these editors... using it without a keyboard & mouse is going to be insane. Could Forge, hypothetically, be it's own game? Probably... but it would almost certainly have to be brought up to the level of these editors because that's its new focus. I'm not entirely sure if it would be something I'd want, but I'm pretty sure it'd have some issues gaining the mass appeal needed to make it into development. It'd be nice (once you learn it), but most people wouldn't lay a finger on it simply because it'd be so daunting; the only way it would be made is if it were an alternative mode to an existing game (like Forge mode is now to Halo), and convincing those with the capital for the game itself might not be interested in including a second game disc dedicated for Forge mode.
I see your points there, but I have seen some of the most creative and fun maps and games created through forge, and I believe there is a large enough community of Forgers and such, that it could pay off and be a much more unique multiplayer experience. I'd really like to see what some of these top grade Forgers are capable of with a larger selection of things to work with. Anyway just out of curriousity do you have a game programing/marketing/business background or do you really do your homework?
Fairly certain this has been discussed before, I believe the consensus was that it is too risky. At least that is my opinion on the idea. Now let me extrapolate on that; On a coding viewpoint, putting in support for firefight and its AI enemies, weather, and terrain editing would be an absolute nightmare. We have framerate problems as it is with too many objects ingame, imagine what compounded framerate problems we'd have if we had snow particles going everywhere? Likelyhood of these features being included in ANY future forge is very low. Weather could be possible if done like the full map Fx we have currently, but it would still cause quite a few framerate issues to prop up. More of these features might be possible on a next gen console, but the current hardware for the 360 just won't be suitable to rendering a large quantity of items AND precipitation. Business standpoint, it wouldn't be wise to attempt it. You would essentially be testing the gaming waters with something completely new. Something people just picking the game up would be afraid of touching as afore mentioned by The Abhorrent. I for one found both the starcraft 2 and warcraft 3 map editors very intimidating to begin with, something you do NOT want in a game that's target audience is young teens essentially. Forge is included in Halo because of its ease of use, not for its depth of editing. I cannot say from experience how difficult I think it would be to market it, but I can't imagine it would be easy to tell your fanbase that the nice and easy to use map editor they loved from the previous two games got an upgrade to a hellish demon of a map editor that is basically nothing like what they had before. Now, with those points aside, it would be nice to see more options integrated into forge in the future, but most of your ideas are very unlikely. Of all of them, I would say that different templates for items and playing as other covenant species would be plausible. Templates would either be implemented as separate items (as in, you would have multiple versions of an item in the forge pallet. Like "crate large" and "covenant crate large") or they would be put into the item options much like the current option for color is, the latter option would only allow a change of the textures on the object though, while the former would allow a full new model to be implemented. Multiplayer skins for covenant would by far be the easier part though, as we already have Elites and models for the other races. Not much needs to be explained on this bit. As a side note, I have experience in both business and coding among other things.
I would by this. Although I have a suggestions: 1) We should be able to download texture packs like Minecraft. 2) We should be able to Master Controls. Aka: we could have fixed vehicles or change the strength of pallets while forging.
Then possibly this could be an idea for the next generation of Xbox. As for marketing it, it could possibly be released along the lines of a special edition release.
No way. "Wow man, this map is awesome!" "Sure is. Hey, let's check it out in Forge!" "Okay, let me just switch discs." "Yeah, me too." *They switch their discs.* "Wow, this must've taken YEARS to make." "I know right? Hey, wanna play Matchmaking now?" "Ok, let me just switch discs again." "Same here." It would be so tedious. I think it's very important that Forge stays part of the main game itself, or else it will become so inefficient that it wouldn't even be worth it. I DO agree that there are improvements to be made with Forge, but making it its own disc would be a bad move on 343's part if you ask me.
I wouldn't mind this sort of ultra-forge, but on a fundamental level it's a dream and nothing more. The reason forge exists is that you can create a custom map that actually saves very little data - just a handful of object numbers and their positions. It's basically just a tiny text file that can easily be transmitted to someone else's box for playing, and thus is viable for sending over XBox Live for matchmaking/customs, small enough to fit in a file share, etc.. Everybody has Forge World already and the hefty majority of the loading is the game pulling Forge World off the disc; the information you provide as to what your custom map is, within the context of Forge World, is microscopic in comparison. As soon as they provide actual map making of any kind - terrain editing, object customization, importing your own skins or sound effects, whatever it may be - suddenly what you are generating is a full map file and not a little bit of text relating to an already-existing map. It rapidly bloats to thousands of times larger in size, and cripples customs or matchmaking unless people are willing to download the whole thing in advance to be able to play on it. It becomes too huge to make the current fileshare system workable; any server that would host all those fileshare slots suddenly has to be a hell of a lot bigger and more robust. I'm firmly of the opinion that anything 343 does to enhance Forge will be trying to expand the scope of what is possible under the current system. We won't get true mesh terrain editing but we might get some terrain objects to move around. We won't get an object editor but we might get a few skin sets to choose between. We won't get fully customizable weather and particle effects, but we might get a limited amount of presets built into the map. etc. They can do a lot to upgrade Forge while still keeping it essentially what it is, and keeping the map sizes small. But I don't think we'll ever be true map-makers, because that simply isn't how XBox games make their money. They don't have a real incentive to give us the type of stuff you're wanting.
I LOVE when Nutduster replies to anything it's long and meaningfull. Not to mention it's what I think to, basically what he said in a nutshell. I think they are listening to the community but will still limit it to what they can actually do.
Thanks Shik - I just can't help myself. I start out to post something short and snarky, and end up ruminating on the origins of the cosmos and the ultimate meaning of life every single time.
Thats because ND knows his shiz. My thoughts on this: It would be cool but like a few people already said, it's just not gonna happen for so many reasons. People need to stop complaining forge, about forgeworld, the limitations. Use your imagination! To quote a friend, "something something limitations promote creativity something". My point is, be happy with what you have now, and be patient and wait to see what we get with H4. Then we can start the complain fest all over again.
It would be cool to have forge on it's own disc and everything. Personally it wouldn't sell though and it would be one of those map editors that are forgotten like the one is Far Cry (Seeing as that used to have it's own forum here on ForgeHub) But it would always be great to have an editor where you can select the terrain. But the current one, which we have jsut needs a few tweaks to be honest. The system works well with a controller, which is always a possitive. But back to the topic it would be great to see a forge game by itself but it would never happen and I don't personally want one, I'm fine with what we've got for now lets just hope Halo 4's editor includes a lot more skins for object and new stuff.
Far cry was a ***** of an editor to use. Too tedious, keep forge like it is now but just give us a wealth of new objects and locations to forge on.
If you paid more attention to what I first said the disk would include multiplayer, just not Campain. And I can see why terrain editing could be an issue but then again we could get objects which could make terrain differences instead of actually editing the background. Anyway my main point is just getting a whole new forge experience with a lot of new perks. I just believe that to get the best out of forge it needs some more disk space, mostly why I suggested its own game. (other than wanting some new things to do between Halo campain games)
The problem still lies with the fact the map files would be too large to use the way we use them now.
Or put campaign on a sepperate disc from multi player, as anything made in forge would have to be playable in the regular MP modes. Also separating forge to save disc space wouldn't help because both discs would then have to have all the same information on it asset wise therefore actualy using twice the disc space.