Hello Hubbers! I have a special treat for you today; an invasion map! Sure, there’s been a few of these posted on the site before –namely Summit and Cargo Port- but when was the last time a Bungie-style competitive invasion map was posted on the site? Well, basically never, to be perfectly honest. And with that, I’ll let that obnoxious shoe that keeps flying around introduce the map. “But Psychoduck, why would you name a map after a Linkin Park album?” I hear you ask. Ell, first let’s not forget that the map is actually shaped like a Backwards Meteora. Then, let’s make the same joke about that over and over again for months, because it’ll totally still be funny, right? Nope, probably not. Anyway, despite the fact that Meteora being a spectacular album, and me being a huge fan of Linkin Park, Meteora’s namesake is actually something else. Meteora refers to a series of butte-top cathedrals in Greece, and given our maps attempt to capture an urban rooftop theme, we felt the name was fitting. You can call it Cockwaffle if you don’t like it. So what else is there to say about Meteora? Well, as Shoe said, we started making this map almost a year ago. We went through so many concepts (Concept, Conecept, Pyramidcept, BananaToiletcept, HappySadPandaMuffincept, Chroncept, Corncept, and Ray Panamals-cept to name but a few). We created enough geometry to have at least five entire maps, all prior to actually beginning work on Meteora itself. One of these, mockKnizzle and I almost converted into what could have been a solid BTB map. After doing what can only be described as “dicking around” in forge for a few months, Shoe and I came to the realization that there are, in fact, a few members of the forge community who actually know invasion. We came into contact with the Halo Wheelmen and found ourselves talking to Able SirThomas, Yardbird92, and Oakley Hidef shortly afterwards. Of course many of these fellows have now become our Brosiedons over at The Halo Forge Epidemic, where this fine video was produced. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMe8ab9AFEw&list=SPB58F899FC59AF544&index=11&feature=plpp_video I think that’s enough of a text wall. The video should tell you everything, and the screenshots will tell you the rest. Oh, did I mention that Meteora is compatible with BTB Slayer and BTB Flag as well as invasion? No invasion slayer here though, what a shame right? The map also supports splitscreen play as per matchmaking standards. The map uses the standard invasion gametype, but don't forget to set elites as defenders when playing the map! I’ll end by saying that this has been a crazy wild ride for Shoe and me, one that rivals the wild rides leading up to the releases of Cargo Port, Embarcadero and S before I go on to thank a huge list of people who helped with this map. MockKnizzle008: ever since the Cargo Port days, Mock has helped me in forge in increasing amounts. With Shoe, Mock, and I forging an epic forging triangle, covering each other’s strengths and weaknesses and making better maps for it. Mock only dipped his toes into invasion forging in his time helping with Meteora, but he still managed to be a huge help, being a great bouncy thing to bounce ideas off of, and helping just plenty with the actual forging, and just being a bro and listening to Nine Inch Nails and playing Mass Effect with me when I needed a break from forging. Able SirThomas: Able was one of the first invasion forgers to really help us with the map. He provided a lot of insight and advice, and helped a bunch with testing and coordinating lobbies to do so. He was also a huge help with optimizing the map to support splitscreen play. I also thoroughly enjoyed working with Able to make the THFE video for the map. Oakley Hidef and Yardbird92: Both were great helps with the map in the same way Able was, although neither was quite as ever-present as Able was. These guys along with Stubborn Clam made up the rest of the group of invasion forgers that we were able to coordinate with to improve the first round of invasion matchmaking submissions (which Meteora regrettably wasn’t quite ready for). HWM Luv Gunn and the rest of the Halo Wheelmen: the wheelmen are the reason we got into contact with Able, Bird, and Oakley, and basically the reason Meteora is actually a true invasion map. Luv Gunn, being a Cartographer was a big help when we were trying to meet the deadline for the initial matchmaking invasion submission. Of course there were a lot of others who helped test the map as well. Sadly, I don’t remember even close to everyone. If you helped, then we thank you. Flying Shoe ILR: Of course I need to thank Shoe as well. It all started when Shoe provided all this feedback on Cargo port, and then I went and did the same on First Tracks. Shoe and I struggled a lot at the beginning, and contemplated giving up, but our shared love for invasion and fine food kept us going through it all. In the end, we had each other’s backs, and we were able to cover each other’s weaknesses (mine an inability to do anything right in phase 1, and Shoe’s a failure to get left side to work after numerous builds namely). Shoe, thanks for forging this with me bro. I know it sucked at times, but I think the long discussions about music, life. and symbols of power were worth even more than the awesome map we have created. I look forward to our future projects.
Nice write up Duck, and yes, there shall be amazing maps to come from the forge triangle both in Reach and Halo 4. It was awesome forging Meteora over the last ridiculous expanse of time and I'm glad we got it all nailed down in the end! To the rest of FH I hope you have a good time, thanks for always being supportive!
I am most definitely going to call this cockwaffle. Ahaha. Apart from that, congratulations on finally getting this out there. I still have only gotten only like 3 or so matches on this but I did really enjoy them. It's quite different from most other invasion maps, while it still maintains competitive gameplay. Looking forward to getting more games on this sometime.
Your forging, guys, just blows me away. That and your commitment. I envy you both. The map looks so clean, smart, and intimidating. Gah, just great. I really wish I had played this, though. I'd love to give feedback on the gameplay. Wonderful job guys. Please, don't stop forging.
Your time and dedication for this map is really impressive. There aren't many forgers that dwell on all of the gameplay factors as attentively as you guys. Keep up the amazing teamwork and I look forward to getting a game on this in lobby.
I don't even know.... Map looks great DuckIRL, didn't get any games on this one but most definitely will at some point in time, nice to see an Elite Defense map like this.
I don't particularly care for the Invasion game-type, but I will say that this is easily the best user-made Invasion map I've played. I'm not sure if I've played it since your giant overhaul, but I'm sure you fixed the insanely difficult 3rd phase for attackers in which the room the core was located in became a huge choke-point. Appropriately subdued aesthetics set the tone effectively and each piece has a purpose. Also, was this submitted for MM? I didn't see it amongst the maps added in the June update
Yes, the core building is actually attackable now and the core is able to be pulled if the room is cleared (a good strategy is to get rockets from either middle team or right then bring them up top either across the bridge or up a ramp and have one team clear the elites while the other tries to pull the core.) Our subdued aesthetics came from the painstaking process of making this play split screen, a process very much aided by AblesirThomas. We didn't finish this in time for round 1 submissions, but there is a rumor of a second round of invasion submissions, so we'll keep our fingers crossed. Thanks for the support!
I would think you two would become masters of creating Invasion maps by now...Bungie could learn from all the forgers. ;D The game looks like it flows fine, and I can't wait to see a remake of this in Halo4! Aside from the compliments, what vehicles spawn in the game? (Aside from the Banshee and Ghost)
I can't believe I missed you finally posting this after all the games I played on it. No wonder the last five days is the longest I've gone without testing it in the past two months. I'll miss the tests but hope to see it in upcoming TGIFs. Meteora is one of the few forge maps that captures the real feel of invasion, and currently the only elite-defense one. The fact that the majority of the map is entirely forged instead of stuck down on the existing terrain makes it all the more unique and impressive. Good work you crazy-flying-duck-with-shoes.