Please point me towards posts saying that. Seriously, there have been enough legitimate complaints and you brush it off by saying everyone should just completely stop complaining. How about you engage in discussion instead of making worthless posts nobody has any use for.
I offered a $5 bounty for links to five posts where five different people actually say they're not buying the game because of the lack of forge upgrades. That offer still stands. It was specific to the Halo 4 discussion thread, but I'll extend it to this one too. Even if somebody takes me up on it, I can produce many times more posts of people saying they think the new forge looks awesome, or being disappointed but saying they'll buy it anyway (e.g. me). The "complaining" has been way overstated.
As self appointed dead-horse-beater on this subject, I'd say we're actually in danger of getting to a situation where there are more posts about complaining, and complaining about complaining, than there are actual discussion posts (complaint or not). This is all getting rather meta. So, how's about that forge mode, eh guys?
That's what I mean. Just about everyone took for granted at the time that it was an actual feature, so I'm so surprised it hasn't been discussed more. Personally, I was hoping that the budget would be increased, at least by some amount, so I could remake some of my maps from Reach with greater detail (detail I had to leave out due to budget and/or object limitations). I never took the 1 mil for granted, but I guess I did assume that we would be getting a little more (like maybe 15,000-20,000, and perhaps 150-200 of everything instead of 100). Still, the fact that Impact is a space canvas pretty much cancels out my disappointment in that regard. The maps I want to rebuild are all aesthetic spaceship maps, so I look forward to re-building them in space (I refused to use purple fx on my Reach spaceship maps; I thought it looked so hideous that I preferred to just leave it at the default daylight of Forgeworld). Even if I'm forced to build them exactly as I had them in Reach, the fact that they'd be in space now would be worth the effort.
If they fixed FRL it will go a ways toward that anyhow. My biggest obstacles for map complexity were 90% framerate and only 10% budget/object limits.
I agree that Impact will obviously make any space themed map 100% better, but I am still having a hard time judging the scale and the overall size of these forge maps. For instance, do you think a re-make of this map (Trench Run) that I made will fit on Impact? It stretches 12 coliseum walls(longways) in length. It doesn't have much depth to it, so I might be able to go over, or under the asteroids, but that could really cut down on the actual gameplay flight space. This situation again leaves me longing for a totally blank canvas map. It can't be that much to ask. One totally blank space. Create the space, do absolutely nothing, and then ship it... If I knew who to contact, or how to do it, I would really start pushing for a DLC blank.
I know, they do give you a decent amount of space off of the sides. I saw the video where they demonstrated how far you can move out away from the terrain, but I still don't know if it will be enough open space for certain things. The Trench Run map for example. I am pretty sure it wouldn't fit off to the side of Ravine, I know it wouldn't fit in Erosion, and I am up in the air about Impact. I think it's an good example of a map that requires that much space to play well, and that may not be possible in Halo 4. A blank slate just seems like something that would be very easy to program, and that enough people would appreciate. It has to be worth it. Why would withholding the option of a no terrain map make sense?
I really hope there are few new things in there (like skinnier and smaller items). This might not be a huge deal if the antenna doesn't have a ton of crap on it and the railings are no longer ugly/laggy. Even still, detail work has been a bit of a problem in the past. One thing I find strange and I've not be able to wrap my head around is: why the limits on object categories? I understand that maybe spawning 10k worth of buildings could be problematic, but blocks? Why can't I spawn 300 2x4s? I can't fully grasp why I can spawn 10k dollars worth of items..and I can spawn a ton of giant items from categories like decorative, bridges and platforms, walls but I can't spawn 300 blocks? Like..why have those foolish limits on the categories when they already have a budget. If different pieces are affecting performance differently, change the price of those pieces rather than putting a global limit on us. Bugs me :\
Or just a big flat terrain map with an awesome skybox. It's a huge oversight, or strangely deliberate omission, I'm not sure which. My own map Hoglaunch needed a lot of real estate - I had to build it in a few different places to find seemingly the only spot on Forge World with enough room in three different dimensions for what I wanted to do (send warthogs flying very high and very far, and sometimes very sideways also). I'm wondering if that kind of thing is simply impossible in these new maps. It doesn't matter a lot to me because usually I built much smaller competitive maps, but it could be a frustrating limitation for makers of minigames, race maps, and so forth.
Agreed! running out of blocks may be the most frustrating thing in the world. To quote my favorite angry unattractive 90's Canadian, "It's like 10,000 Halo Reach Forge credits, when all you need is a block."
I agree with stevo's take that there should be a larger palette of basic forge pieces. While prefabs have their purposes (and can even be quite useful when used in creative ways), a full "lego" set would make forge a much better experience.
By larger pallet do you mean more variations or just be able to use more of them? Personally I think Reach had enough variations of blocks/slabs/walls and what not, just wanted to use more than the allotted amount.
Personally I could go for both: higher object limits for blocks (and walls), and more varieties of them also. Why a 5x5 flat but no 5x5 regular, short or tall? Why no 6x6 or 8x8 or 8x4 or 8x2, all of which would be enormously helpful it making big sections of floors, walls and ceilings? Why no 2x3 flat, 2x4 flat, etc.? Making walkways out of 2x2 flats or bridges (often upside down to get the railings out of the way) is inefficient, and the 3x1 and 5x1 short are ugly, bad for framerate, and have a weird length to boot. As many block types as there are, forging a new map always made me wish for at least one I didn't have.
Mmmhmmm... this is why I'm hoping for a lot of new block pieces. On High Noon's Forge mode, there were some nice new pieces. Although none of them actually fit in with anything, it was refreshingly unique on how you could utillise them differently than you would on the nearest similar piece on Forge world.
Not having an object limit per category would be a step in the right direction. There's no reason for that limit to be in place anyway because the objects them selves already have a budget assigned to them based on how complex they are. Running out of blocks and being forced to use objects that don't fit with the rest of the map sucks. ...sigh
i have to agree about the blocks. =\ it would be cool if they released a DLC of extra forge pieces that you could install on the hard drive and it would load them into the forge system and other maps. bleh, we can always dream. i doubt that will happen but i cant imagine it being that difficult?
I've always been slightly uncomfortable about relying on DLC to fix issues like that. The base game really sets the tone for their attitude to forge, and DLCs contain like 3 maps so the whole argument about using a third of one for a minority appeal thing like forge gets even stronger. Call me cynical, but I feel that the game itself is the best we're gonna get when it comes to forge. Not saying that they definitely won't include something forge related in a DLC, but I doubt it's gonna up the game in a fundamental way like this.
we did get foundry and Sandbox as DLC in Halo 3. we can still be optimistic that it can happen in Halo 4