I am very happy to see this. I've been following this from the start, as well as your other threads since we had our little disagreement in the Baptism by Fire thread. Basically, Shoe and I have seen potential in your forging abilities, but until now we haven't gotten a lot out of our attempts to help. I spent half an hour or so on Phalanx with Mock, determining what the problems were with the map and drawing up what the best solutions to the problem would be. Mock and I came up with some great ways to improve the map, but refrained from posting them because we were seeing only hostility in response to legitimate feedback from you. And of course, it's difficult to read someone's tone through text. You certainly misjudged mine when I posted on your other thread, and it seems like we may have been misjudging yours for a bit. So, I urge you not to misjudge my tone in any of the following. Just as Shoe's posts have been, this is designed only to help you. However, the fact remains that until now, we have seen a lot of responses which certainly appeared to be avoiding the issue. Lots of trying to take the easy way like adding small things in lieu of a re-design where one is needed. However, we seem to finally be getting through. Raising the horizontal road would be a rather effective solution to the problem. This would allow you not only to add height variation where needed, but also to do a lot of fancy LoS blockage with real structural cover. Now, this won't fix everything of course, but it will go a long way. This would also give you a great opportunity to add the catwalks you had previously mentioned, but connecting them back to the raised road and not just to the other buildings. This would make the verticality of the map work far better, as the different levels of your buildings could now become much better integrated among themselves. Having multiple levels in buildings won't do you much good if the upper levels don't connect to anything, and teleporters are hardly an effective way to fix that. So, your plan on fixing the map plus adding catwalks would be great, I think. Anyways, I haven't been on the map yet, so I would hardly want to attempt to give more feedback than that, as I would perhaps be overstepping my bounds. So, perhaps, we will look further into all of this and get you some more detailed feedback in the future. On a side note, if you want to actually say anything about my map, do so in its thread, do not do so in your own threads again. I would be happy to alleviate your concerns about Panic Station's LoS and whatnot, but this is not the place for it. In short, seeing feedback go to waste is aggravating, so it looks as though this could be a great turnaround for this whole ordeal. As Shoe said, if you don't think it's an issue then don't fix it, but always remember that it's all designed to help you. So, again, I hope you don't take this the wrong way. If you would like more detailed feedback on this map (and Phalanx for that matter), just say so, and as long as we can all continue to be reasonable, it should all be of great benefit to you. Cheers.
I wasn't providing useful feedback in your other threads because you asked me not to - I hadn't gotten an actual game on those maps, so I was going off screenshots/video. Negative feedback, as you put it, was largely due to your attitude towards screenshots/video rather than your actual map. If you'd like me to talk further with you, either about the map or about clarifying my previous statements, you can chat with me over Live. EDIT: Duck ninja'd me and captured my attitude perfectly.
Have you been on Version 2 of Phalanx? and if so please feel free to submit any feedback you want on it... no one has commented at all on it since the major update really besides the two who tested it with me. I'm sorry if I come off hostile. I don't intend to be that way. I would call it a constructive discussion of mashing my ideas to yours and coming up with a resolution. It was also a way for me to sort out the people who just want to bash my work from people who actually care. I've realize you and shoe deffinitely care and it's much appreciated. If I didn't care about what you or the community had to say, then Baptism by Fire, Phalanx V2, and now the changes here would never exist. I've done huge updates to my maps, but it's all a learning experience for me and I am going to school (Arts Institute - Video Game Design) to make this a career. I enjoy the hell out of art & video games, specifically map design. So this is just to better myself. Ideas for Monstrocity V2: (let me know what you think) http://www.forgehub.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1570982&posted=1#post1570974 Then why say any thing at all? That was because I was sick of people looking at a single screenshot and judging the entire map from that. Either way, I'm over that. I just know you are able to be more constructive than that, but if u don't want to be, then w/e.
Your diagram with the elevated highway and the tunnels/catwalk seems like a good possible solution to the issues brought up.
Fenix...I know you and I got into it on someone else's thread because it seemed liike you were needlessly bashing their work just because it was unoriginal (not sure if you remember haha) but you definitely have solid Forging techniques...I can't really say anything that hasn't already been addressed but I would like to say that your v2 for this map looks pretty good. I think with the highway, underpasses and catwalks you alleviate a lot of the issues. This map seems like a Banshee spawn might be good (similar to Headlong) but possibly only for certain gametypes. I'd have to see if it actually does work but I feel like with the highway, streets it could mow down some enemies while simultaneously not being OP because of the numerous buildings and stuff. You could see if it works and if there already is a Banshee I apologize for being redundant haha. Headlong was a really cool map so city maps, when well done, are great! If it's possible to re-work the budget enough, a couple Forged cars (if you can get them to look nice) might boost aesthetics as well as add in extra cover on the streets. Anyway...hope that this helped in some way. [br][/br]Edited by merge: Oh, I've noticed your maps seem to be solely on Impact -- I assume it's your favorite forging space in Halo 4..? May I ask why? My personal fav is Ravine because I like the way the sun shines on the map with the dynamic lighting but Impact is definitely a great forging space. My least favorite is probably Erosion haha
I don't have experience with such maps on Halo yet, but actually it reminds me of the way most city maps were built with Timesplitters Mapmaker. of course, vehicles and snipers were less strong in timesplitters, but I still didn't like most (or maybe all) of those city maps. flat streets with few covers made the gameplay boring (I believe your map must be better when it comes to covers, in TSFP, those maps usually had no covers in streets) and your only other option was to reach high ground in buildings (usually they had no other purpose) though, judging from screenshots, your map seems better than what I could see on timesplitters, but it could still suffers from the same problems. I still think there were good city maps in timesplitters, if you didn't try to build them like actual real cities. I'm not sure if it applies to Halo as well.
Those changes look pretty good. I especially like how the underpass in the center bends to break the LoS. The catwalks over the elevated highway are also good. My questions are 1). do the buildings have any entrances on the upper floors opening directly onto the elevated highway (because that would really go a long way towars making the buildings more interesting, and overall better spaces to fight in depending on their design), and 2). is the elevated highway all flat (because that would make for a very long, empty LoS)? if the highway is going to be flat, i would advise sort of shifting everything around a bit to have a bend in the center similar to what the underpass does.
I like impact for one main reason and that's the impact items make much more use to me because you can do a lot with the corridors and silos. If these items were on ravine, I would use ravine all the time because I agree it is prettier. The items on ravine will break lighting quick. I think erosion looks like throw up and probably will never forge on that map. Ahhh, good old timesplitters. I don't remember any map like mine in timesplitters or timesplitters 2 actually but I remember all maps in that game being fun. Halo has vehicles, sprint, jet packs, shields... For a BTB map, you don't want much clutter... i.e. cars on the street for cover and such. Most official BTB maps are pretty wide open but have solid structure and flow through out. A city is a city, so there is going to be flat streets & high rise buildings, that's what makes it a city. You could get all crazy and have a San Francisco styled city but then you immediately run into the problem of having one side of the map higher and longer LoS. Most map makers will make a city map or any map and change it to support gameplay. This changes the map to make no realistic sense to compare it to real life. I think that's just being lazy. There are ways of changing the map to make better gameplay while also maintaining the "realism" to it. When the first timesplitters came out, the gaming industry was starting to shift over from "Arena" style shooters (Unreal, Quake, Duke, & Doom) to "realistic" shooters (Half-Life, Counterstrike, Ghost Recon, & Rainbow Six). So the FPS map styles and gameplay were changing drastically as well and was still fresh then on design. Timesplitters fell right into that change because it captures features from both styles. So does Halo. The speed and the addition of shields in halo make it feel like a arena shooter but provides enough realism to swing both ways. The additions to this map that I'm making should make for some great gameplay. If you think it will be boring, I disagree. To many forgers here go for the "Arena" style maps over realistic ones. Arena style maps make no sense (realistically) and everyone has fell into that groove of making the same style maps. Official Halo maps contain both arena style & realistic maps. Headlong was a realistic style map where as Guardian is a arena style. 1.) Of course 2.) There's got to be a different way of breaking up LoS on roads other than making the "Z" effect every time. I'm going to do something up there to break it up, don't know what yet.
This looks really good and I love the idea, city design and aesthetics. Strip clubs are a plus for Duke Nukem nostalgia, in fact this map is old school Duke looking which is a great thing. Still haven't gotten any games on this or Phalanx so I can't say much more than how good they look. I do appreciate the fact that you make BTB maps as most forgers who can make good maps always stick to small maps. The name of the map: "Monstrocity"...I'm not sure if I like it yet but it's certainly good enough whether I like it or not.
Yeah, got the strip club idea from Duke and GTA, both games have the city "red district" style. Monstro"city" is actually spelled out Monstrosity. 2 : the quality or state of being monstrous 3 a : an object of great and often frightening size, force, or complexity
Definitely...I wish Ravine had some of Impact's pieces. But you know what? Impact is better for this map simply because now it looks like night time which IMO is much better for that red light district theme going on. Anyway, keep up the good work! Get on that v2! haha
oh, it's not available for download yet there were no such maps. the main city map was streets and was totally different from your map. I'm thinking about mapmaker maps made on Timesplitters 3. I think that's creative. I'm talking about what I see on the 1st page. the additions seem good. I think elevated paths between buildings are cool, I almost always use them in city maps. for underground tunnels, it depends, they tend to be more disconnected from the rest of the map. I actually like a balance of both (like in timesplitters as you said) for example, the streets map actually looks like a city, but the way it is built is totally irrealist. (well it's not exactly arena-like actually) there is only a single street making a lot of turns (though I think there could be more paths) the street is way too narrow for actual cars (even though it features 2 lanes) because it would be too big if it was sized realistically. (it would still be wide enough to drive a car, you would just have to use both lanes at once) it could also make jumps between buildings possible. the buildings are also irrealist, they are just corridors with windows that stretch along a large part of the street and serve to connect 2 or 3 differents points of the street as well as sniping positions. there are maps where people tried to actually make realistic appartments buildings (like in detroit from deus ex 3 for example). that may be realistic, but from a gameplay point of view it doesn't work well.
It's nearly finished. Redesigning the strip club right now to expand its size and fit better with the elevated highway. Then I just need to redesign the warehouse a little and I'm done. Everything else is finished. No budget problems yet, still have $1500 left.
unconventional, with the open city spaces as some have said. however, I personally don't think that it is an automatic fail just for that reason. as I'm sure you know, you just have to find ways of making the gameplay work given the fact that you're doing something different than the norm. while some of the warnings some experts are giving should be heeded as much as possible, I don't think you should change your vision and end up making the same map as someone else.
Anything I change about my map, I still change it using my style while still getting the job done. I can assure you everyone will be tickled with V2 which I will be releasing here pretty soon. The elevated highway with the underpasses and catwalks looks amazing. On top of that, I'm giving the strip club and the warehouse a facelift o go with the new layout. I appreciate your thoughts.
Nice.... GTA and Duke are true classics. Ah...I was pronouncing it wrong. Keep up the great work man and hopefully I'll be online when you do some BTB testing.