I just want to post that Salty and APk mostly said that because you have promoted the map a lot and now you are scrapping it without playing it. Also, you cannot make the first perfect map as it was created a long time ago in foundry. Even people who pump out a lot of maps like myself actually take time and think about the design a lot. For example: I have had three different versions of a concept since reach and have never made any of them because I have not found something I really think would stand out about it or it is just not a very functional concept. I have other maps where it is like alright this is easy to build lets throw it together and see if it works. Then there is Hot Trash that I have spent about three months conceptualizing it. I guess what I am getting at is some people are afraid of failure but when you are afraid of failure you never actually innovate. Also, to say someone who forges more maps has inferior maps to someone who spends all there time on a couple is ridiculous. The person who forges more maps just doesn't have decent maps they have good and bad ones to and also gains a much greater understanding of design in general as a result and the maps they produce get better and better. Instead of only learning what works in the couple different designs they have done. Look how much better Chron has gotten as a designer. Rant is Rant.
I second purely fat's post because you can look into his halo reach file share and find a bunch of sweaty asym maps. The same can be said for H4 and MCC. Also, I agree Chronmeister has definitely shown progress since past halos as many others probably have too. You will find more problems testing your map than you ever will just looking at it; not to mention you can collect more opinions. To think your map will ever be perfect (especially without testing it) is silly. Don't stress yourself out.
So I promised myself when Halo 5's Forge got released I'd start frequenting ForgeHub again. Then Forge came out and I got distracted. My bad. Anyway, I'm working on a map that draws heavy inspiration from The Cage. I was always a fan of the upper half of the map, but felt like the lower areas offered little incentive compared to the upper levels. This is currently being done by reworking the centre structure of Cage to place heavier emphasis on the area as a means of traversal rather than just an odd holdout. I also moved the lower areas of the map to beneath the central structure as opposed to under the centre platform. The map is also designed to encourage the use of Spartan abilities. The jumps are designed to be straightforward but also place you in more obvious lines of fire to compensate for the quicker map traversal. The WIP of the map is bookmarked on my profile, although it isn't set up for any gametypes yet. I'd probably just load it up in Forge and have a look. I'd love to hear what you think, as well as anything you're not fond of. The design is still early in development, so I'm sure there will be more iterations based on feedback when I come to test it.
We all know there is no such thing as a "perfect map". What Goat was trying to say was perfect to him. Every forger has that one map where they go above the call of duty and want the map to be the best it can be. A map where they sit back and say damn I did a really awesome job and whether if everyone else thinks it or not you feel like you achieved something perfect. And the reason we are all pushing him to finish is because we believe it will be a fun experience to play the map...whether it's perfect or not.
Exactly my thoughts, I have map ideas from way back that could never get close to what I would really want out of the design because of the limitations we had, but I got it as good as I could to what I had in my imagination and I feel that this is just something that goat is dealing with now. He is limited partly by the size of the rocks we have as far as I can tell, and is trying to work around that as best he can. When he gets it "perfect" that will just be as close as he can get it to his ideal concept; not actually a perfect map. And honestly, kudos to him for not stopping when he ran into issues, and instead iterating upon his design. Just hope that the map ends up as good as he wants it to be.
This is going to make me sound like a douche but I'm going to go ahead and say it anyways. I don't think goat is a competent map designer or a good forger. If the flaws of his wip design are so self apparent he dosent need to play test his map than the soultions to those problems should be just as self evident. He shouldn't need to bring other forgers in. He shldnt need to write walls of texts explaing his displeasure with the never ending project that is genisis the first perfect map lol. If any designer has such an overwhelming grasp of whats wrong with their map, or what they aren't pleased with, they should easily be able to remedy those problems by themselves and do so in a timely manner. Any competent forger is capable of that.
I agree with everything except that goat isn't a good forger. I hope you start posting soon too Salty, since you havent released a map yet either.
He is a great artist. As for forger, I haven't seen proof of it yet. Go check out my bookmarks chron. Look at Gemima Spawn Test. I will be eventually releasing that after play testing, have just been busy as of late. Regardless, my projects in the past 4 halos speak for my own forging abilities. I, like goat, forge for my own pleasure not the pleasure of others. Too that note I respect him, but what I cannot respect is his arrogant attitude
Is that inspired by the chunk of ODST right before the ONI building? Because it looks sorta like it, and I like that.
A brief walk through of my mansion map that I've been working on. I still need to finish a few of the second floor rooms and roof and figure out how the spawning will work. Also, I have a pretty cool idea that I will hopefully be able to implement by the time infection comes around. It will remain a secret until then! http://xboxdvr.com/gamer/A Hungry Dino/video/13743371
This is why I respect you so much Salty. Not hopping in on this to trash Goat here, as I think he's a great guy and has a great artistic vision, but having been working on the same design to no avail since Halo 4 does kind of show he's lacking something. Any of us can write massive walls of texts to make us sound knowledgeable, but that's all bark and no bite, as you've gotta back it up by actually making a quality map. And that leads me to my next point... What is a quality map? Too many forgers get caught up in the idea of their being an ideal standard, that a map has to play a particular way to be of desirable quality. We get caught up in our play style preferences and expectations dictating what is good and what isn't, and this leads to us being overly critical of designs that throw caution to the wind and do something outside those expected norms. There is no right blend of openess to segmentation. There is no right optimal play style to promote. There are only different flavours, and everyone has different tastes. What may appeal to you doesn't appeal to everyone else. Your favourite food is a cheeseburger? Great! That doesn't mean you should force cheeseburgers on everyone else though. Maybe someone prefers vegetarian? Maybe pasta? Or how about some awesome Japanese curry? As a community, personally, I feel we've gotten too caught up in group think as to what's ideal, which is somehow morphed into what is acceptable vs what isn't. **** that! Take a gamble, try something new! Try making a map that doesn't promote a play style you prefer. Break out of the comfort zone of your play style preferences. And for god sake, holding on to your preferences as some objective measure to rate a map's quality. Now I'm going back into lurking mode, because frankly, I'm trying not to be too involved here as it tends to bring unnecessary negativity into the community and you guys deserve better than me bogging things down.
Not really sure what area that is from ODST. I didn't directly take inspiration from anything while forging; I simply built one base, duplicated it across the map, and filled in the missing areas. I tried to give it a real halo feel while making revisions over the past couple of weeks. The road and revisions to bottom middle were the past two days worth of work. I think that ties together everything really well. There was a gif I posted of the map intro a few pages back where the bottom area had grass, which looks horrible in comparison.
I don't think your a douche for saying what you think. But I disagree with Goat not being a competent designer. I think he fully understand map design. He has the knowledge and understand how he wants to play. What I will say is it takes him longer to come up with solutions. So with that being said he's slow to coming up with the solutions. That's why I offered my assistance because what I offer is that I don't get blinded by how the map looks because we all agree he a amazing artist. That's why on the last page he said he finally feels happy about the map. A little history about Genesis from my understanding. He can correct me. This map actually is based on h5 campaign mission in terms of visuals. So yes he had some forerunner stuff in mcc that he didn't finish but these are not even close to the same map. Last night the design process was finished. Now it's onto construction. I just like helping on ambitious projects and he had lots of ideas and I wanted to help glue them together.
@A 3 Legged Goat, Its not really that I just want to put something out and that I don't care. I just think I have enough map design knowledge now to not worry about what others think about my design process. I still want to push myself to create interesting, fun and innovative designs, but I won't hold back posting something BC I'm afraid of how it will be received. I also won't post something just to post it. I have two terrible maps in H5 that I will never post and I'm sure more are on the way. I do like to stay active so Im sure everything I post won't be 10/10, but I promise not to post anything I would give less than an eight to if that means anything.
I respect that and it's definitely something I ought to learn from. The last sentence essentially sums up my wall of text. I don't want to post anything I wouldn't be happy playing. More than even finishing and playing on Genesis, I want to know what people thought I did wrong (or am doing wrong) so I can do better next time. Obviously the biggest change I'll be making is to have my first iteration playable before I change it. I appreciate your candor, but I assure you I already know of my limits as a level designer. I wouldn't make it in the industry if I scrapped every project I started. But I'm going to have to disagree that "I shouldn't need to bring other forgers in." It's precisely because I am not a good designer that I need another set of eyes to either reaffirm my thoughts, or counter them. As I mentioned in another post, I believe that the first idea I have is never the best idea, and most people aren't going to arrive at their best idea without another perspective to help mold it. I welcome and thrive on that feedback, but I prefer to get most of it during the design stage. Recognizing that my map has a problem doesn't mean I always know how to fix it. I post those long walls because by picking apart the map, I further my understanding of it. There is a point where a map builds itself and everything starts to make sense, and it is through that process that I discover what I want out of it. I wanted this map to be a perfect map from me. Will it be perfect to you? Probably not, because as @SecretSchnitzel said, we view every map through our own preferences. But as a designer and a player, every map I put out has to get a 10 from me. I don't think I can do that in a timely manner yet, but I'll get better at it.
I'll have to disagree with your disagreement lol. Once I started to get the hang of Forge, I decided that I wanted to focus on visuals because that's what I know. That is not to say that I ignored gameplay or that I didn't try to understand it. But it bothered me that all of the hard work people would put into a map could be so easily dismissed by others based on how they looked. I wanted to talk about all the cool custom maps in the community and all I'd see was "lol use a real editor like Far Cry and stop playing with gray Lego!" Forge pulled me in because I was able to create and collaborate on something I would be able to play - all in real time. But I got stuck in the habit of making it visually appealing and that stunted my growth as a tailor of gameplay. I have the chance to change that with Halo 5 because I don't have to bend over backwards to make a map look good anymore. I'm still going to art the **** out of everything I build, but now I can break out of the geometric habits I dug myself into that were impeding my ability to design playspaces. And along with that will come a greater focus on designing through iteration and not speculation. As for your last point, Genesis is a mish mash of a lot of things I've built. It does indeed share similarities to stuff I built in MCC, but the Campaign mission has helped inform the direction I have since taken it. All things considered, it's a brand new map and is literally the first real map I've made.
We should all take a step back and question why this debate/argument is taking place: Do we all care that much about whether Goat releases the map or not, at a time when hundreds of maps are being produced? If not, why is there pages of discussion about it? If so, give him the time to ensure the end result is worth the wait.
Remaking These CoD zombies maps, Nacht Der Untoten (w@w) Kino Der Toten (blops 1) Moon (blops 1) Shan Gri La (blops 1) Town (blops 2) Mob of the Dead (blops 2) Origins (blops 2) (The insane asylum from w@w) Shi No Numa (w@w) Der Riese (w@w) Infection (first aw zombies map)