Over the wall, where moons are eclipsed, money jingles, time ticks and brains are damaged, lies a masterpiece. The Dark Side of the Moon. YouTube - Dark Side of the Moon - Halo Reach Track by Zippur Hello everyone! Today, I proudly present Dark Side of the Moon. This is my ninth track made on Forge World. I believe so far, that it is the best. I didn't want to post a track on Forge Hub until I thought I had achieved something amazing. I truly thinking that Dark Side is the map worthy to be my first on this awesome site. So let us dive right in by me giving a brief overview of Dark Side of the Moon. When I had finished my last race map, I looked back after running through it for the first time and thought, "Sure it was fun, but there's lots out there just like it. There was nothing epic, or unique." With this thought I decided that no matter what route you take around the map, or how high you make your jumps, you can never differentiate your map unless you add your own imagination. Map Run-through Much like the album by Pink Floyd, my map has an epic start. When you spawn, 10 seconds will tick by as you wait for the starting lights to appear. The beginning jump easily flows into the next part of the section, the Volcano, but only if you can dodge the UFO's attacking above. The Volcano sits atop Paradiso Island. As you dodge lava pits, you come onto a rickity ledge, where huge lava balls spill down from the Volcano. Dodge these, and you will come to a cliff that leads you through another cave/tunnel. The tunnel leads around a forerunner bridge structure that wraps around the side of the Volcano. The track quickly descends into a cave, lit only by the dim lights above. Follow the checkpoints and the lights and you will find yourself traveling back outside, and then through a glowing forerunner tunnel. Back outside, the route travels over a bridge, and over to the Crash Site. At the Crash Site, a downed UFO lies and waits for you to travel through it. A quick trip through the large cavern will take you into the Canyon. Two mammoth walls will guide you to the Canyon cave. Once, again, you only direction is based off the glow of lights and two checkpoints. Out of the cave, a giant triangle leads you up the Canyon Freeway. Avoid the kill ball the rolls down it and you've just passed a hard part of the course. Up on Montana cliff, lights guide the way until you come across a giant double-lane bridge, and up to the Alaska Freeway. The Freeway prepares you for what is to come. Enjoy your last moments at high altitude before you plummet down the steep, smooth roller coaster drop. The drop ends with a splash as you land in water, and travel through the underwater tunnel. Continue heading down the shoreline and you be riding on water. Up through the final part of the track lies a huge teleporter structure that take you back to the start. Lap Complete! Anyway, I hope the track is up to the Forgehub standard, and I thank the creators of previous maps that gave me the ideas for different sections.
Dude. Best first post I've seen in a LONG time. Most people don't do nearly as well as this. Alright, I love the map name and theme. Perhaps it could contain some elements from the album if at all possible? That would be crazy, but probably difficult... Oh and sadly you have to switch the awesome album art thumbnail to an unedited picture of your actual map. Race wise, it's not bad. a little bumpy and uncomfortable here and there, as well as difficult to tell where the track is, but overall it's a good creation. I'll tell you more when I have time to set up a game with more than just me Keep on forging and good luck!
Haha thanks man. I wanted to make the map a little harder than your average simple track. Some points in the map are made to be harder to get through than others (ie. the volcano lava pits, dark tunnels/caves, bumpy rock ledges, etc.) Theres a difference between bad forging (bad jump landings for example) and purposeful increases in difficulty. Hopefully we are talking about the same points of the map hehe. But anyways my point is this: Play through the map a few times and learn the techniques (ie. Speed to hit certain jumps) and you will realize my map suddenly, and as if by magic, gets smoother. Thanks again man for the advice.
Thankyou! Yea it was a tough choice... only 2 lights. I either put them in the UFO, ending, in a cave, or at the start. I wanted to use the green light for the "go" light, but I figured the lights would be better appreciated in other parts. Thanks again man. Hope you like the map!
You can barely see whats ahead or what's happening. The narrow sections are plain terrible, as you can barely navigate through them and make it impossible for any takeoverss to occur and it devolves to a "get to the front ASAP and you win" style of play. But, in your favor, this map is very pretty. At least it would be if I could see anything. Seriously, removing the purple filter and cutting out some of the really dark sections would improve this map five-fold, or even more than that. The rocky sections are bumpy, revamp those. I mentioned this above, but some sections have beautiful aesthetics which help in the tight areas like one of the tunnels which has white lights along the edge. Brilliant. It needs a good long playtest after a re-forge before you decide to post this again. Overall, you seem to have focused on aesthetics so much so that gameplay has suffered extremely. 5/10
Looks great. It's the only racetrack that I have downloaded since the week of release. Ill get back to you… Edit: WOW… Ok but seriously, that was amazing! However I only played it by myself, and it looks like it wont wrk very well for competitive play. My main complaints were that in some places it was too dark, but that adds to the atmosphere so it's ok, and also the one way shield at the beginning of the volcano, try to fix that with rocks. If you fix the shield door, then there will be nothing else that is possible to fix. Edit2: I also just remembered some other things. In the default race gametype, I didn't even have enough time to finish 2 full laps, more like 1 and 2/3.So I would make a custom gametype with unlimited time.
Thanks for the feedback, but I think you missed some things in my OP. 1. The narrow sections are supposed to be hard. 2. The lava in the volcano on the ground is supposed to be there; it's a trap. 3. The darkness while making the map sometimes difficult to navigate, adds more to the map by creating the mood I was looking for. 4. Inside the Volcano are rocks you must drive over... if these are the "bumpy" sections you are referring to, then once again you must not have read the OP. There are certain "paths" I made smoother through the rocky sections, and some "paths" you might have taken were not the right ones. Go back, and look through it again. You should see what I'm talking about. Going back to the dark sections, I agree the first few times through them are tough. But play through once or twice more and it becomes easy as hell. While I appreciate your opinion you need to realize that if the map is too hard then you need to state that someone else could do it fine but you can't. Its like shooting the DMR too fast and saying "The DMR is broken, its inconsistent". Practice makes perfect. I think you should have made you post like this: I can barely see whats ahead or what's happening. The narrow sections not my style, as I can barely navigate through them and I haven't tested this with friends but it seems these sections might make it impossible for any takeoverss to occur and it could devolve to a "get to the front ASAP and you win" style of play. But, in your favor, this map is very pretty. At least it would be in my eyes if I could see anything. Seriously, removing the purple filter and cutting out some of the really dark sections would improve this map five-fold in my opinion. The rocky sections are bumpy the way i drive through them. I mentioned this above, but some sections have beautiful aesthetics which help in the tight areas like one of the tunnels which has white lights along the edge. Brilliant. EDIT: Did you even play my map? If so, did you play it with friends? You say the game "devolves into a get to the front and you win" style. The whole map has either 2 lane track sections or wide open spaces. The only sections that can only fit 1 mongoose are: 1. 1st Mine Shaft 2. 2nd Mine Shaft 3. Roller Coaster Drop 4. Teleporter Each of these section only takes at most, 5 seconds to get through. Considering the map has an average lap time of 3:50 seconds, that doesn't, at least in my eyes, make it a one-lane race. 5 seconds x 4 one-lane sections = 20 seconds. 20 seconds / Average lap time in seconds (230) = .09 This means 9% of the track is one lane section. Really?
As a whole, I dislike narrow sections in any map, they create a far harder experience that is merely frustrating. I didn't even mention killballs. While I understand the mood you were going for, and I applaud that, there are better combinations of SFXs to create a dark mood while not having it impossible to see. Play around with that. In reference to the 'bunpy' section, yes that was the area, and the reason I pointed it out is because I can't go see any difference there, because it is dark. If you don't know something is there, then it might as well not be there. That causes a player to rely on chance, not skill. If I were to bring this map up in a custom party, the majority of players would, quite rightly, go against any replay of it. The idea is that a race can be challenging, but not frustrating. It is true that anyone can master it after a few times, but the point is that nobody would want to do so. If they didn't have fun the first time, they won't want to play again. Most players are around my level of talent and are not F1 drivers of mongeese. I don't need to state that other people can do it, because most other people can't. In reference to your editing of my post, I posted in that style because of the reasons in the previous line. Again I emphasise that nobody wants to practice a map just to have fun on it. Race maps are a casual experience not something you should have to practice incessantly at. And of course it's my opinion. But so is most other things in the world. It does not make it less relevant. I included the two lane sections as well, as every other player gets stuck behind the first two, who are in the front. As soon as they get out they race ahead, and barring any misfortune, they will stay ahead in the open sections. Then it effectively becomes a race between two people. Play around with SFXs and I'm sure you can find a better substitute for purple. Purple is too dark for anything, really. The only other major thing I can suggest now, taking into account your reasons for what you did, is changing the narrow, two way sections. The one way sections, as you say are extremely short, and for the most part I am fine with those. As a final note, I rated this map according to RH standards. I didn't post a full fledged review, but the 5/10 I gave is considered average in the rating system. That was due to the aesthetics and originality. It can easily be improved to a seven or eight with those two additions. A seven and above is considered very good.
9.5/10 This map's aesthetics are amazing, and while there are some dark spots (like 2), you have an amazing volcano/ufo/end. Although I don't agree with noklu on the rating, you have to respect his opinion as a member of RH(correct me if he's not).
great job taking constructive criticism. i like most of it, but i have tested it with some people and the one lane spaces were annoying, and i only had 4 people. it was a jam fitting people in there, and a difficult section is pointless if you can pass during it, you dont want to add difficulty unless it makes it so that a skilled driver can pass a less skilled driver due to better navigation. a poor driver in front creates slower lap times, and overall annoying gameplay. obviously, that whole post was from his perspective, so way to go editing in something that is assumed. i really like most of the race, and what are the start lights made of? great job on those, and the ufos and other aesthetics. really fun race. it was unique and i enjoyed it, but it couldve done without FX definitely, darkness is annoying, and there should never be difficulty navigating any part of the race, maybe executing the curve or obstacle, but knowing where to go should be a given in any part of a race. definitely going to be a common map to race on with my friends though.
I'm not a member of the RH, I simply borrow their standard and methods. Based on my play and the scores for each section, it ended up as a 5 or whatever it was. The aesthetics were a 9, and originality was 8 or 9 as well. I didn't post a full fledged review, but that was how it worked.
What I liked: -Most of the map was smooth and well forged -Scenery/Aesthetics were great, there were several distinct sections of the map -Great use of map geometry, e.g. tunnels, elevation changes -My absolute favorite part: the tunnel in blood gulch where you used the flag stands to create a row of "lights" on each wall. It was incredibly creative and at first I though that Bungie had put them there and i just never noticed them. Great work. What I didn't like: -It was way too dark to see what was going on; I went into forge and took out the FX's before I raced on it. -Several parts were bumpy, the rocks you said were by design and I feel think that was a bad design choice. Then some of the platforms are bumpy on the blood gulch --> montana ramp. -The kill balls helped add to the volcano theme, but I don't think that they add enough to the aesthetics to warrant keeping them in the map. If I were you I would delete them and use that money to help spice up other parts of my map that are currently lacking in the visual department, for example, the colliseum walls between the two tunnels in the gulch. Overall I would rate this map a 7/10. It was fun after some modifications, had a great visual appeal, but it was bumpy and somewhat difficult to navigate in places. if you made some minor changes, I believe that it would be an excellent race map.
Amazing job man. I tried it the other day and it was so fun. I could not believe how long the track was. Just when I thought it was going to end, another amazing part came up! The tunnels were very cool and the lighting was perfect. I would not change much. I am looking forward to your next track. You have created artwork here. 5/5
Anyone know why this map was removed from the most downloaded list? It was getting over 4k per day, and now its suddenly gone...
I downloaded this map a couple days ago while searching for maps to race on in my Grand Prix I'm hosting at another website. The moment I completed one lap in 5 minutes I knew this would be my finale map. Now I can do two laps before the time runs out because I've gotten used to all the tricks and traps. Simply put, this map is incredible to race on, and an absolute joy with friends. I tried removing the filters and then racing on it, but it was missing the mystery, the pizazz, and the flavor that makes this map unique. Seriously can not wait to see what you come up with next. 9/10