Hey guys, I was thinking about how I finish maps in less than a week and I see people taking weeks to make their map. So if anyone could, post a video clip of you working on Forge. (It doesn't have to show the Forge creation from start to finish) I just want to see what you guys do exactly.
Well, I can tell you it took me about one month to forge Mutiny, then I tore it down to just the bow and started over with Flight Deck, which took me another six weeks IIRC. I would stay up till 5 in the morning, go to work at 8, come home and repeat. Are any of your maps as complex or of the scale as Flight Deck? Then again, Rising Dead took me 6 hours from start to finish, including tweeks after playing with friends. I've gotsa get me an avatar...
The better maps are usually the ones that get put together over a period of time, because this allows for planning, testing, tweaking, re-testing, tweaking, etc.. Though some gems do pull through in a mad fury of fast-forging and on-the-fly planning, it's often better to do the former than the latter and spend time planning.
My forge sessions tend to be incredibly boring. To get an idea, if I don't have one, I'll start randomly throwing stuff together for a while, getting a backbone for the map, or at least a tiny idea, and building off that. I rebuild maps over and over. I'll build it one way, focusing around a certain incentive, and then tear it down to the minimum, keeping only what I thought was perfect, and repeat that. Because of this, maps can take me forever to make.
I also forge fast, usually a few days and a map can be made start to finish, maps that people take months to post are made and remade, tweeked around tests and custom matches. The best way is to have a plan, if you know what you are going to make it will be a lot quicker than trying random ideas.
I like to think of a specific game-play element or set of pieces that I want my map to revolve around. My favorite maps have been where I just start forging and see what happens, though this only works if you've got some experience under your belt and kind of know what it is you're doing, even though there isn't a solid plan. The initial build that I submit for testing is usually done in 3-4 days, which include a few tests before submitting to the TG just to work out the obvious problems.
I call shenanigans! on the first part of your post. I built my first puzzle map over a period of six months and I still don't like it. I believe the best maps are planned in advance, built fast and off of those plans, and tweaked to adapt to the actual game (as in Halo).
I spend a solid 6 hours forging then the next 2 months admiring it and making minor adjustments. ^true story
I Forge on the fly, generally starting with some aesthetic element that inspired me. I am nearly 100% improvisational, and do little to no planning. I'm generally very good at tweaking things for balance on the micro level, but I struggle with the macro level. My current project -- my second serious project, and first advanced project -- is hence undergoing a rebuild. I'm scrapping two thirds of it and have already made good progress on the reconstruction.