Burial Mounds Here is a Halo 2 classic: Burial Mounds This map has been fun but also very challenging to recreate. Like many of you, I do enjoy playing customs on remakes, and since no one has yet posted a Burial Mounds remake, I decided that my first forging attempt would be to recreate Burial Mounds as accurately as possible, using my copy of Halo 2. I hope you guys enjoy playing on this, especially when it is no longer in beta form. Please feel free to test this and give me your feedback, and I will continue improving on it as often as I am able. To download: Press Start > "File Browser" > "Map Variants" > "File Share Search" > "Gamertag" > Type "K3N0S1S" > "Search" > "Burial Mounds" > Press Y > "Download" These shots were taken with my iPhone... Better shots will probably come later, when the file share service is up and running...
This was one of my favorite maps to play on Halo 2. I don't know how accurate you were able to get it cause I know it has deep trenches and lots of steep hills. Yeah the landscape would be almost impossible to re create . Did you keep the warthog ?
This was one of my favorites on Halo 2 as well, especially for 1 Flag CTF. The hills and trenches are not quite as steep as I would have liked due to limitations on the Ravine environment, but the warthog and ghost are still there.
I like the look so far, seems pretty accurate. And while I know the original map had sets of 3 plasmas, let's be honest here, you can't actually hold that many and the ability to spawn with plasma's makes is to you already end up having plenty on the map. For the warthog's sake I would remove those grenade drops.
Thanks! For the warthog's sake (and to limit the number of ordinance indicators), I probably will go ahead and remove the plasmas sometime today and then re-upload it.
I can't say I remember too much from burial mounds so my feedback will be based off of my perspectives not a remake perspective. The second and 5th screenshots look like you have some long sight lines and its very open. Not sure what you could do about that and still keep the hog easily maneuverable. I'm sure you could find something though. I'm liking the atmosphere of the 6th picture with just huge wreckage looming on either side of you, it's pretty cool.
I'll be honest, even though Ravine has the rocks and some dips I think one of the asteroids on Impact would be better for making this. More room to make it right, and you could stylize the ribs and base with spacey stuff. It's a hard one, no doubt. Kinda sucks Impact is the only one worth forging on :/
Not true to te dedicated forger (as we see here) ravine has great potential with the natural setting looking great and the natural rocks from forg menu make some impressive scenery, impact is to blah for me just space stuff way to bland. As for the map looks awesome burial mounds was my sniping paradise, heads up to help limit those ordinance drops, set weapons out and put the respawn timer to w/e u want makes it less crazy for the player. I'm tempted on my ascension map to do no ordinance drops or 2 variants for those who Wana play more classic style. But from what I can tell it looks true to the original ill download and check the scale etc tomorrow.
Just got done walking around in it. The rib cage needs some work. On the right side of the rib cage right here you can see that the walls are sloped allowing you to walk up them a little bit. Also in between those slopes you need to add a wall for cover. Just examine the image and you'll see what I mean.
Thanks for the suggestion, Tycho. I think I see what you mean regarding the walkable slopes. I originally didn't include that functionality there, just because I figured that if I focused too much on the slopes within the gully I would end up covering more and more of the Ravine's natural ground with forge pieces, but I may look into it and see if I'm able to come up with something there.
I know that none of the rock pieces will be exactly right for the shapes that the original had, especially because there was that rib-cage, bone structure.... but I do think this map will look a lot beter with most of the pieces as rocks not building block pieces. The shapes won't be right, but the look will be much closer to original. Just a thought. This was one of my favorites in H2 as well. Good lluck and however it ends up it still looks like a good map to play. [br][/br]Edited by merge: oh, and I want to add that what I'm doing on a level is to make only the beasty weapons ordinance drops, that way newbies to the level know where the good weapons are stashed, but also medium to regular strength weapons end up being regular weapon spawns... oldschool style. Leaves fewer icons on the HUD.
Yeah, I completely agree that rocks would look better than building block pieces. One of the biggest challenges I ran into was the limited quantity of rocks and walls. Unfortunately I ran out of both items... lol [br][/br]Edited by merge: Oh, and I forgot to mention... concerning the weapons ordinance... Last night I removed the plasma grenade drops and re-uploaded the map to my file share. I'm wondering if I should remove the needlers as well. I may end up doing that, depending on how the community feels about it. I'll probably be updating/tweaking this beta version on a daily basis for the most part until we're all satisfied with it, so please everyone, keep telling me what you think. And I'll keep improving on this project so that hopefully we can all enjoy playing customs on it.
you could get creative about your interpretation of the original, and perhaps avoid using some rocks where you think it is needed, in favor of giving this remake a more authentic look. here's what I mean... if I look at the screenshot of the original above, I see that there are spires and level architecture that is built using rocks. There is also a high number of lighter colored rocks placed around the level. If you replace those smaller rocks with crates, or something else, you may free up a number of rocks to be used as architecture. That spire and the outside of the base would benefit greatly from this, I think. Also, it's too bad we can't have a desert-like environment to forge on... I have ideas of things I would like to do but w/ grass or asteroid textures I'm not sure they would work
Yeah, I see what you mean; I've actually been thinking about trying to substitute some of those brown-colored bridge pieces where some of the rocks are in the gully area. I may give that a try next time I go in to tweak stuff. If it works, I'll try using some more rocks near both bases and then update the file share it if it all works out.
I say regarding the weapons and even maybe the structures (it looks fine from what I seen), but mostly the weapons, you should make a classic variation of the map. Include all original weapon and grenade spawns for people who just want to play on the original and not a modified version.
That's a great idea. I actually plan on making a classic variation with all classic Halo 2 weapon drops/respawn times, etc. once I make the transition from beta to final version. That way I won't have to tweak things on two variants of the same map leading to final release. In the meantime, though, (for fun and testing purposes) I will keep the ordinance drops limited strictly to those weapons which are exclusive to the map (beam rifle, unsc sniper, rocket, etc.). Thanks so much for your input, you guys.
forge pieces seem to not really work for this one. really, it doesn't look good. maybe you could keep the layout, but for the look of the map, it might be better to re-imagine it.
This evening I plan to re-upload the map to my file share, as I have made a few more changes to the beta (including some aesthetic stuff). I also found some small gaps and fixed those. I'll probably get some better screenshots to post as well. As for the look of the map... I completely agree that the forge pieces don't look good for this particular remake (or for most remakes, to be honest). I don't think I'll be re-imagining the map, though, only because the priority for this remake is accuracy rather than aesthetics. Hopefully those who enjoyed Halo 2 will have fun playing some customs on this map. But I will keep tweaking the map and attempting to make it more visually appealing. Thank you for the suggestion.