I have a unique piece palette for each map that's usually floating around somewhere, but i just decided to make a generic starter prefab on top of that.
Got this one to a playable state, still not completely happy with the design yet, but I want to get a couple games on it before I really delve into developing it further. Calling it Revel.
Just playing with aesthetics and lighting. No way I'm going to be able to make something like this playable without running out of pieces. But it looks nice. EDIT: I'm just a forge poser. I make pictures not maps.
Perhaps I should rephrase. With the apparent end of free Forge updates and the framerate issues left in their wake, along with the complete radio silence from 343 following the disbanding of the cartographers, it feels like the community has slowed way down. Looks like everyone has largely shifted focus to mini games while people responsible for core maps have moved on. It hasn't slowed down to MCC levels, but at least there were still core contests being held.
Well i'm checking in after a week to say i've scrapped all of my projects indefinitely, as they all pose a critical flaw that I cannot overcome: Respawns. I can't design for respawning. Or perhaps the term is reusing. My maps don't hold up under the repeated pressure of player aggression because Halo players like to sit and spawn camp and I don't know how to stop that from happening. I'm a Campaign Forger. I make things for scope and scale and the linear experience of moving towards a destination. I could probably even design Firefight spaces, but players like to break the game and pretty much all I ever see is how to spawn trap someone. I like how all my stuff looks, but I can't make things for sitting there and throwing grenades at the spawn hives. It makes no sense to me and it's probably because I don't even play the game anymore. I've disliked Slayer since it turned into a team shooting game, and I never liked anything else outside of BTB where respawning isn't a problem if you don't make a shitty terrain map (like most BTB maps). Without 1 Flag or Invasion in this game (no I'm not going to play Invasion without Elites), there's nothing for me to really Forge for. If Extermination wasn't boring as hell it'd be right up my alley, but I'm at a loss I guess. It's frustrating Forging for weeks and producing absolutely nothing when I can get more done doing literally anything else... until my mind pulls me back to Forge and the cycle repeats again.
I want to play on my maps and there's nothing to play on them. Invasion is a hodge podge mess of scripting that I don't care for and nobody plays Infection seriously. There's no point in investing hours into the Halo engine if I'm not going to get the most out of a map being in Halo. If I was that passionate about level design, I'd just use a different engine. But I want to make things that are actually relevant, and it just looks like there's no place for me in the game anymore.
Well, the invasion prefabs make it so you need to know practically 0 scripting. And I think linear invasion could be awesome and serious it just hasn't been done properly yet.
Cuz what's the point? Invasion was a perfect blend of multiplayer and campaign spectacle. The canonical attack vs defense and the musical interludes combined with the progressing level and changing objectives made it feel like an event. The differences in the armament and abilities of each side made the gameplay interesting just as much as the progression did. But now if I want to give one team Covenant weapons, someone is going to be bitching because they aren't Elites anymore.
Well that's kinda minor and I don't think that should stop you. Regardless I meant to say I don't think linear INFECTION has been done properly yet, not invasion
It breaks all suspension of disbelief for the same reason it would in Destiny if the other team weren't playing Fallen or Hive. But at least in Destiny I don't have ugly ass Spartans fighting each other. **** 343's War Games simulator. Infection is almost always anticlimatic to me because one person gets all the kills and the round ends before you see the last 50% of the map. It's whatever though maybe they'll put Invasion proper back in Halo 6 and then I wont have to whine. But at this point I'm clearly out of my element and I think my time is better spent doing something else. /end blog etc. etc.
I'm going full Halo 3 oldschool with my newest one. We could discuss what could be done to enhance the linear infection experience.
I was really hoping that when H5 dropped Infection we would have infected skin options between Inf. Spartan, Flood, and Promethean.