Elation is now a Forge Hub featured map. Please post your comments in the new thread, located HERE. Overview: So, after much deliberating, brooding, and slaving away, I'm releasing Elation. This map works for all gametypes, but it's heart and soul is in symmetrical objective games. The Bungie defaults should be sufficient, but feel free to play with whatever settings you want. It's a sort of horseshoe shaped map which allows for teamwork, high-ground control, vehicular combat, pseudo-acrobatic maneuvers, and just plain fun. This is certainly my best competitive map to date. I've enjoyed a lot of games on it so far, and I hope you folks will as well. Links: Download Elation Map Haiku How to get around... Hold the damn elevator! Find yourself a ghost. Screenshots and further description: Brute Here's a shot of the action area of the map. The double box we're floating above is open and contains an active camo powerup. The weapon holders on the left and right hold a brute shot and a bubble shield, respectively. The upright barriers form a lane for fast (but dangerous) mongoose travel. The ramps lead up to the top level, where you'll find some power weapons. Base Here's a picture of the bases you'll be working from. The bomb plant point and flag spawn points are in the open area between the two boxes, while the bomb spawn is up top and the flag return is within the open box. Don't worry about spawn camping. I promise the spawning system works. Your team has access to 2 plasma rifles, 2 smg's, a magnum, a plasma pistol, a turret, and a mauler with which to hold off attackers. There's also a sniper not far away. The teleporter in the corner of each base leads straight into the action area. Or, you can grab a mongoose and burn it over to your opponents. Chute Once you leave your base, you'll be heading through this area. There are a few BR's scattered about and a couple spikers for those of you who forgot your gun at the base. The fence box in the top left houses a ghost if you can get to it. And the little tunnel you see in the distance has a firebomb and a shotgun available for anyone who takes the time to crouch. A grav-lift at the end of the little passageway will take you to the top of the corner structure. You can also enter the tunnel quickly with a mongoose. Garage This is the same area from a different angle. You'll note the mongoose in its little garage. Also, it is possible to grenade jump up to the center of the map, but it's only worth it occasionally. Coil When you come around the corner leading out of the chute, watch out above you, or you might eat a fusion coil from above. Both the spool-stack and forklift are destructible cover, so watch out if you're a hider. The column in the center of the picture here is 'the shedding tower' Explosions will send pallets flying, making it tougher to navigate on a 'goose. Also, you can use the pallets to jump into the elevated ghost garage if you're creative. Elevator Looking right into the ground-floor hole from the previous shot, we see the elevator foyer. There's a regenerator and firebomb in the sunken box, and a hammer-spawn in the center. The elevators in the back of the shot are operated by standing on a crate and throwing a grav-lift at your feet. It's a fast (and sneaky) way to get to the rockets up top, or just away from your attackers. Jumps You can also use the sunken box to jump up to the top floor or get to the ghost garage. It just takes a little acrobatic skill. Ghosts Voila the ghost garage and launch-ramp. Pretty self explanatory. The ghosts are a fairly powerful weapon once you get them out on the ground floor. A skilled driver can even get the ghost up to the top floor. Teleporter Here's the exit from the base-teleporters. It's got just enough cover that you don't get murdered immediately. You should probably not chase a flag-carrier through the teleporter if you can avoid it... Use a 'goose instead. Flags Never let a 1 on 1 like this happen. Back up your friends. Top to back Here's an overview of the top level. The weapon holder behind the blue guy spawns the rocket launcher and there's a power-drainer up here for some extra base-breaking ability. Top To elevator Here's the top from another view. Not much to say here. You can see where the elevators lead off in the back. Winner! And finally, here's a picture of me scoring the game-winning, near-triple kill on Sargeant Sarcasm using my patented grav-lift-face-smash technique. Again, please enjoy the map. Thanks to all my testers. Your suggestions were great. And special thanks to Neverless Wonder, for all his help.
The map was really fun to play on, good job on the post it's very tour like, I love it. I see you decided to take the P59 part out of it, oh well. I still own you on this map though. Personally I think you might want to substitute this for Noob Arena in your app. Regardless, you've done some good work here Chunky McRicker.
Squidhands' Furiously Tentacular Review Enjoyment: I have to say that this is where Cosmic Rick shines. I’ve yet to play a map of his where I don’t really mind getting my ass handed to me. Elation is probably your best work to date for a competitive objective map. Durability: The map is solid, there’s no way to break out of it. There is a possibility of rendering the elevators useless for a little while, but they seem to reset themselves eventually. It’s also possible to get stuck in the grav lifts coming up from the shotgun areas, so hope you don’t get spotted by the enemy like I did. It doesn’t end pretty. Aesthetics: Again, this is another aspect of all of Rick’s maps that he excels in. Foundry is difficult to make it look pretty, but Cosmic does his best to add his ‘pieces of flair’ if you will to make the different areas of the map stand out from one another. The “Shedding Tower†(the name alone makes me wish I thought of it), the elevator with the protective shield doors and the ‘going up’ disabled receiver node are just a few examples of the care in the aesthetic design that went into this. Originality: While not entirely original, there are some nice touches that make Elation stand out from some of the other maps designed for objective games. I really like the second floor Ghost Garage, and the sneaky little shotgun rooms were pretty sweet as well. And I can’t begin to tell you how many times those Teleporters saved my hide. Balance: For our CTF game, the map seemed pretty well balanced. I never saw any glaring issues with weapon placement or respawning. Overall: Another well made map from Cosmic Rick. I would definitely include this on your Guilder application.
The Furious Review By: JediWithASniper Here are my ratings and review. Enjoyment: 8 out of 10 Balance: 8 out of 10 Durability: 6 out of 10 Aesthetics: 7 out of 10 Originality: 7 out of 10 This map was one of the highlights of the review night in my opinion, and while it does not score as high as some maps I've rated, the level of fun that you take away from this map sets the bar pretty high for all those wannabe maps. This map was almost too balanced, which is actually a good thing when you are playing CTF. We must have battled for what seemed like days before we finally scored. When you finally do get the flag, and make it to your base, you feel as though nothing could stop you... That is, until you run into the front end of Furious's BR. I found this map to be quite appealing visually, and if I may say, don't forget to work your way up top, the promise of a Rocket Launcher is just too tempting. I did manage to break the elevator, and entirely by accident. I somehow lodged the platform that carries you up where it could no longer move. This turned out to be a pain, and I barely escaped the elevator shaft with my skin still on. With all the different pieces incorporated into this map, it sails nicely into my top CTF maps. Good build, good concept, great level. My Overall Rating Is: 7 out of 10
I like the overall look of the map, but I'm not a big fan of open spaces. I do realize it's probably not that big of a space, but I personally wouldn't even venture out there.
This map was very fun, and like Jedi said, Multi flag on this took all night... might wanna set a time limit if you play something like that on this map. I really like the look of this map, all of Cosmic's maps really. He's really good at creating a certain feel for all of his maps. The elevator is really sweet, and something I've wanted to do in one of my maps for awhile now. It does break sometimes, but I like it so much I told him he'd better keep it. I like how the Ghosts are tucked away, and only when a team gets desperate do they remember a Ghost is up there. That's how intense the battles are in this map. My main complaints about this map have to do with it's design, or layout. Both teams start in their own base and have a long walk around the middle structure in order to get somewhere, and then they have 3 options of where to go. There is a teleporter, but often that has an enemy sniper constantly trained on it... at least it usually is for me when I play. This means that if you die on the battlefield, you respawn back at your base and have to trek your way back again to where all the action is. It'd be nice to have maybe a side entrance on that middle structure. I can see you wouldn't want it so easily accessible or in plain sight because that would probably drastically change how games are played and it might not be something you want.... but what about... That open box past the sniper that acts as a 'garage' for the mongoose. What if you placed a few pallets to cover the back of it, instead of another box or whatever's there now. That way, people might not notice after awhile and it wouldn't be so easily accessible either since you'd have to break the pallets first. The games I played I never really noticed anyone go in there, so I think this could work really well. Sorry I didn't get this idea to you sooner before you posted this, but there it is. Overall: 7/10 Enjoyment: 8/10 Durability: 8/10 Aesthetics: 7/10 Design: 6/10 Originality: 7/10 Balance: 9/10
Wow, looks like fun.. my only concern is that it looks kinda messy. Is it messy? I know that screenshots aren't the most trust able resources and usually you just have to play the map to find out, so I will.
Turbo: You owned me on this map ONCE (you might have beaten me other times badly enough that I forgot, though). Rematch tonight! Starbird and Gunslinger: Thanks Squidhands: Excellent. I look forward to your review. Jedi: Yup. The elevator is the weak point. It's always worked for me in game, but it IS possible to get them knocked enough out of alignment that they don't work quite right. Glad you liked it overall. And I was going for that epic, long CTF experience. My favorite halo games were those 2 hour long flag games on blood gulch back in the day. This plays kind of like that (the teleporters, mostly), so I'm happy with the game-flow. Ty: Yeah, but there's cover along the back way and through the center. Good maps have a balance of both cover and openness (especially if you want to be able to use ghosts/mongooses). You can always grab a shotgun and hide behind a pillar if you want, though. Neverless: Glad you enjoyed it as well. Thanks for the review and the suggestions. I wouldn't have taken the pallet-tunnel idea anyway, though. It's good, but the map plays the way I wanted it to as is. The center area wouldn't be as much of a battlefield and it'd become more of a "hey, let's see if I can get to the flag without seeing anybody?" map. I'm definitely glad I've got you as a resource for map testing/ideas, though. RossDawgg: It's not messy to start with, but there are a number of barrels, pallets, and other scenery that get pushed around and blown about in-game (and for the screenshots). It makes it feel a bit more dynamic. I assume that's what you're talking about. VestigeL: Thanks. This map is probably my most planned-out to date.
Striker, Dew, and Toochie: Thanks much. If you end up playing a round, let me know what you thought of it.
I remember seeing this right when you were getting it started. I played the final version (at least I think it was final. Maybe a beta. Or a gamma :squirrel_shiftyeyes and it was a blast to play. When I first saw it I thought it would be so easy to grab the flag and run, but it really isn't. You have to have some tactics when you go for it. Definitely worth a download or two.
I definitely had a good time playing on this map with you. Assault was my favorite I think (Maybe because I was on the winning team that time). But I love the elevators. Were you the one who evaded my kill by using one of them? That was too cool.