While I partially agree with you on the importance of gameplay (I see it as 50/50 really), the maps you used are not very good examples. I remember the release and feature of all of those, and at the time the aesthetics were revolutionary. Kentucky Tango: Mainly the pond was what got people back then. Cosmic Rick took shields, and turned them into water! That was insane. It also uses a good bit of curved interlocking which back then was a hot ticket. It took just flat square blocks and it made them awesome. Temple Nights: This one uses the same thing. It takes an item and revolutionizes its use. In Temple Night's case it was the barrier columns. I believe bungie added so many column options to sandbox because this was such a popular aesthetic choice on foundry. Also it uses the same shield water concept. Rampart: I remember Rampart specifically because I used so many of those aesthetic innovations in my maps. The first being the stair bridge. Who would have though right? Turning stairs upside down and using them as a walkway. Also using a powerup for nothing other than aesthetic appeal by merging it into a transparent object. He does this again inside of the fencebox for nothing other than aesthetic appeal. Everyone just knew that they weren't supposed to interact with those objects. They were just there to look at. Rampart also used the barrier columns (the same as Temple nights and plenty of others too). And last but not least, who could forget the telecompus thing! Ever since maps like rampart did it people got real creative with the teleporter lights. They indicated weapon spawns, spelled things, showed direction, etc. Gameplay is important, but I honestly can't think of any glorified maps on this website that lacked aesthetics.
In Reach MLG I prefer playing on the awful looking Forge maps because they play better than the developer ones. WHAT NOW
It's interesting that you cite Temple Nights (thank you, btw) as an example of function over form. I forged that map with an eye to making it look good (though within the constraints of ugly ass Foundry, and in my early days of forging as well) and actually I think the overall gameplay was sub par. Just my perspective, but I remember similar comments when it came out as well, that it was essentially style over substance. I'm not really too keen on the premise of this discussion, since I think it's a false dichotomy when framed as such. When it's discussed in terms of prioritising one or other, I still think this misses a point about what constitutes "gameplay." Aesthetics is a vague term at best, but in terms of dividing it in to basically "functional" and "immersive" aesthetics (the former being to to do with orientation etc. and the latter being self explanatory), functional aesthetics are obviously a big factor of gameplay rather than something one must offset against it. I believe that when people pose this debate, they're talking more about immersive aesthetics. This is subjective, and I don't see how anyone can argue with that to the point of offering a concrete judgement on how important it is. The way I approach Halo is the basis of how important this is to me. I play it very much as a competitive experience, and so immersion isn't particularly important to me since it isn't really what I look for in a map. It's tangential to my fundamental enjoyment of any map: as a competitive playspace. My appreciation of immersive elements is very "other" to what I want from a map in basic terms. Any sacrifice of function for form will frustrate me at some point, and I think the best example of this is framerate issues. Surely this exemplifies the discussion, as it's the most overarching and wide reaching sacrifice of one for the other. But then people disagree. Some people play Halo much more for the immersive experience, to the extent that they're actually fine with framerate issues since they value the added immersion of the game and maps which causes it. I may not be able to understand this perspective, but I appreciate its existence, and it's very demonstrative of how subjective this discussion is, and thus how moot it is. I think the interesting part of this discussion is how it fits in with the idea of a multiplayer game. Any PvP game such as Halo is competitive at its core. Not in terms of MLG etc. but the basic definition of the word: an act of competition, defined by opposing parties and some measure of relative success or failure (score). I find people who prioritise immersion in such a fundamentally competitive experience....odd. But then I can't debunk their position. I just think it odd. I personally see no way to enjoy a map that doesn't play well at its core, no matter how pretty it is, but then I still find people who will praise maps that I basically disregard in the basis of core design sacrifices. Again, they're entitled to their opinion, and it really is an opinion. There is no answer for how you balance this. You can only really build with your own balance of priorities in mind, otherwise you'll be abandoning a fundamental part of your own judgement and sacrificing making your own map. If I were to ever forge again, I would personally build with a design at the core, and include as much immersive emphasis as possible on top of that. An "icing on the cake" approach, if you will, though quite a thick layer of icing in many cases. It doesn't fit with my Halo mindset to address questions of immersion before solidifying the design itself, but tbh that's just me. I think it's true of a lot of other people as well, but ultimately people will build how they see fit to build. Trying to hedge them in, to my mind, doesn't really make sense. Similarly, you can't tell people what to enjoy or value, and surely this is a truism in pretty much every aspect of life, not just forging.
Not really a fair comparison. I guarantee that if those authors had the Forge we have today those maps would be both aesthetically pleasing and play well.
They were pretty good looking for the time frame I suppose, but if you think about it there was nothing too-fancy. No dissrespect of course, I made a map called Vagabond and I tried to make the map beautiful, but it didn't play as well as I had hoped. Perhaps I could have found better examples of maps since (for the time period), they were above average in aesthetics.
If by aesthetics we are talking about nice patterns on the wall, than it doesn't really affect my impression of the map. The aesthetics I keep in mind is structure, which is also gameplay related as well. A good example of a simple, almost boring looking map that I find appealing due to structure, is Derelict.
As for aesthetics being vague, I disagree. I have pointed to a couple of really good videos that break down aesthetics for us. If people study the term, then they would see how it is being misapplied in their conversations. Perhaps a more accurate way of saying what you said is functional architecture and immersing theme. Aesthetics has a far wider scope of application to the game than either of these two elements. Aesthetics at its core is driven almost entirely by the game system, of which very little can be manipulated by the forger. The term aesthetics refers to the emotions that one derives from playing the game. For example, the challenge of the fire fight, the social aspect of team play, the fantasy of the futuristic setting. These are all driven by Halo per se. You might say that a well functional map helps create challenge, but really it is the mechanics of the game and very little to do with mechanics that the map offers. While the architectures or resulting themes of forging add to the immersing experience, they add very little overall to the aesthetics. After having witnessed the use of this word at FH over the years, I honestly believe that people mean to say artistic or art. From my own use, I tend to mean structural architecture - which is art, since architecture is not and will never be entirely science. For me cohesion of architecture is critical to create a theme that helps immerse the players into "a place" other than a playground filled with blocks. When it comes to Halo 4, we have a visually noisy collection of blocks to forge with, which makes the map appear as a pile of blocks that do not really belong together - there is no cohesion between the blocks in any fundamental way. This is due almost entirely to their skins - both the dramatic colors (contrast) and the multiple lines and patterns.