Hey you! This is part 4 of a transcript, to have context please visit the previous articles Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- C: Yes and no. It depends on what people have in their hands, and you can control it pretty easily with the Banshee. But in Big Team Battle you have all those variables, and you are just more like a strike unit, you just go in bomb and get the hell out as fast as you can. In 4 v 4 kind of the same thing except you just like, you know you have more free reign because it is four people trying to shoot one guy who is in the sky. So now those people have to be looking up rather than where other enemies could be coming from. K: I just think that if they, do not really need to improve its damage resistance, as long as its main cannon gets buffed. Banshee Bomb blast radius, maybe a little bit bigger, you know so you can get some double kills and such because you know, it is a banshee. But if it is weak, but it has high damage output or not, I would like moderate to high damage output. Then I think it would still remain balanced in 4v4, but then actually be more viable in Big Team Battle, but I do agree with you though how you know easily shot down that Banshee is that it probably could give it the unnecessary 2.0. No, that layouts definitely and you get a big rework though (Estuary). I mean, I am still going to want to try to do inversesymmetrical for it I am going to have to figure that out, I mean I have an idea. So I work at a printing press right, that is kind of what I do now in my adult life and, uh...and a lot of times we have like these like sheets like on some of the main consoles you have like little Chinese markers and we use these little like, they are kind of like a Crayola-esc marker kind of thing, but what I use them for and so do some of my coworkers is we use them a lot to draw, like sketch out the stuff or write notes for the other shifts or any of that kind of stuff. Right, you know, we are drawing a little fun goofy stuff today actually. Like Kilroy, that little thing from World War Two that our soldiers and British soldiers used to like draw “Kilroy was here.” It is like a little goofy guy with a big nose peeking over a ledge really simple cartoon and a cool piece of history. But lately what I have been doing is actually, anything I am really inspired by to get me more pumped to Forge again. I have been just drawing little layouts, you know, little layouts or concepts trying to like in a visual way figure out how this...how would this work, how would that work, and I dripped, pulled out, stressed out these designs. So that is definitely one I am going to be going back to you on when Halo Infinite’s Forge releases. It is going to have scriptable drawbridges, whether it plays well or not I do not know, but it will be there. C: A lot, a lot of people do the writing down stuff, whether it be on a piece of paper or like you were saying with your printing press stuff, uh, a lot. A lot of people have been doing that for quite some time now, and I mean I am one of those people that free hands it, so I am an oddball, I guess but It is always great to see that people become very invested not only in Forge as a hobby and / or career, but like the design craft just in general, it is just like...making those cool designs with just a pen and paper it’s amazing how much time and effort we can just put into a paper sketch just to build it a few days/hours later. K: I would actually recommend you do like Birds Eye view layouts and then, like occasionally, kind of like having a 3-dimensional or 2D isometric, sketched or try to do a somewhat 3D sketch of what the space would look like because it does help. I have been doing that since Halo 4 for some maps, you know maps. I do not just freehand like 4 v 4s and stuff like that. I do use sketches, Squally actually, Ido not know if you ever going to interview Squally on this podcast or this little interview. C: Maybe at some point! K: Yeah, one thing a friend of mine who is also a pretty notorious Forger shared with me is that he actually gets a little whiteboard and he like sketches out the layout ideas from there and he had like different colors, like potentially like layer it. Ya know? Like red is the third floor, Blues bottom floor, that kind of stuff and he gets like into it with that. I think that is really cool method like I actually kind of want to get a whiteboard out just to do that. C: The only thing that I remember of the whiteboards is when 343 was doing the streams in Halo 5 and then Quinn del Hoyo did the whiteboard meme that we all meme’d about for like a good like 2 weeks and then it died. With a grenade explosive radius Haha. Uh, Speaking of...speaking of like friends and designs and stuff, you mentioned before that there has been like a lot like when it comes to your inspirations. You mainly get inspired by friends like wanting to like, have fun with them and stuff. Where would you recommend for people to start making friends in the Forge community? Would you recommend just going into like theForgeHub discord or just a Forge discord in general? Or just like trying to like to hang out, make friends that way? Or would you recommend just joining it up in custom game lobbies that they see going on and just kind of chatting? K: Both. It sucks because as Gaming has evolved it has begun to become kind of a close to our vest right? Not a whole lot of people go into custom game lobbies and chat, or even go into matchmaking and talking in chat too much. It's a whole different topic though, but you really if you want to make more friends and specifically like Forgers and stuff like that. Uh, the simplest method, this worked for me in Far Cry, sit down, search for maps, find a cool one, message that guy that made it, and message him, “Hey, I liked your map. It is really awesome. Could you talk to me about map design sometime?” done. I had in a total of me existing one or two people do that do that to me and one of I still keep in contact with right now, and that little, that little sucker he did that with a bunch of orders and he knows a lot of Forgers and Forgers know him. Is he the most prominent Forger? Hell, no. You know, but he is really good and up and coming because he reached out. He took the initiative. So yeah, getting in discords and stuff like that will help that helps strengthen your bonds with people, but the simplest way, in my opinion, Message them on Xbox Live / Discord. “I like your map.” Done 'cause not only will they probably respond but that may be the beginning of a new beautiful partnership. C: Yeah, or I guess since MCC and Infinite are cross-platform I guess Steam as well would also work, but. K: Yeah, on Steam as well. Uh, or for instance, let us say you are not in discord and you happen to know that guys in the discord and whatever acceptable channel allows you to do this @ them. Be like, “Hey! I played on your map. It was really cool! I am actually trying to get into Forge myself. If you ever have the time, would you mind hitting me up?” but yeah, that that kind of method I kind of find it always works whether it isDMing them. To clarify I am not saying harass them, but it helps and I will tell you this, I bet you will make that guy's day too, getting getting your random message going “Hey your map’s awesome! It inspired me!” Yeah it makes them go “ooo, my work is being valued” Effective way to make a friend right there. C: Oh, 100%. Uh, Speaking of valued maps, what would you say is one of your favorite creations from the community that you have seen, whether that be a favorite map and or a minigame? Or even if it is like an art piece or something that you saw someone make in Forge? K: Well, I am not ready for this question there isI have seen so many awesome maps and stuff. I should be a troll and say duck hunt Haha... C: First ones that come to your head. K: Oh my goodness. Okay. I...I... dude it is....so this is kind of a hard question for me because when I get bored, I go on, back in the day, it was like map file browse and the same thing now, but I would go and I would browse it and back in the day you would have to just kind of guess as you would only get a description and a map name and based on that I would check out the map and I would check that kind of stuff out, so I see a lot of really cool stuff. So, if we do recently, I would say a lot of this stuff in MCC that people are doing with like game type modding is really cool. C: Oh 100%. Dude, if Cashew was around nowadays in the game type modding scene my God that would be like he would be going off. K: Oh, it would be over. Yeah, I would say though I find a lot of really cool like 4 v 4s in Halo 5 by people who are not necessarily, this, in my opinion, are like widespread known and I love checking out their stuff like that is why I like to do, I know it is a prettyNon answer but, I just can not...I can not narrow it down to a specific thing. I really can not. I mean like you, you can have people like Squid Loaf who make really cool and interesting puzzle maps. And then you got people like DarkDe4th that is going there and making one of the coolest structures in Halo into a Big Team Battle maps like Ancestor and it's just... C: Or his old school Jurrasic Park Infection maps! K: Yeah that too! Lord knows Weeman loves that stuff too, but yeah, I can not pick there is just so much out there that I can not just be like, “This is my favorite over everything.” I can not do it, I can not pull that. C: I get it and I understand that, and hey, you named quite a few forges there and quite a few maps. So I mean, hey, if anyone is watching why not go and check those out, go check them out. It's always a good time to just check out new stuff, even that you may not have seen before, especially with forgers that either have been around for a while or have not then and you have just heard their name. K: Squally has actually made a recent 4 v 4 that I kind of like he has kind of showed me it from the very beginning called Bastion. Big old like gravity lift in the middle. I liked that beat that map though because it does something very unconventional. Right? It's like you do not really see people trying to you see it, but you do not see people really trying to like push the whole unorthodox stuff anymore. Like for instance the reason I like Bastion is it tries pushing for that unorthodox construct style lifts. You know you have those two side purple lips and that big old orange lift in the back of Halo 3 construct and it is just very much not a typical layout approach and he kind of took that element and incorporated it in something that was a bit more playable and competitive. I think stuff like that is really awesome. So like any map that really challenges something that is unbalanced, something that is considered too casual for competitive play and tries incorporating it. I think that is really cool. Many games were also awesome Stalemates makes some really cool maps. C: Squally Da Beanz makes great maps, Colson makes great maps, Psychoduck used to make great maps too, but like he does not Forge anymore, which is sad but I mean, hey, maybe he will come back with Infinite even though he works there through for 343 to my knowledge. K: Hopefully like dude, I am sorry to cut you off as that is really rude to do, but you know what? Something, something recently that just broke out on H2A was that AbleSir Thomas’s crew like General Trex and all of them, the guys that are still kind of like trying to keep a little community going on with MCC one thing that is really cool is people who were trying to keep MCC alive and doing some really cool interesting stuff over there are making some really cool stuff to be shown off very soon! I can not say what is really cool about it all I can say is a lot of people and a lot of Forgers are still trying to keep MCC alive and very much valid. Are putting together something really awesome for the community. C: That is sick! K: And it's going to be on H2A, so that's something to look out for. I am pretty excited about that. I playtested it a little bit, so I can definitely say it is pretty interesting. I'd love to love to see people going back and making older Halo games more relevant. C: 100%, especially like with all the updates MCC's got with the Thorage Update everything, honestly, like I get I am biased because I have been fortunate a lot, but I honestly kind of think Halo 4’s Forge has slowly become the best one on the collection because of all the Forge pieces that got added in. But I mean that is probably a very biased opinion when it comes to MCC Forge. But whatchamacallit I mean, I know a lot of people have been doing a lot of really cool things that custom game browser content there for the custom mods both for Infection and Invasion in reach, and then like there's also some cool stuff that I've seen in Halo 3 I think I could be wrong on that, but there are a lot of cool things that I have seen too. K: Yeah, it would be interesting to see if 343 kind of picks up on that. Like for instance, even if it does not necessarily affect gameplay, add in a Pelican. It could be cool to see it being added to the action sack playlist. C: Some of those custom game browser mini games too. K: Absolutely some people could like make rust and stuff like that. Me I want that one, I want it even if it takes forever but still dude. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Part 5