Dead World is a Reach Zombies Game with RPG Elements. BOOM! One of your engines spontaneously combusts as you are flying over a tropical paradise off the coast of New Alexandria. The Pelican you were riding, unfortunately, was packed with no jetpacks or parachutes, so you can either: 1) Bail Out, or 2) Ride the Pelican until it impales itself into the side of a mountain. You choose not to go with the latter. You bail, and you fall into the mountain range. You awaken to find yourself in different parts of the tropical islands, away from your squad and no idea where you are. Suddenly, as you see strange creatures with sword-shaped extensions of their hand, you realize this was not a mistake. Dead World is an infection gametype and map variant that utilizes the whole Forge World. After your bail, you spawn in different parts of Forge World. Meet up with your squadmates (or go alone) Team Up (Or Betray Them), and find a base to hold out at (Or Go Nomad). It's all about choices in this game. There are multiple bases to loot or hold out at, there are vehicles scattered about, and there are secrets to be unlocked. Be careful though, because though weapons are plentyful, ammo is Very scarce. Enjoy! Find this map on "mackjr1234"'s fileshare. (Sorry I can't get any Pics or a Vid, my capture card is broken and there are no ways to get pics until 343 gets a system up.)
I see what you mean. When we were testing, the player count recommended was 12-16. We only have Two Starting Zombies, but they move pretty fast, so the Zombie count goes up pretty fast. It's all about teamwork.
I don't see how this comment, other than by bumping, could ever be useful or suggestive for the thread creator. Please keep your irritations to the specifically created threads in the Discussion forums, or create such a thread yourself. You're not helping this guy with saying such things in here. The idea for this map seems pretty interesting, but like Waterfallninja, I also fear that this could be disappointing for smaller parties, with less starting zombies. I'm wondering how you made use of the environment of entire Forge World, because unlike most people that try to use this whole area, it seems that you knew what you were doing when creating this. I'm looking forward to seeing actual screenshots and what it plays like.
If you wish, I'll get some pics on my Fileshare and you can take a look at them. Like Ninja said, the map is pretty boring with less than at least 10 people on the map. When it gets up to 16, however, the map is pretty fun! There are many small to medium-sized bases and camps to hold out at, and I recently just added a small Boat that you can hold out at, with a Tank Cannon on the top. The Tank is completely unable to get out of the area, however. The Island is littered with the Crash Site, the Barge, and the weapon shop. The weapon shop seems impossible to get into, but there is also a sewer entrance on the island... Montana/Alaska is the most sensible area to hold out at, with 1 small base and 2 medium sized base to go to. A bridge links Montana and Alaska, and there are multiple pathways to get into the area. The Canyon is basically empty, besides a UFO-Shaped building somewhere near the middle. The Cave has one Clubhouse based building to hold out at, accessible by a gravity-lift.
Upon testing this last night, there is one word that fits this map all too well: Unconsolidated. It's just too damn big and unorganized. I'd suggest bringing the action into one area of focus (the Island seemed to be that area) and organizing the structures around that instead of peppering random spots amongst all of Forge World.
Wasn't really much of a test TBH; the majority of the actual testers left before I even finished, but I see your point. I don't like the idea of bringing all the action to one spot, because that's what I'm trying to get away from (a cluster**** of people in one spot). I want to have different events going on around the place, even if you don't see all the events. If you want to test it again, the majority of the people that test it on a regular basis don't really travel to the Island, even though that's were the inital spawns are. You respawn in different parts of the Forge World. You may have 2 or 3 people spawn in the island, and then 2 or 3 in Alaska, Hemmorhage, etc. I don't think many people actually tried to test the map, rather bash it for being out of the ordinary. If you tested it with the regulars that test it, you will see that the action is in not just the island, but all around the map.
Carter - I'd be very cautious of dismissing the criticisms you get out of hand like this. The feedback you got last night was from mostly people who are both experienced players and forgers. There's nothing wrong with trying to do something extremely different, but you have to understand that your map will be played by a lot of people who aren't part of your regular testing crew and are experiencing the map just like many of us did last night: abruptly and without much explanation of how it "should" play. If your map is going to really succeed on a broader level, it needs to make sense and be fun for these people as well as for you as its creator, and your friends who understand what you were shooting for when you built it. I definitely appreciated the attempt to do something different, but I don't think it worked for reasons I expressed in the TCOJ recap thread. I'd be happy to go into more detail here or there, as you prefer.
Why don't we go into a game of forge with each other to discuss the problems of the map (at your earliest convenience), so I can fix it on the spot. I find it difficult to fix any problems when only problems of the map are notified, but there are no solutions offered. Maybe you can help solve the problem, but I'm not solving the problem by compressing the map to one zone.
Unfortunately I'm not online as much as I'd like to be - Tuesday nights and weekends tend to be about the extent of it. But if you are insistent on using all of Forge World for the map, I don't think anything I could show you in forge is going to matter. The basic issue is that the map takes up a huge amount of real estate in which people are able to free-roam, so whether someone is encountering zombies/having fun is essentially random. I went to the island every time (because I spawned near it) and at times didn't see another living (or undead!) soul for minutes on end, even though our party was huge. That's problematic. When I did see them, they were moving at warp speed, which I believe is practically necessary because of the size of the map; but that makes them very hard to shoot, although I had a sniper which made it a bit easier (I was able to miss multiple shots and still take them out before they got too close). On a less important note, I still don't understand the reason for the opening "drop" and it sets a strange tone for the game to start off by dying. (EDIT - Never mind, I just read your first post in this thread. I don't think this really works. I know now that you're trying to create a fiction for the game, but as experienced by us players, there's no sense of a ship exploding or us falling and being "scattered" around the map. It felt like exactly what it was: spawning high in the air all next to each other, falling to our deaths, then respawning somewhere else. Sadly, we are all too familiar with Halo mechanics to see past this to the story you're telling.) Also, one thing I forgot to mention in the recap thread - it's a bit of an issue that humans can commit suicide with no penalty (except for the last man). I did that a couple times just to avoid the possibility of being infected. But if you turn that off, you have a different problem: the map is so vast and open/unrestricted that humans will die sometimes by falling off cliffs or into the water. I have no real advice on that except to point out that this is another disadvantage of the map size. If it were smaller you'd be able to protect the humans from themselves a little bit more, and then make it like regular infection where suicides turn you into a zombie.
If you want to use all of Forge World, it might be a good idea to go with Invasion instead of Infection. Then you can use the objectives to give players some direction and take advantage of fire-team spawning to help mitigate the impact of spawning alone with miles of empty map around you. That said, you might want to consider trimming a few areas. I appreciate the desire to play a map with a much larger scope, but Forge World isn't designed to be one map. It's designed to be several maps, all smushed together. Trying to use all of them means they're all under-used and you've got a headache and a half trying to get them all connected in a reasonably coherent manner. If I were inclined to build a massive scale map like that, I personally would probably go for something along the lines of the canyon, the cave/tunnel, and the coastline, or the island, coastline, cave, and a piece of the canyon. A more limited map like that focuses the gameplay and helps keep the players close enough to engage each other once in a while. You can use structure to keep things spaced out and keep the encounters unique and isolated, and still have things close enough together that a player will have a chance to move to and support a team-mate in trouble. Oh, don't get too bothered by negative feedback. Often times it's the most useful feedback you'll get, and getting all prickly with people who have tested your map doesn't exactly entice them to test with you again in the future. All-of-Forge-World maps are an acquired taste, and it's a small niche of players that have acquired it. The majority are looking for the mainstream Halo experience, so that's the direction their feedback will likely direct you.