Author: xSoGx Grim Canvas: Sandbox OLN, no budget Supports: ALL gametypes, multi-team Players: 2-8; (no more than 10 for FFA) more for infection at choice. Download Fissure Over millennia water has etched its mark though rock creating this underground chasm. Weapons: 6 BRs 2 Needlers (90 sec) 2 Bruteshots 8 Plasma Grenades in most key areas 1 Energy Sword (120 seconds) Equipment: 2 regens on the 3rd level Note* I do not wish to ruin gameplay for anyone by placing shotguns or sniper rifles into a cave map. At will anyone can customize their weapons of choice from gametypes. This map is very flexible. A picture's worth a thousand words, exploring the tunnels of this multi-level cave is worth 1000 pictures. So about the map: You will most likely spawn in a cave tunnel system facing an intersection. You will have a choice to remain on the middle level, go up, or down. Eventually you will make your way out of the tunnels and into the main centeral chasm area. Here's where most people go "Woa..!" Considering the fact that you are in an inclosed cave, the sheer scale and aesthetics of the chasm will hopefully impress most people. Although the chasm is fairly narrow a the bottom, it expands with height, and then closes back in at the top. Highround of the chasm consists of a multi-piece water fall. The idea behind is how does a waterflow act as it hits different rocks on the way down. Small pool of water (key in some gametypes), and then a stream which goes downslope and eventually and mysteriously curves to the side and down out of the map. The bottom level tunnels meet at the end of this tunnel, these tunnels contain 1 needler each (very fun to get a few multi-wall bounce kills with, but has a long respawn time.) The middle lever has two overwatches which face each other in the chasm. You can jump from one to another with a very cool feel of clearing the chasm and water far underneath of you. The 3rd level has one large room on each side which serves as a base in a few objective gametypes. There will be some tunnel space and then a bridge which connects the two 3rd levels together. A creative player will be able to jump or just walk off the bridge and land on the overwatches of midlevel creating some interesting combat moments. The map is in fact symmetric Bridge L3 One of the rooms of Level 3 Waterfall Overwatches on L2 Tunnel Intersections Action Shot Creator Notes: This is my 5th and most likely last cave map. I had a long run with forge. Some where around 40 maps on my drive and 5 published here on forgehub. I am ALWAYS open to gameplay feed back, but NOTE that I have drained every resourse with this map including my life energy.. The only thing which I could do with basic Sandbox ojects is to freeze them and mold around them (setting object to respawn-no was not an option). May you find a small flaw, I truelly do appologize and I have most likely busted my everything to fix it but ran out of options. Let Given to Fly be my only judge on that, making caves this size is no cakewalk. There are 73 total spawns throughout this map. Pictures do not do this map justice, the vid will give you an idea, but make sure to check it out for yourself. My entire Halo 3 friendslist have anticipated this map and I can't tell you how many messages I got about it! Once again enjoy everyone! [bungievid]117038651[/bungievid] Download Fissure
Omg is what I said looking at that first picture. Never saw anyone use gravlifts and man cannons to simulate water in such a way, well done. It looks quite promising but perhaps a weapon to list to suggest what we could expect.
He is right this is amazing from the pics. I do want to try it to make sure I like it and can review it accurately. I would like to see more pics of hall ways.
Agreed i never seen a waterfall really like that before, What weapons and gametypes can the map play? It seems very well merged and it looks very smooth.
The map in fact plays every gametype (Slayer, CTF, KoTH, Territories, Juggernaut, Infection, Assualt/neuteral bomb, VIP. Never tested oddball, but in theory should work. Every gametype is tweaked in its own way. Some parts of the cave become key stratigic points where in other gametypes players will just run past. So far my friends list has really enjoyed slayer, capture the flag, infection. Also if you make a cool Juggernaut gametype, it makes up in awesome "cave monster" gameplay lol. Do what you guys can with this map-be creative and let me know how your gameplay turned out.
Make a v2 in Reach. That will be soooo much more epic with all the new features and objects. Yes. You can haz feature.
Wow simply amazing. This map is very unique I have never seen anything like it. When im playing this map it dosn't seem that I am playing halo 3 anymore and I would occasionally stop and back up to see if that was really what I saw. I love it
Hoo rah to that! You do have to remember that although the design is unique, many people attempt to make caves (only a handfull succeed..) And even less venture off in this sort of scale. Anyway still props to anyone that forges in this style. And yes it IS a style. Knowing every forge trick will help, but it takes a good amount of time to learn all the cave techniques. It's 90% puzzle solving (Building process) There's also a video runthrough now.
congrats on making this it inspires every cave maker on forge i think i should make another cave map. to all none believers xSoGx Grim is right cave making is difficult and it is a genre of forge to make caves is to make a deep rocky mess of rocks and sometimes the look sloppy othertimes not
First off, let me say holy sh*t. This has got to be one of the nicest cave maps I have ever seen out of the community. I like the various height changes and tunnels aren't too small. The middle chasm is amazing to say the least. The sheer size alone is remarkable. The middle jump is epic, and The waterfall is beautiful. I have never seen anyone make such an aesthetic, and I am impressed. It really looks like water. I don't remember if I have seen your other caves, but let me say that this is definately my favorite. This is an epic forge my friend. I am looking forward to what you're able to do in Reach, if you're still interested in this style. Good, no... great job my friend. -GTF
Ha ha right on! Ya i've seen some cool combat scenarios. Someone jumping off the bridge to the overwatch and assassinating that person in midair. If you like the map, then I don't know how anyone can't. Other cave maps are smaller, but It's a crazy style to work with and yes I will carry on to Reach. And another note is that KOTH may not work on this map. In forge mode everything should be set up, but it doesn't show up in customs. Either way I don't think I can ever get tired of slayer.. Anyway good luck on your last map.
To start with. WOW, this is the coolest, the nicest and the best cave map i have ever seen. I think this is a start, to better cavemaps, especially more... You have inspired many people with your maps. This is not sandbox, this is a whole different map.
There are some cool cave maps out there man, just search cave under tag search. But thank you for the friendly post, it does mean a lot when you hear things like that from the community. I try to keep my caves unique to my own style, which is utilizing complex water physics and never forgeting about aesthetics. Its like a giant puzzle which you can only hope to complete and enclose. Got VERY lucky with this scale. Anyway you're right i hope we do see more creative maps in this style either here or on Reach.
Fissure Enjoyment: Ever since the discovery of the beautiful mistress we call Ghost-merging an array of cave themed constructions has graced our presence in the Forging world. Maps like Urban Myth’s The Hollow and Given to Fly’s Schism of Light set the bar for what we should come to expect from a ‘good’ cave map. Countless others have been labeled as too cluttered, too confusing, and too crazy. Fissure exhibits many of these qualities too. Just take ‘too’ away from each of them. Fissure is a multi-leveled chasm with terraces, bridges, and sub-tunnels all throughout. Each side of the chasm is symmetrical with enough variation on each level to work well with all major gametypes, symmetrical or asymmetrical. This is not to say that certain games don’t work better over others. FFA Slayer, KOTH, 1-Flag, and Infection are the best suited games for Fissure. While still somewhat enjoyable, other team games tend to be difficult to play thanks to Fissure’s relatively small size. Other than that, Fissure lends itself to very enjoyable gameplay on all other calibers and meets the bar well for cave maps. Enjoyment: Balance: In a platonic sense, Fissure feels very reminiscent of Sword Base from the Halo: Reach Beta in the way it is balanced. It is near symmetrical on both sides so no lateral advantage is present, but (like Sword Base) as a player’s elevation increases so does their chance of survival and their advantage over the players below them. In Halo: Reach, players can equip jet packs to make up for height disadvantages, but in Halo 3 you can’t, and that is Fissure’s big downfall. The natural bridge at the top of the chasm is without a doubt the ideal place to be, and as a result most of the flow in this map fluctuates to that bridge, but then stagnates up there. Any player up there has a general overview of the entire map sans the side caves, but then they can quickly peek into each side cave to seek oncoming oppressors, and they have the capability of grenade/Brute shot spamming anyone on the lowest level of the chasm. Luckily, no immediate kill, long range weapons (i.e. rockets, sniper) are available to further this advantage. A lot of frustration arose out of the third level bridge, but the greater things about Fissure outweighed that one negative. So on the less negative side of this spectrum, there are multiple ways into each room of the map, greatly reducing the amount of camping that is possible, which is often a problem that riddles many cave maps. The weapon layout is well thought out with close to medium range combat in mind and is also symmetrical on both sides, and the power weapon being the sword at the middle of the bottom of the chasm; a very good location given that there is a great risk versus reward factor in trying to retrieve it considering the vulnerability of the location. The only complaint about the sword’s location is the pit area at the base of the ‘waterfall’. Beneath the shield door representing water a player is completely bulletproof. This never posed a big problem since most realized someone was just camping down there and just avoided them until they moved, but nonetheless a minor inconvenience into overall gameplay. Balance: Durability: The completely enclosed nature of the map prevents anyone from physically breaking out of it. No one can get on to the waterfall and camp there (though that would present no advantage) and there are actually no unfair hiding spots or areas where a player can avoid combat. Breaks in the map don’t entirely revolve around taking advantage of the physics of the map but the spawns as well. Halo 3’s spawn system (to my knowledge) doesn’t take elevation into consideration when determining where to spawn a player but rather the distance from an enemy player. Fissure gets most of its size from the three vertical levels while lacking in actual horizontal distance. If a player is on the bridge on the third level and a player dies then the system mostly resorts to spawns completely opposite the map. Unfortunately, all too many times, the spawns that were chosen were the two in direct sight of the man on the bridge. Once people caught on to this they began to exploit it badly since it happened maybe one in four times. I’d suggest simply placing those spawns offset to each respective direction putting them out of the line of sight for anyone camping at the top bridge. Again, this issue didn’t necessarily ruin the game so to speak, but fixing a minor (but annoying) issue like that could help to perfect how the game runs on Fissure. Durability: Aesthetics: Simply put, the aesthetics on Fissure were stunning. The ‘waterfall’ mentioned earlier is actually a string of man cannon and gravity lifts going to the bottom of the chasm, but the way the objects were merged around them gave the waterfall an unbelievably natural look. This is easily one of the most natural looking and realistic looking stages to date in Halo 3(and that’s something given the decrepit age of forge). The sound of the man cannons actually sounds something like water trickling down a beautiful cascade. It truly is utterly amazing. Even then, shield doors that have for so long been used to simulate water planes on maps in Halo 3 were used in Fissure in ways that just seemed to accommodate the main aesthetic piece so well, and that helped them feel more indigenous to the scenario rather than the awkward unnatural feel that they usually present. Now that was just the center chasm, but the rest of the map will take the eyes for a ride as well. Both symmetrical sides of the map are forged flawlessly and angles that at first glance don’t seem easily ascendable but move as smoothly as a flat surface would. The outer caves present a nice medium between clustered and open area that allows for enough room for easy movement but a lack of room enough from keeping pesky jack-rabbits from hopping all over the place. The layout of the caves is simple yet twisted; this meaning that someone might be two meters away on the radar but there is a wall in your face. The look of Fissure entirely supports the eye’s fancy and the games fun. There are no annoying bumps or lost grenade cracks. Nothing to speak of that could possibly damage the overall impression of the aesthetics on Fissure (other than I mostly died from gazing at the waterfall without care). Aesthetics: Originality: As mentioned earlier, cave maps are nothing new to forge, but at this point in Halo 3’s life almost nothing is new to forge. However, a great exception can be made for the amount of time and effort that was clearly present during construction of Fissure and how well gameplay design and map flow was executed. At the same time though there were no particularly clever twists thrown in to change up the game any. There was nothing that told the player, “I’m the map, hear me roar!” but rather simply sat there and looked pretty. Often time that’s all a player wants is a map that flows well and looks good for them to spill digital blood on, and if that’s the case then pack your bags, mission accomplished, but in the realm of originality looking pretty only pays half the rent, or a little over in this case. Originality: Summary: [floatleft] Enjoyment: Balance: Durability: Aesthetics: Originality: [/floatleft] 8/10 7/10 8/10 9/10 6/10 Average Score: 7.6/10 Final Score: [thread=100751][highlight]Understanding Review Hub Ratings[/highlight][/thread]
Organite, this is by far one of the most hands on, detailed, and ambitious reveiws which I have seen for any map on forgehub. I applaud your ability to write creatively and keep the viewer reading while focusing on the details. Once again this is an amazing job and more guys at the review hub could follow you as an example. Ps glad you like the hunters and the elite
This has got to be the greatest cave map I have ever seen. The aesthetics are beautiful. I will give it a download even though rech comes out in about two days now. you should try to recreate this in reach and I'm sure it will be a huge success.
Hey, are you gonna remake this map for Halo: Reach? I randomly downloaded this after searching "cave" on bungie.net awhile back. It was probably the first cave map that I actually thought was good. Maybe even expand it in Reach, considering all the extra objects it has compared to H3.