It's not difficult to implement Hue sliders for objects individual or the entire set, especially with the amount of time they have spent on this game. atleast the maps and lighting looks good nothing else that has been revealed is much of an improvement except the rocks H4 rocks > everything
This is way over the top relative to what was actually said here. I hope you can see that. Point = missed. The point is not that swapping textures on objects is a deal-breaker that I'm going to cry myself to sleep over. Rather, that's an example of the level of feature that would make Forge 3.0 a true upgrade over Forge 2.0. You may disagree, but I don't feel that the new features we've seen so far (trait zones, object magnetism, object locking, duplication) represent a significant upgrade at all. At best they are a slight bump in ease-of-use. The thing I love most in forge - the ability to create a unique environment that feels distinctive from other maps, not just in layout/design but in look and atmosphere - that thing appears (for now) to be no more evolved in H4 than it was in Reach. That's a disappointment to me. Sorry if saying so has bummed anybody out, but I was definitely hoping for more. And anybody who doesn't work for 343 claiming that any particular feature would be too hard to program or test is simply talking out of their ass. I wish we could just jettison that aspect of the discussion entirely. None of us really knows the Halo engine or the 360 hardware inside-and-out like we pretend we do to score rhetorical points. I do know this though: forge could be more than it is, if it were at all justified for 343 to dedicate more resources to it. They choose not to and that's probably the best decision from a business standpoint. But that doesn't mean it isn't disappointing to those of us who spend half our time on this game forging.
Exactly. I don't get people saying "texture swapping would be hard", because well..are people honestly talking about having all 3 textures on every single map? Yeah, sure that might be a decent amount more work but it's not necessary. They gave us three environments..give us three textures, one for each environment. Keeps things fresh longer and easier on non-forgers head. There is no increase in difficulty only dedication of time/resources and damnit, they had an entire other studio working on Forge. I expected at least this much.
Not the point. Read what I was replying to. xzamplez was basically saying that anyone who chose to "play with Legos" instead of getting into real map design on PC was self-limiting and there is something wrong with it. My point is just that there's nothing wrong with it at all. Not everybody who likes fiddling with something for a creative outlet has to dedicate their lives to it or try to go professional. Any judgment to the contrary is just wrong-headed. The larger point, I guess, is that Bungie/343 chooses to cater to fiddlers rather than the "real" map designers. But that's been their direction all along. Some games cater to the hardcore designers and modders crowd; console games owned by Microsoft tend not to do that though, and Halo never has. However, I do believe there's a substantial middle ground that hasn't yet been explored. You can upgrade forge's flexibility significantly without fundamentally altering what it is or how easy it is for casual forgers to use. As for anyone dissatisfied with even that middle ground, there's other games/the aforementioned PC. At some point you have to recognize when a developer is simply not catering to you, and move on. [br][/br]Edited by merge: I wouldn't think so either. Just being able to tint all those off-white objects a shade of blue or purple would be magnificent. But maybe there's more to it than we think.
you can still do that. but yes i see your point. i know a little bit more what im talking about than most when it comes to modelling and texturing, but true, i am doing a little bit of ass-talking. but so is every single other person in this thread, regardless of topic. the game isnt even out yet. my point was that having swappable texture sets would be a large task. munchie's idea about a hue slider seems more practical. i just know that in game development, there are budgets for everything. textures have to be a certain res. same with all the objects you make, you have to keep the poly count to a certain number. (notice things on Erosion like the pipe coming out of that tower... ugly and low poly, not even curved.) from knowing these things, i can make an educated assumption that having all those texture sets might not be within the "texture budget" for the engine. of course, i dont truly know. anyway, i just get pissed because i think all the complaining is just plain rude and silly. and personally, i think being able to duplicate objects and magnet objects is a pretty awesome improvement. but i guess i can see how people just expect more more more, since that is the nature of people in general.
Better look at the objects we have on Ravine and 343i trying to build a map: Halo 4 Forge Mode - Serious Building Techniques - GameSpot.com
@ Bolded: thank you. "Middle Ground" is a perfect way to describe it, pushing the format as far as it can go in terms of possibility without fundamentally moving away from it in a way which would be detrimental to the casual end. The changes being put forward in here would not compromise what forge is in any sense, at which point the only argument against it becomes one of limited time and resources and how to spread them out. This is a fair argument, but at this point we're talking about the difference between "want" vs. "expect." To say that even wanting these things, rather than expecting them, is unreasonable and somehow worthy of criticism...I can't really fathom where that viewpoint comes from. Dude, please don't make me rip in to you for how stupid this statement is. Cause I will.
You may even be right about that, it's just beside the point. I can't speak for anybody else but for me it's not about texture swapping or weather or anything else in particular. It's more about the fact that of every semi-realistic wish list I saw for the last two years, if I compiled them down into my own semi-realistic list of dozens of different things I'd love to be able to do in forge - things that wouldn't entirely re-define forge - none of them are in H4. That's surprising to me. And at the risk of sounding like I'm whining, it dims my enthusiasm for the game (though I'll still be buying it day-of-release and undoubtedly playing/forging a lot). If this isn't the right place to state that fact, point me to where I can. I don't really care to be slapped on the hand for expressing the occasional negative opinion in a polite manner. Duplication and magnetism are ease-of-use things. They're nice, but they literally won't make anything possible that I couldn't do in Reach with just a tad more patience. If you're really lucky they'll cut down your map-making time by 20% (probably less for me - I never had trouble navigating the menus quickly or aligning objects by sight). So yes, I find them underwhelming. If I could trade all the new stuff in for just a couple of those wishlist features, I gladly would. Even stuff Pegasi brought up (group object select, group duplication, group mirroring) would be easy to write, in the same vein as duplication and magnetism, and would mean a lot more to me - if they're going for just making forge easier to use, do that stuff instead. That's my feeling on it. I don't want to look a gift horse in the mouth, but since I'm paying $90 for the horse I guess it's not really a gift, and I do feel like I have the right to at least state my opinion.
edit- peg and nut... point taken. its all just preference anyway. and yea im rude as ****, i get it. awesome. notice how all the white pieces are not white when under a dark shadow. notice how there is black, white, and brown on the 3 story tower piece. sure we'll get sick of the look of things eventually, but damn i think its lookin nice! with the huge amount of creativity in the forge community, people are going to find amazing ways to use light and shadow to make their maps unique and varied, imo. edit again - jetpack seems adequately nerfed from what is seen in that video.
Yes we might, but combined with the new eniviroments I think it won't get old as fast as Reachs grey got old.
I noticed that, and may I say, THANK YOU 343. The stuff in that video is looking good (lighting effects are SO much better) but getting back to my disappointment, I think this is the first look we've gotten - or I've gotten - at the palette lists, and basically everything in them seems to be re-skinned Reach objects. Here are just the ones I took the time to write down: Buildings: Bunker, small Bunker, small, covered Bunker, box Bunker, round Bunker, ramp Pyramid Tower, 2 story Tower, 3 story Tower, tall Room, double Room, triple Blocks: 3x4 4x4 4x4 flat 4x4 tall 4x4 short 5x1 short 5x5 flat Bridges: small med large xlarge diagonal diag, small dish dish, open Those are the same objects, in the same order, without even adding in new ones. I'm sure there will be a few new things sprinkled in there, especially in the map-specific structure category, but I'm a little shocked that they didn't do more in terms of expanding or even just changing the palette. Those buildings in particular - once we've all done our obligatory Lockout remake, they're only in there to make hardcore forgers mad. Yet the entire category seems to be exactly the same as in Reach. Hmmph.
as far as the palette list goes, i have to agree its more than a little disappointing. hopefully the map specific palettes will be more than just like 10 objects or so. heres to hoping for at least 30 i really like the look of the reskinned 5x5 floors though
"Here's the Hemorrhage bases. You can...wait what can they do with those again Bob, we didn't give them a space large enough to make Blood Gulch? Right, uh..Forge is about creativity, so be creative!" Meh. I'll probably use the very small side, etc of the building pieces like always. They really coulda mixed that category up some though...and added a real sniper tower and life tower piece to give us a real lockout remake Edit: @Titmar: I'm actually not sure about those for flooring. Looked a little too busy for flooring. Definitely better than old skins though. Good for walls too.
Agreed. Most of the posts in this thread are all the same. "Ya I guess that's a cool feature, but I want THIS and THIS and THIS, and I'm not buying the game unless I get it." On another note, let me remind you guys that you'll still be able to make whole floating maps using no terrain. Even if the forge maps are all mediocre, we get an upgraded forge mode, new palletes and new breathtaking backdrops. That's just my opinion though. I love forge as it is. I'm glad it's not a complete overhaul. So many people don't realize that even the slightest upgrades from H3 to Reach were life changing. Enough to give me a new favorite hobby, something to spend hours on and enjoy the whole process of it.
Twas what I was thinking. Inside of bidges (med, etc) are black/dark grey and we had already used them for walls, so they should make a return and thankfully we can use the longer larges and xls without framerate this time. Curious to see what pieces like platform XXL, staircase, etc look like.
If you can find five posts from five separate people in this thread saying basically this, I will PayPal you $5.00. Cough up the links, get five bucks. Simple. Note: the posts have to be about forge, per what you quoted and what we are talking about right now. Since I've gone out of my way to state that I will be buying the game regardless of how I feel about the lack of improvements to Forge, I'll save you time: you can skip any post by me.
Please point me towards these posts. The majority of what I'm seeing is largely reasonable discussion between people who are perfectly happy with what they've seen (and more power to them) and people who would like more but by no means expect it, and are just voicing their thoughts. And even then, what does it matter to you or anyone else if someone is genuinely so disappointed that they no longer want the game? Why on earth do people feel the need to stick up for a computer game?
I can answer that (though you're not asking me). In fact I was on the verge of making a new thread about this because it's been bugging me so much. Basically a lot of people's identities are wrapped up in this game for the positive or the negative. They either see themselves as pro-Halo or anti-Halo. (Interestingly, some of the anti-Halo people still play Halo and post about it constantly... figure that one out.) And so any statement of opinion that goes against their stance is a threat to their identity, and they react the same way many Christians do if you tell them you don't believe in Jesus. It also leads to the assumption that if someone expresses a negative opinion (however gently and politely, and even if mitigated by other statements that are quite positive), they must be part of the anti- squad. And the reverse is true as well. Because they're involved in a religious war, and you can only be pro- or anti-; there's no room for the vast chasm in the middle that contains a whole continuum of nuanced, personal, complicated opinions. Drives me nuts, yes it does. And it leads to a lot of dumb meta arguments rather than simply talking about the game itself.