Great as all those things would be, top of my list are: -Group Select -Group Copy -Group Mirror They wouldn't expand building and aesthetic options in the same way as your suggestions, but I think they'd be fundamentally useful additions to the end of smooth and easy building.
Did you notice that in the bottom right when he is in player mode the phrase "Basic Editing" is there with what looks to be the "Back" button symbol? Do you think you can change game modes on the fly now rather then having to save, exit, select new game mode (capture the flag, infection, etc) and then go back in? If so this would save so much time.
Agreed on those - those are more ease-of-use features than things that would really affect the types of maps you can build, but I'd love to have them also. Certainly they would be as useful, if not more so, compared to object magnetism, duplication, and highlighting. Those things all shave off a minute here and there, but group functions might cut the time it takes to build a symmetrical map in half, or make moving an entire map a matter of minutes rather than hours. (I've actually changed a map design before rather than rebuild it, just because I knew it would take hours of work to rebuild somewhere else... easier to just leave that rock and add a symmetrical one on the other side.) Another thing that would be super-helpful at either an individual or group level: object mirroring, where you flip it on a single axis rather than simply rotating it. I'm not sure if that's possible in the Halo engine without building the flipped object into the map file as its own entity, but damn that would be helpful.
Nutduster, i have to let you down with some questions. There is no weather nor time of day setting, I believe this was confirmed at RTX Panel. Now about the forge, im pretty impressed i have to say. There are some unique and reskinned objects. But it looks like instead of gray, white is the new color to go. I like Impact more then Ravine, because i think Ravine is way to small. Im curious about the third map (I know, we all are) I really want it to be spectacular, a reason why they saved that map for last, snow, sand or maybe even a swamp. And well, if everything lets us down i guess there is always DLC.... EDIT : I looked again at some Ravine video,s and people speculate that the islands in the distance might be accessible for forging, because the islands are pretty detailed. I hope for this, and that would be awesome, but an little bit hard to believe unfortunatly.
Yeah I know - I just meant those are the kinds of features that would impress me in a new forge, without really changing what forge is (a map editor rather than a true map creator). Out of that list I posted, I doubt that ANY of it will be in Halo 4.
True, the maps sure look nice, and have some nice features. But.. i went to far with my expectations. But we always have DLC, and im sure it is going to be fine.
DLC sucks for forge though, especially if they handle it like they did in Reach where the DLC is never free and DLC and regular playlists are highly segregated. There's a reason nobody forged much on Tempest.
Well, that and that Tempest was a weird map to forge on to begin with. If they were to give us a really good DLC map to forge on with a lot of space I believe more people would get it. What I would really like in a DLC forge map is a large BTB map with a lot of open space where the in game boundaries are not the forge ones, such as if we had been allowed to turn off the mines in Sandbox and build out on the open dunes to a certain degree. Multiplayer map is still there, but there is space to build things outside it for not much extra work.
a lot of those requests are not practical. maybe on the xbox 720 we'll see something like that but even then, imo, theres a point where people gotta draw a line and start learning to model and design stuff on their own. its a lot more fun and theres no limits, and also theres actual possibility of a job.
They're examples, not necessarily all-inclusive (actually not even close) or particularly judged for realism. I'm just making a point of the kind of features hardcore forgers would really be blown away by, vs. the kind of stuff we actually got. Hell, just on a usability scale, phased and fixed physics in Reach absolutely CRUSH anything we've seen so far in H4. Duplication and magnetism are small potatoes in comparison to that crucial adjustment. But we're making maps for Halo, on the console. I can learn to model and design stuff on my PC, but that has squat to do with making maps for the game I like playing best.
Which is nice, but I just want to make cool Halo maps. I have a job already, and other hobbies besides - I don't need that in addition. I really just want a more-capable forge.