Recent Updates: - Mk I was deleted for being an abomination of Forge. If you really want it back, make it yourself. - Mk II was tested and found to be riddled with gameplay and map flaws. Still available! - *NEW* Mk III is an improvement over Mk II, and unlike Mk II, Mk III is based on its predecessor. This thread really isn't for anyone, I'm just posting WIP notes about stuff. Feedback from Max Extra's Forge Friday's on October 7th, 2016: The beach was too small! - Granted, it wasn't in the best conditions to be submitted, I had approximately worked on this map for about 18 hours, solid. If you hadn't noticed, I even went really cheap with things like trees and ground vehicles. I never intended to have a ground-to-ground interaction constantly taking place, boy, was I wrong, so just in case, I decided to place the ground vehicles half-baked. My solution is to extend the beaches and place more Rocket Hogs, as well as implement a teleporter network for fast travel. More on the teleporters later. The spawns were broken! - I was actually the first one to notice this, while forging just a while before, before playtesting began. I even tried to mitigate it by raising the spawn points a little higher, just to make sure there wasn't anything blocking the spawns. That didn't work obviously. The problem in my eyes is two things: 1) The spawn points that DID work were bad spawns and gave the player no shiny new weapon or vehicle, which is bad, and 2) Dynamic spawning doesn't work. Usually I am absolutely against static spawning as it makes spawn-killing an issue, but I'm becoming increasingly woke af to the idea that this gametype had no base attraction whatsoever, which is good. My solution is to redux the entire spawning system with static base respawn nodes, and I also have a little surprise waiting for the next playtest, hint: It has to do with the teleporter network . The weapons had little variety! - I somewhat agree. One thing I tried to do in terms of Mk I --> Mk II was to find the best weapon combinations that everyone loved and duplicate those so that everyone could share similar experiences. I understand that some of you just straight up hate the DMR-ARs and the DMR-SMGs, but to me, they are utility weapons: they can do good damage against monstrous vehicles like the flying fortress, great damage against long range targets due to their cartridge, and massive damage in close range encounters, killing in five to six rounds at full-auto. I can completely understand if it's the only weapon you could find, though: other weapons were kinda hidden, even if they have green pad markers, which are mixed into the lot of the others. My solution is replace some of the existing weapons, find new and exciting weapon combos through extensive research, and add more weapons in good spots on the map. The flying fortresses had spastic glitches! - Does Moby **** have no glitches? Jaws? Flapjack Frenzy? It's the nature of vehicle-welding. I'm a dreamer; I scrape by on practicality, and strive for what was previously thought to be impossible. I do know my limits though, that's why I didn't weld the flying fortress to a pelican or phantom: balancing the vehicle for an air-to-air combat role is tough, both balancing in terms of gameplay mechanics, as well as physical balancing, such as banshees tipping forward and crashing on immediate takeoff. To me, my current model has a couple flaws, but I believe the screen shaking is unfortunately not one of them. I believe that there is very nill possible to mitigate this, other than a wider camera. My solution is to increase the camera distance on the flying fortress, as well as upgrade it components to their highest calibers, and yes, the flying fortress will now have a Hannibal cannon. That's all I had for detailed responses to feedback, so if there is something I missed, please comment below and I will address it in a similar fashion. Testing Highlights My favorite part throughout the playtest was when Blue Team got together, hopped in the Wasps, and pulled an actual Operation Rolling Thunder style assault on Red Base and took out all of their precise Nornfang snipers . What was yours? That's all I've got for this first post, folks. I'll be back to respond once I begin fixing the map.
October 9th: So far, I've made a lot of progress with my good friend Plea Sir69, who helped me flesh out the caverns and lagoon. He even implemented a boat system into the lagoon, which I'm not sure I'm going to keep, but hey, he was big help. We even tested the secret surprise that I can't wait to show all of you on the 14th. For Tuesday, I will adjust blue base to its best and have it play ready.
October 12th: It is Tuesday, and I have done lots of great work on Blue Base. Unfortunately, most of it was still terraforming and establishing the teleporter network nodes. You could say that I thoroughly tested the functions on the map. I have decided to move the objective from Blue Lagoon to Mid. I had trouble and couldn't place spawns before I needed to get off. I was troubled by my massively fulfilled physics budget that needed some trimming... On Thursday, I will finish Blue Base and start working on weapons, vehicles and [REDACTED]. Red spawns, cameras, and the like will have to wait for some time before Forge Friday's on the 14th.
October 14th PART 1: Here's what I've got so far compared to Mk II: before & after I had a discussion with Max Extra about making the gameplay tighter knit and focused, and hopefully, with my map changes and static spawning, we can achieve just that. I still need to place spawns and add some more weapons, but a couple ForgeHub members are starting to give me doubts about the teleporters. I might need to add 10 sec timers. More weapons and vehicles. And Spawns. and the flying fortresses, too. And the October surprise.
Today it is the Saturday after the playtest of Rolling Thunder Mk III, and I am here to regretfully inform fans of Mk II & III that the next rendition of Rolling Thunder will neither feature the island of Mk II or the original flying fortress concept in a traditional sense. There will still be welded vehicles on a brand new and more gameplay-tailored island, however. All of the crazy weapon-glitch madness that you've craved so far will be pushed to forefront of the gameplays focus. All this said, I will need time to craft a truly revolutionary experience and I will not have a presentable build ready for the 21st. Here is feedback from the 14th: The Flying Fortress has spastic glitches! - Which is exactly why I am making the changes I need to. Maybe one day 343 can go back to the classic tailored physics model that was shared by every Halo game that had Tank Pinball, but until then, flying vehicles with mannable positions and roles is only a dream. My solution is to remove the flying fortresses. This may sound flippant at first, but if you think about it, Rolling Thunder's gameplay was never focused on the flying fortresses. They were just something you would hop into at the beginning of the match, and then they would blow up, because your inconsiderate piloting would not allow the gunners to do their job. Then you'd either find an interesting weapon to stick to and run to the objective, or you would hop in a Wasp and go kill enemy players. That was never the intention. Part of the problem with the flying fortresses is the lack of pilot discipline: Banshee flying players expecting to have absolute control over their vehicle, not aware of the gravity of their situation. This is not to say that there weren't flaws on the design side though. If I really wanted to, I could have spawned each player right next to a vehicle role and limited their movement speed, so that they either could have gotten into the vehicle and fill the seats or get stranded. This, however, assumes that the pilot lacks patience, which I for one now see as the biggest obstacle right now to having flying fortresses: how can you have a flying fortress if your pilot takes off without any teammates thinking that THEY are the flying fortress? It's an ideal idea from Idea Land. The map was too big! - This complaint is too big. A smaller map would mean faster gameplay which means lower average life. On the other hand, Wasps gunning you down from getting the best power weapons in sight is an excruciatingly painful process. I'm giving in. The map will be shrunk. In fact, I'm making a new island, an island with equal but asymmetric parts and exciting island-like things. Things I have tried with marginal success are the lagoon, the caverns, the beaches, the plateau, the zip line and many many more. Be prepared for George of the Jungle-esque vibes. Watch for rope bridges, vine swings, rivers, tar pits, rain forests, fjords, jungles, swamps and more! *Amazonian Jaguars not included. And if you think I can't make all of that s***, you'd be hard pressed. That's All I've got for this weekend, I will see you next week with some evident photos.
Picture Time! We are halfway to having a finished island with gameplay elements. I must admit that last week was a little slow because Ubuntu messed up my PC, but hopefully with school tests out of the way, I can focus on the map a little more! Here's a sneak peek: Alternate View (Keep in mind, these are subject to complete overhaul if necessary) See you on Tuesday!