Dear 343 Industries,
Hi my name is Charles J. Stoot and I have a suggestion regarding map loading in custom game. So I will begin. In Halo 3 Bungie put a limited file download of 100 maps, pictures, videos, games types, etc. This was not a problem except you had to pick and chose which maps where your Favorited over others and you could only pick 50 maps and 50 game types to go along with them. The system they had worked for only your own work but not for others. Bungie soon realized that they needed to not limit the download content.
So in halo Reach Bungie decided to put no limit on the amount of download. This was find until you hit about 300 downloads of maps, pictures, videos etc. I had to go through and split my account between hard drives so that I could sort out the awesome from the I like it but I don't want to play with it with my friends, and the junk. Before I did this it took me about 15 minuets before I could view my list of maps. This was also the case for viewing pictures except when you viewed videos it took twice as long because you had to go to what you wanted (pictures, videos, etc) then go to what map it was on, then you had to pick what it was. Now if you picked the wrong video you had to repeat the process.
I have a solution. Like a computer for instance, witch an Xbox basically is, it only views the files that are needed at that view of screen, and keeps all else out of the way. This is so that the computer can run smoothly without being overloaded with data. Lets say your on your desktop of your computer and you click on the Start menu. Well when you click on your start menu files pop up but whats this your computer didn't slow down. The Reason for it is that the computer only posts the names. Then lets say you click on all programs. Well did you see your computer lag? It did the same thing as when you clicked the start menu, loading only the names of the material. Then when you click on o lets say Microsoft office it will open what is needed to run that software. This can be applied to maps in the custom game lobby and to loading other files.
For instance when you click on your maps in the custom game lobby in reach, you see a list of Bungie made maps, and when you click on one of these maps you see a list of other maps that where made by Bungie but wait whats this you see the busy symbol for all the halo universe maps that you downloaded. So lets say you click on Forge World and you click one of Bungies' maps you play that for a while then you decide lets go play on the spire. So you switch maps to the spire, now spire starts to load. The data for the spire loads when you click the spire after moving from Bungie map to Bungie map. Now what if the same thing where to happen to the Halo community maps for Halo 4. You see the list before it loads the complete content. This is so that you don't have to wait for ever for the map and game types, all your maps and game types, to load all at once, you just see a list of the maps or game types and you get to pick. Then it loads the content for that one Item after you picked it.
I know that was long and tiresome and mabee not a big deal but you really should take this into consideration for Halo 4. It may not be a big deal but I always hear my friends say I have way to many maps so it takes for ever to load the content.
Thanks For Listening
Your Typical Halo Gamer,
Charles J. Stoot
"It Is Luck That You Failed"