Maestro's Maps

[Maestro]

Greetings everyone! I am Maestro, and I would like to present some of the random maps I make in my spare time! I would like to start off by saying that I am relatively new to the forging community, having only started releasing maps that I have made in Halo 4. Most of the time, I make minigame maps or strange-looking Slayer maps, but I'm willing to try and make other types of maps. If you contact me ahead of time, we could perhaps have a round or two on my creations or your creations. If you try one of my creations, keep any and all criticism constructive or positive. I'm delicate. 

Nah, but you know what I mean. Keep it clean!

 

 

 

I have two maps to present today, which can also be found in THFE's minigame submissions forum:

 

Tesselatorium

 

I apologize for the crude Forge screenshot. I have not taken any action shots of this map yet.

 

Tesselatorium is the result of tinkering with one hundred blocks of alternating heights and an hour's worth of effort. Jump height had to be modified to 110% to allow one to jump up onto a nearby block. It resembles a pyramid, with the middle blocks rising up above the outer pieces. While you can see those hiding in the holes below when standing up top, you skyline yourself and make yourself an easier target. And since these are all 1x1 blocks, there's very little distance between you and your foes. This can be a good or bad thing, depending on what weapons you get. You spawn with random weapons, so if Lady Luck is on your side and you get an Incineration Cannon, you will dominate the map for... er, a minute. Maybe.

It was originally built to be your basic be the last man standing style of map, but I thought it would work for a good Slayer map as well.

Anyways, here's the link for the map, and the links to the King of the Hill variant and Tesselatoricide.

 

 

And the second map:

 

Halo Gear Solid

 

This is Shadow Ravine Island.

 

Halo Gear Solid is the culmination of a couple days' worth of effort. It was influenced by, if it wasn't obvious, Metal Gear Solid. Your objective is to secure the plans for Metal Gear Halo, a machine capable of moving Halo rings with ease... in other words, it's a variant of Extraction where stealth is the key to victory.

The variant requires a bit of an explanation. There are two teams: Red and Blue. The red team is the team of terrorists; they are guarding the plans to Metal Gear Halo. They cannot reach the extraction point, however. If they did, the game would be broken. Their goal is to stop the blue team in their tracks from getting to those plans. The blue team is the team of heroes; they must stop Metal Gear Halo's construction.

To emphasize the stealth over strength idea, I gave the red team additional shields, access to an armory, infinite (but not bottomless clip) ammo, and higher damage resistance, but no radar. The blue team has permanent active camouflage, the Ammo support upgrade, and radar which detects player movement.

 

Another view of Shadow Ravine Island.

 

There are multiple routes for the blue team to utilize to get to the plans which integrate many of Ravine's natural features. But, I will leave these routes up to the players to find.

 

This is one path.

 

If a blue team member dies, they will respawn here:

 

 

...in jail with Agent Shmeef. He got captured and shanked when he tried to get the plans. Therein, players must find a way out. If you are observant, it's easy. Once you break out, you must make your way back into the battlefield, and try not to die again.

I stress the point of not dying if you're playing on European Extreme. It's like MGS2's European Extreme where your damage resistance is ridiculously low and you cannot find any rations. In this game, your damage resistance is only 50%, and your shields do not recharge. Trait zones were the only way to tweak these stats so that only the blue team is affected, which resulted in an entirely different map.

 

 

Thanks for looking, and if you tried one of these maps, I thank thee tenfold! I have more maps to unveil, so keep an eye out!

 

JUNE 15 EDIT: After some testing, I have updated Halo Gear Solid 1 and the gametype. Please redownload if you downloaded them before!

 

These files have been deleted from my file share.

[Maestro]

Good... um... technically, morning, everyone! I was planning on releasing another pair of maps today, but while testing one, I discovered something that needed to be fixed. So this leaves just one map today.

 

Halo Gear Solid 2

 

This is Big Meteor.

 

Another copy of plans for Metal Gear Halo have been located at this off-planet facility, dubbed Big Meteor. Intel suggests that this is one of the last transfer points for the plans before they reach the construction facility. You must stop them from getting there.

But anyways, this map uses the same gametype as the last Halo Gear Solid. But there are new features this time around. On every symmetric game, "camo breakers" (which look like purple extraction cylinders) will spawn in a few locations. As the name implies, it reveals any blue players and also gives any red players access to radar while within range.

 

A blue player loses their active camouflage.

 

You also have to contend with space physics, which really aren't much of a hindrance. Your jump height is increased and your falling speed and damage are decreased. As per the last time, there are multiple paths to utilize; due to the layout of Impact, only two paths could be created to get to the base. To get to the extraction point, however, there are two more paths.

 

The base has three entrances, although the third branches off to the other two.

 

I personally think the interior of the base needed a bit more cover, but the corridors also needed to be vehicle-friendly. There is a Warthog inside which alternates between a Rocket Hog and a Default Hog. There's also an armory that everyone can access, although another is located below the red team spawn room. There are a few soft kill zones and shield doors to try and lower the amount of camping that can be done in the map.

 

Keep still...

 

Anyways, that's all for now. There are more maps to come! Thanks for looking, and if you tried one of these maps, I thank thee tenfold!

 

EDIT: How the heck did I miss this? I guess I was tired. But, here's the download link for the map and its European Extreme version.

 

These maps have been deleted from my file share.

[Maestro]

Humanity is on the verge of defeat. Where all of our forces failed, you must succeed. Our foes have never tasted defeat, and punish our slightest errors with instant death, time and time again... they are unlike anything we have ever encountered.

 

"Invaders! Possibly from space!"

 

You must defeat these invaders... from space.

 

So yeah, today I'm presenting Space Invaders! It's a King of the Hill variant and the product of a few hours' work. But for those who don't know what Space Invaders is, it's an arcade game made in 1978.

 

It looked like this.

 

You control the tank at the bottom of the screen, and shoot at the aliens floating above you. In this edition, the tanks (the red team) shoot at the invaders (the blue team) across the battlefield, since making a version where the invaders float would be pretty difficult to make... well, for me anyways. I'm sure there's someone who can figure it out.

Every player has a Concussion Rifle. I wanted it so that each direct hit would be an instant kill while limiting splash damage as much as possible. The Concussion Rifle rounds also move somewhat slowly, so players have to time their shots accordingly. This allows you to dodge incoming shots. It's also important to know that you cannot jump. The tank can't jump, so why should you?

 

The view from the Invaders' side.

 

Like the actual game, the tanks have barriers to protect them. You can run out from behind them, shoot, then hide; or if you're brave (or stupid), you can destroy them and get a larger window to shoot from. But, due to some number tweaking, shooting the barriers as a tank will KILL you. So if you must destroy a barrier, bash it. Each green barrier has a respawn time of three minutes, so bash only if necessary. While I'm discussing the barriers, these things can take a lot of punishment. It takes 39 shots to destroy one. I may rework these numbers in the future, or scrap the barriers entirely and put some movable objects up instead.

 

The view from the tanks' side.

 

It is possible to destroy the yellow barriers as well, but they have a respawn time of only one second, so trying to score some cheap kills by breaking the floor is not a fruitful venture.

Like the actual Space Invaders, the blue team moves across the screen from left to right, get closer, then move right to left. If they reach the end, they will teleport to the only hill in the map and win. You lose in Space Invaders if you're shot and run out of lives or if any aliens reach the bottom of the screen.

It's important that you have no more than 4 players on the red team and no more than 10 players on the blue team; although in the true spirit of the arcade game, it should be ten blue players against one red player. I know it's strange to have a maximum of 14 players instead of the usual 16, but this number works best for balancing purposes.

 

Anyways, thanks for looking, and if you give this map a try, I thank thee tenfold!

[Maestro]

UPDATE

Well, I have a couple maps in the works right now; but I'm having a couple issues with the both of them.

The first one is merely an issue of what people would think. I have no idea if people would like it or if they'd absolutely hate it, so its release is on hold for now.

The second one is giving me some trouble in regards to its scoring system. I don't want to spoil what exactly this second map is, but if you know a fair bit about unique scoring systems and want to help out, send me a message.

[Maestro]

Good day, everyone, and what a good day it was on this end! I learned a few new tricks to kick some butt... although I ended up getting whupped by a fourteen year-old... at least I think they're fourteen. Such is jiujitsu when you've only had six classes in your entire life. The weather was also perfect... not a single cloud in the sky and it was a comfortable 20 degrees (CELSIUS). Despite how nice the sun felt today... I will never know if it's a real star...

Enough poking fun at crazy Cortana. It's time to present a map!

 

Today's map is an iffy one of mine entitled Lasers.

 

These give the map its name.

 

It's a relatively simple gametype which is more or less long-distance-hide-and-go-seek, and the first one I've released which utilizes the underwater glitch on Forge Island... although one may not have been able to tell if I hadn't said anything. The Next Gen special effects instead turns the blue haze from the water grey, so it looks more like... fog.

Anyways, there are two teams: the prey (red team) and the hunters (blue team). The hunters spawn in the room shown above and pick up a Binary Rifle. Then, a teleporter will spawn in the middle of the room after fifteen seconds; the delay gives the prey a chance to hide. The teleporter will take the hunters to the hunting grounds, a ring surrounding the prey's habitat. The ring is composed of 90 4x4 blocks; it's massive. There are teleporters at each quarter which lead to the other side, and Mongooses to help out with transport.

The prey must find a hiding spot and survive as long as they can. Their habitat has trees, rocks, and a couple buildings. But, there is no perfect hiding spot; a red team member will always be exposed from at least one angle. After three minutes, markers will appear over all surviving prey. They cannot harm the hunters or even see them.

 

You can only see the Binary Rifle beam... and the teleporter lights. :/

 

Since it is impossible to actually see the prey, the hunters must scan the area slowly and wait to see their crosshairs turn red. A high joystick sensitivity is not recommended. This is the reason why I was hesitant on releasing this map... but this also adds an element of fear if you're the prey. All you can see are these red beams slowly scanning the area.

 

That was close!

 

If the hunters fall off the ring somehow, they will teleport back up to the ring. If the prey falls off the edge of their habitat, they will teleport inside one of Forge Island's islands and plummet to their doom. Since everyone has one life, this is not a good way to go.

 

Anyways, thanks for looking, and if you gave this map a try, I thank thee tenfold! Although if you think this one in particular sucks, I understand. I have mixed thoughts about it. :/

 

These files have been deleted from my file share.

[Maestro]

UPDATE

I've got two projects which will be released in the imminent future. The first one that I have built myself is a piece of medieval military hardware, which was giving me trouble simply because of how I wanted the gameplay to work. It's another iffy minigame of mine, and after some touching up, it will be as ready as it can be for release. If anyone tries it and has any suggestions on how to improve the gameplay, send me a message.

The second one is a project that RAZGRIZ GIRL wants me to tackle. From what I gather, it's an unfinished base set on Forge Island. I haven't seen it yet, and not a lot of details were mentioned, so I'm not quite sure what to expect.

Thirdly, I have another idea for a minigame involving tightropes and Ghosts. Should be good fun, eh? Scratch that, it didn't work.

And to finish off, it's irrelevant to forging but not to Halo, I had a strange dream last night. It was about Halo 5. I only remember one scene where I'm playing as my current Spartan-IV, and there's some BTB action going on in Dollarama; I had to go to the bathroom in said scene, so an employee (also a Spartan-IV) showed me the elevator which led there, but people kept shooting me on the way there. I also blasted some folks with a Fuel Rod Gun. Another scene I remember is where the Chief without armour and Cortana (made of hardlight and somehow alive) were living together in an apartment. The Chief sounded and looked like Bruce Wayne, and had a particular fondness of crashing the Batmobile into his apartment.

 

...I don't understand it either... but then again, when have dreams ever made perfect sense?

[Maestro]

UPDATE

I thought that I'd be able to present a new map today. But no. There's an error with the respawn time of the most important piece of the map; it's supposed to respawn in five seconds, and it doesn't for some reason. It works PERFECTLY in Forge but not in a custom game; I have no idea what the hell is wrong.

 

This crude self-portrait summarizes my mood right now

 

The other project I have been working on, however, is finished... but, whether or not I should release screenshots is a different matter. Maybe.

[Maestro]

UPDATE

I've got a racing map in the works, although it isn't your typical track. It'll test your driving abilities in ways you'd never imagine to see in a competitive race course. This one will take some time to make, however, not because of the features themselves, but because of testing it. The track is absurd.

 

And also, I did this:

 

Something's wrong here...

 

I like unicycles...

 

...unicycles are fun.

[Frankenzer]

I can't believe this went on without a comment

Those maps are totally awesome keep it up

[Maestro]

  On 5/14/2013 at 2:45 PM, Frankenzer said:

I can't believe this went on without a comment Those maps are totally awesome keep it up

 

Thanks! I do what I can, although a couple of my newest projects are a pain in the rear to test. One sucks because I have no idea what's wrong with the scoring system why the most important piece of the entire minigame won't respawn in custom games, and the other stretches my driving skills to the point of raging. XD

[Maestro]

Unfortunately I do not have a new map ready yet, but here are some teasers of what I'm making.

 

What is this map going to be?

 

And then there's this map which has been causing me some trouble simply because of a respawn issue.

 

Bombs away!

 

Scared of heights? I hope not!

 

Where'd I go?

 

That's pretty high... I think the height on that platform is +100.0.

[Banehalo]

amazing maps man.

[Maestro]

  On 5/17/2013 at 8:49 PM, Banehalo said:

amazing maps man.

 

Thanks! Hopefully I'll be able to release another map soon; but, as I've mentioned before, there are a few issues cropping up with gameplay. One's ridiculously difficult, another one is broken, and the final one- the map with the tower- is under construction.

[Frankenzer]

I really like the unicycle idea

[Maestro]

  On 5/18/2013 at 2:16 AM, Frankenzer said:

I really like the unicycle idea

 

The unicycle Mongoose- Unigoose?- is the result of a glitch I saw a video of and replicated. It would make for an interesting racetrack gimmick, as driving around with only one wheel made me spin in circles of varying radii, but cannot be saved in its unicycle form.

[Maestro]

Unfortunately, I do not have another map to present today...

 

...KIDDING! I do have a map to present! It's about time, eh?! I spent about eight hours on this today!

 

In two previous skirmishes, the members of the Alpha Halo Gear Brotherhood have taken significant losses, with two of their major facilities being captured. Now, their main facility has been located; take it down at all costs. This is it: finish the fight.

 

In other words, this is Halo Gear Solid 3. I planned on having an underwater segment and having two islands connected to each other, but before I knew it, I used up a lot of the budget. So one island it is. Just like its predecessors, it uses the Halo Gear Solid gametype.

 

And this is where ~$1500 of the budget went... I think.

 

The crane isn't just for show; it's the only way for the red team to get down to the pier via teleporter. It also has some goodies.

I always wanted to make a Halo Gear Solid map on Forge Island, but its lack of natural terrain to utilize made things a bit tough. Eventually I came up with the idea of using the edges of the islands. Even then, things got a bit iffy. I nearly used every single rock available.

 

This is one side of the cliffside route.

 

As per Halo Gear Solid standards, there are multiple paths for the blue team to take to infiltrate the red team's base; of course, the extraction point can only be reached by the blue team. Since this is the primary base of the Brotherhood, it is the toughest one to infiltrate. Not only does the blue team have to traverse rocks...

 

This is the dark side of Citadel Island.

 

...they have to climb to the top of this tower. The pier has three Ghosts for the red team to use, which means they can drive them up and down the stairs... so the blue team had better watch themselves.

 

 

Their citadel is heavily guarded.

 

The blue team's trek to the tower top will take them to the Inner Sanctum, which is located in the inner sanctum of the middle island... in other words, inside the island. There's a boggy effect on the floor, and thanks to a well-placed grid, you can walk on water without being a prominent religious figure. If you make it to the end, you will be greeted with a catwalk leading to the Brotherhood's servers, and the end of the Halo Gear saga.

 

The Inner Sanctum is riddled with lines of sight and prevents bullets from ricocheting.

 

This time around, there are jump pads. Instead of previous maps where a player would suddenly have a speed boost effect which enables them to jump higher, there is a capture plate to signal where they can jump higher. Although I could not change the colour of the capture plate, most of them have a 1x1 block with the team colour they work for.

 

As this is the toughest Halo Gear Solid map I've made, I should warn you that your observational and platforming skills will be put to the test. If you are on the blue team, look carefully before you leap. The land punishes the slightest miscalculation with a plunge into the drink. Halo Gear Solid 3 is not for the faint of heart, especially the European Extreme edition.

I'd recommend playing the previous Halo Gear Solid maps first. The first one tests your jumping skills if you go to jail, while the second one tests your stealth skills within a base. This one combines both and turns the difficulty dial to 11 out of 10, while European Extreme turns it to 12... and yes, the difficulty dial is a logarithmic scale, with 12 being equal to ten 11's. For comparison, my racetrack I'm working on is at a 20, which makes it 1,000,000,000x tougher than Halo Gear Solid 3: European Extreme.

 

Anyways, thanks for looking, and if you gave this map a try, my gratitude is also logarithmic, so it'll also be tenfold!

 

Heh, math.

 

This map has been deleted from my file share.

[Frankenzer]

  On 5/18/2013 at 2:41 AM, Maestro9318 said:

The unicycle Mongoose- Unigoose?- is the result of a glitch I saw a video of and replicated. It would make for an interesting racetrack gimmick, as driving around with only one wheel made me spin in circles of varying radii, but cannot be saved in its unicycle form.

Aww that sucks

But really I suck at races

[Maestro]

  On 5/18/2013 at 10:28 AM, Frankenzer said:

Aww that sucks

But really I suck at races

 

Don't worry about it. With this racetrack I'm working on, everyone will be on equal ground so long as you're decent at driving a Ghost. But I digress that this track, called Drive Master, will not be released for some time.

[Banehalo]

again pretty nice maps we should work together on a map idea that might wow the  you should i'm more of the seconded hand copier

[Maestro]

  On 5/22/2013 at 2:29 PM, Banehalo said:

again pretty nice maps we should work together on a map idea that might wow the  you should i'm more of the seconded hand copier

 

I've tried working on a collaborative map once before; the person leading the project did not have a clear idea what he wanted to build, so it ended poorly. :/

Drive Master is the only thing I could use a hand for, and that's on hiatus for the time being... but I do have some gimmicks I want to play around with. I want to try and make something that utilizes Wraiths, and make a Grifball map.

 

But I won't be working on anything until the latter half of next week, for I am America-bound!

[Frankenzer]

  On 5/18/2013 at 5:35 PM, Maestro9318 said:

Don't worry about it. With this racetrack I'm working on, everyone will be on equal ground so long as you're decent at driving a Ghost. But I digress that this track, called Drive Master, will not be released for some time.

I'm better at driving ghosts than I am at driving a mongoose 

[Fishy]

Although these maps look really good, there is just something about them that makes me not want to play them... I don't know what it is, but it's just that one feeling that weighs down my shoulders and makes me want to roll my eyes..

Not trying to say the maps are boring, lol, because they're pretty good! I'd hope some of these would get featured in MM, but that probably won't happen... Keep up the good work and get to posting more of your maps!!!

[Maestro]

  On 5/23/2013 at 12:40 PM, Frankenzer said:

I'm better at driving ghosts than I am at driving a mongoose 

 

Then you shall perform... uh... reasonably when Drive Master is ready to go.

 

  On 5/23/2013 at 6:06 PM, Fishy said:

Although these maps look really good, there is just something about them that makes me not want to play them... I don't know what it is, but it's just that one feeling that weighs down my shoulders and makes me want to roll my eyes..

Not trying to say the maps are boring, lol, because they're pretty good! I'd hope some of these would get featured in MM, but that probably won't happen... Keep up the good work and get to posting more of your maps!!!

 

Well darn, it sucks to hear that you don't want to try them right now. They are a little strange since they all use Halo's engine for, a lack of better words, non-Halo-style gameplay. Maybe sometime in the future they'll warm up to you?

 

If these got featured in matchmaking, that would make my day! Considering that pretty much every map has a special gametype tailored to it, it probably wouldn't happen for sometime. The Halo Gear Solid maps have the best chances of being featured, but that wouldn't happen simply because 343 isn't even aware of their existence or the fact that the name may end up causing Konami to slap a copyright infringement lawsuit on them; subsequently, I'd end up getting into some legal trouble as well if that were to happen. Otherwise, I bet they'd appear in Action Sack.

 

And thanks for looking! Since I'm in another country right now, I won't be able to post a new map until sometime next week. :/

[Banehalo]

  On 5/22/2013 at 7:46 PM, Maestro9318 said:

I've tried working on a collaborative map once before; the person leading the project did not have a clear idea what he wanted to build, so it ended poorly. :/

Drive Master is the only thing I could use a hand for, and that's on hiatus for the time being... but I do have some gimmicks I want to play around with. I want to try and make something that utilizes Wraiths, and make a Grifball map.

 

But I won't be working on anything until the latter half of next week, for I am America-bound!

well if we had action sack like in reach we could do the soccer ball as the grif ball and make it a soccer base f halo 4 but we don't lol 

[Maestro]

  On 5/24/2013 at 2:23 PM, Banehalo said:

well if we had action sack like in reach we could do the soccer ball as the grif ball and make it a soccer base f halo 4 but we don't lol 

 

Changing the weapons you spawn with for a normal gametype qualifies as an Action Sack gametype according to 343. So instead of having off-the-wall objects being your objective, such as Hog Potato where your Warthog is an Oddball or Halo Chess, you can spawn with Binary Rifles in CTF and have that count as an Action Sack gametype instead. :/