Forever Forgers Halo 4 Forge Ideas (It's long)

[MAYHEMjbc]

Hey guys, MAYHEMjbc hetre to bring you this awesome article about what the Forever Forgers want to see in Halo 4's Forge. If you are a true forge fan the you will read this the whole way through, but at least skim through it a little and tell me what you think! I'm new here, so if this is the wrong place to post this then please let me know!

 

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Hi everyone. This thread covers anything that I have thought about forge over the past years. It includes Forge in general, mishaps, and stuff I would like to see

 

Forge in General

 

I personally love forge. I remember back in Halo 3 when the idea first appeared. Back then, it was a love hate relationship. I loved the idea of building maps, but forge was just really frustrating to use (even when I learned about glitching). This kept me from making many maps. The community maps I saw were simply amazing. However, one question was always asked... How long did it take? The most common answers, 10 - 20 hours with race maps generally taking 30 - 40 hours to complete. That is a lot of time to put into a map and I heavily respect anyone who took the time to build them.

 

Moving forward to Halo Reach. A new and vastly improved forge. More pieces, a huge budget, a lot of space, and the best part, phasing. Maps now became a ton easier to build. I would say that a good map has the same amount of time and effort put into it, but much of the frustration disappeared. Now, most of the time goes into coming up with ideas and play testing the map. I have seen many more people building maps than in Halo 3, which invites much more creativity. One example was the idea of recreating narrows (my personal favorite map of Halo 3) upside down. No one would have ever dreamed of doing this in Halo 3, but with reach, its no sweat. This being said, I still have things that i either dislike or wish had been put into forge.

 

Forge Mishaps

 

Things that weren't in forge. The biggest thing that comes to mind that is missing in forge is the mirror object. So many times i have wanted to build a symmetrical map that included objects that couldn't just be rotated to match the other side. It would have made life easier if there was a tool underneath the B button that maybe said mirror. Underneath this, it should have mirror x, mirror y, and mirror z, all saying true or false. This in particular would be for the building pieces. Why you would need to mirror in more than one axis and then rotate it is beyond me, but the options would be there.

 

Another thing that I find somewhat annoying is the limiting of the lights down to 2. Yes they give you a lot of colors, but you can only have 2. You have 4 bases and you want to each its own color light, but you can't do that. In halo 3 you only had red and blue, but you had 4 lights total. I do miss that.

 

Something else. The effects are cool and all, but no one hardly ever uses them in map building because it can make it extremely difficult to see someone. The few I have seen have been juicy, and next gen. The rest are pretty much only used for photos. In their defense, I did build a really fun zombie map where you couldn't see more than about 7 meters in front of you. You had to rely on motion trackers to locate the zombies. Since the swords glowed, I gave the zombies magnums (couldn't kill the players with them, too weak) so they could sneak up to the players and then pull out the sword for the kill. Other than that though, I haven't seen the effects used much.

 

Things we would like to see in Forge

 

- As I mentioned, I would love to see a mirror option and don't think it would be extremely difficult to implement.

 

- Bring back some of the halo 3 maps. In particular, Sandbox and Foundry. Also, create a map literally called empty. This map would have no terrain what-so-ever. This could allow for a much more massive budget as you don't need to worry about the map taking up a good portion of the memory. You could change the skybox and add in your own terrain for a truly unique feel using tools given by the developers. I would love to see some of the maps that could be created in this way.

 

- The biggest thing I miss from halo 3 is the textures of the objects on sandbox. I would love to see them return. The gray they implemented into the Halo Reach objects is okay, but it can get old, and sometimes causes objects to be hard to distinguish when looking at them. Not only would I like to see the sandbox textures return, but I think it would be awesome to have several different textures to choose from. In a menu, one could have the textures Halo Reach, Sandbox, Foundry, UNSC, Covenant, Forerunner (In my mind this is already Halo Reach's texture), Wood, snowy, and maybe a few other textures. I would also have the option to make it a universal texture where the whole map matches this texture or just the item selected. This would allow for more unique maps and game play experiences.

 

- I would almost do away with the effects if it weren't for photo taking. However, I would implement a feature I would call weather. This could vastly change the mood generated by the maps created. I really miss the mood that was set up on Sandbox, with the dark atmosphere and whatnot. Options could include Morning, Day, Evening, and Night. Further, there could be effects turned on like snow, rain, stormy, and for extra fun, wind. I think it would be hilarious to see someone throw a grenade and it gets sent back to him because of the wind (In real life that would require a good amount of wind though). As a final option, I would also include the ability to say whether the weather affects play or not. If you want rain, but don't want it to affect footing, this option would be nice.

 

- I would add piece called terrain. It would be nothing more than a flat piece of earth that could be laid down somewhere. I would have it be a 1x1 square that costs a dollar to lay. Ideally, I would like to be able to lay a hundred of these in each direction for a total of 10,000 squares (that would be a good size map), but it would require another budget as the total budget in forge is $10,000. For ease of use, I would probably create options in 1x1, 5x5, 10x10, 25x25, 50x50, and 100x100. Finally, these pieces would have a toolset unique to them so you could raise or lower areas to create hills, valleys, trenches, etc.

 

- Another piece I would add would be the water bucket. This could be used to fill something with water or used to create a continuous stream of water. A nice added effect, but not critical. Trees would be another thing. I don't see a need for randomness in the trees, but there have been multiple times where I wished to use the forested areas on forge world but can't.

 

- This feature is just a tool, but how I so want it. Say I have a 4x4 tall block. I want a tunnel through it, but to do so requires different blocks of various sizes. To get around this the tool would be able to cut a hole in the block so that it saves time, pieces and looks better. I call this tool the subtract tool. The tool could have various shapes (sphere, cylinder, rectangular prism, pyramid, etc) that could be used to shape an object to what you truly want. Every time it is used to cut away, it costs $1. When you do the math that is way cheaper than using several blocks. Back to the tunnel example. The tunnel is to be 3x4x2. With blocks this requires 2 4x4 shorts and a 4x4 either short or regular depending on how you position the short pieces. Either way, its $30 to do this. With the subtract tool, you place the 4x4 tall, pick the rectangular prism shape, resize it, and cut a hole for $1. That is a difference of $19 and 2 block pieces. This feature would allow for way more complex and larger maps because of the cost efficiency. This is likely the biggest thing I would love to see.

 

 

prevalent in Halo 3. Not so much in reach, but stil there. The tool would cause the computer to recognize this as one piece and close the gap between them to allow for an even floor. Now, I also believe that the pieces should be less than a 1/4 a world unit away for it to work. The reason being is if someone accidentally or intentionally merges two pieces that are far apart, it would create an invisible bridge (in my mind the surface created by the computer would be invisible so as not to affect aesthetics). Cool and all, but unfair to those that don't know about it. Also needs the option to unmerge, should the need arise. One more option for this would be universal merging. That way the computer merges for you automatically so you don't always have to select the piece and select the option to merge with another. It would be enabled by default.

 

-As a final tool. I would like to see a multi-select tool. Say I have a good portion of the map done and positioned. I realise that it needs to move somewhere else. Instead of moving each single piece, I can select all of them using several different options. I woul have the option to just select all pieces. Useful if the map is done, but you want to move it to another location because of aesthetics. The second option would be to select pieces using a window option, for only a certain part of the map. Finally, just have the option for moving pieces by clicking on them individually. I could see this if you want to move some parts of a base around but keep the same spacing.

 

-One final topic of things I would like to see in forge. I would love to have the ability to create firefight maps. This would be difficult for the designers because they need to make sure the AI doesn't walk off, but I think it would be a worthwhile endeavor.

 

Our Community Ideas

 

-Fog option

-Copy/Paste for labels and objects

-A separate disk that can be used on the computer to make terrain

- The option to change an objects appearance, or even the terrains appearance as well. Like, take Forge World, and give it the gloomy, snowy appearance of Avalanche. And, like they did for vehicles on Avalanche, change the textures of vehicles to match the terrain. Heck, even have textures to add stains on objects and stuff.

-The option to add/remove tree's and defalt scenery

 

We've had our Spiel!

 

I am now done with talking and now am curious. Comments and questions on what I've said are welcome. Do you agree or disagree on it, would you change something? Here is my question to you guys. What do you think of forge and what would you add or get rid of or change in forge?

[Absolute Dog]

There is a "Pinned" forge thread at the top of the page. This belongs in there.

[Kurt S-501]

wow. This post is so long my iPod won't load it. I'll have to get on my CPU later.

[Bob]

Why is half of this post a copy paste job thats just been reworded?

 

I'm not sure if I should make the call to lock this topic...

 

Anyone else see what I see?

[Absolute Dog]

Why is half of this post a copy paste job thats just been reworded?

 

I'm not sure if I should make the call to lock this topic...

 

Anyone else see what I see?

Yeah....it's a list of what is said in the "Pinned" topic in this forum. Thanks.

[MAYHEMjbc]

Yeah....it's a list of what is said in the "Pinned" topic in this forum. Thanks.

HOLD THE PHONE! I mentioned at the beginning that this was from he Forever Forgers, that is, if you read it instead of just coming down here and commenting. This was originally written by ShadowOfCaboose from the Forever Forgers. Then where It says Community Ideas, I gathered the comments and wrote them down. I DID NOT COPY THIS FROM THE PINNED TOPIC!

[Absolute Dog]

I apologize Mayhem. When I initially viewed your OP I scanned it to see how long it was and my eyes caught the re-posted ideas, my bad. There is a "pinned" Forge topic, but that does not mean you can not start your own. Again sorry for the "quick" comment.

[Ardent Prayer]

I agree

[MAYHEMjbc]

I apologize Mayhem. When I initially viewed your OP I scanned it to see how long it was and my eyes caught the re-posted ideas, my bad. There is a "pinned" Forge topic, but that does not mean you can not start your own. Again sorry for the "quick" comment.

That's alright, no problem.

[circus mime]

like it but... did u ever played roller coaster tycoon 3 they got a great! editing mode i wish forge was like it.

[GlobalHawk722]

Ability to alter terrain would increase the space required to save the map 100 fold... especially if you added the ability to cut pieces of blocks

[armasdragon]

Hey good job i have a few things i would like to see in halo 4 forge. AI's, but not just for firefight but for anything u want, from gametypes to just having fun in a forge game when your bord. Dead bodys and/or blood stains, I like to make serious infection maps (by serious i mean like not funny such as duck hunt maps and stupid stuff like that) and i always try to make bodys out of guns and stuff like that but that makes it dumb! PELICANS AND PHANTOMS! It also would be cool to see the elphants return. This seems like it would be imposible but if they made a sepreate disk just for forge its possible, the ability to go out into space and other planets and stuff or just a little outside of the planets atmosphere. Also plants of all sorts. Weather effects (which u also mentioned). And finally water, the ability to add water to anything, like being able to fill a room with water. Well i hope this gives some ideas to u or other forge fans.