Can we just get a full map editor?

Games Halo 5: Guardians
1

Seriously… After playing other games with great map creators it is painful to go back to halo. Forge was good for Halo 3 and was expanded greatly with Reach but just feels out of date in 4. One of the biggest games of all time should have one of the best map editors to make truly creative maps and extend the life of this game.

It should be much more than ‘pick one of these pre-made maps and move around these pre-made items’. You should be able to design the landscape, background, weather, colors, items, textures, maybe even game modes and AI?

If the map editor is similar to how it is in 4 I am probably not going to get this game. Matchmaking is fun but customs are where I get most of my play time from. I just couldn’t get into forge in Halo 4 as it felt about the same as Reach and there are just other options out there now where I can be much more creative and expansive.

2

As great as that sounds, Halo 5/XB1’s development hasn’t been for long enough. If they delay it a year or 2 then we will hopefully get this, but for the meantime I think 343i has bigger plans.
Like bringing the halo population back up to speed by fixing gameplay.

3

I want this. They gave us a taste of natural terrain with rocks and trees, but to be even better would be the inclusion of hills, cliffsides, bushes, fatter trees, vines, and water volumes. I don’t want to have to make the base of my maps out of walls with only small rocks for terrain.

4

> As great as that sounds, Halo 5/XB1’s development hasn’t been for long enough. If they delay it a year or 2 then we will hopefully get this, but for the meantime I think 343i has bigger plans.
> Like bringing the halo population back up to speed by fixing gameplay.

While fixing gameplay would bring much of the population back, updating the forge mode and custom games would help keep the population high for much longer. Also, what is really the point of releasing the game if there aren’t many major improvements? I might as well just get every other one if they’re each essentially the same with a few improvements. So by all means 343, delay the game if it is not 100% perfect in your opinion.

5

> Seriously… After playing other games with great map creators it is painful to go back to halo. Forge was good for Halo 3 and was expanded greatly with Reach but just feels out of date in 4. One of the biggest games of all time should have one of the best map editors to make truly creative maps and extend the life of this game.
>
> It should be much more than ‘pick one of these pre-made maps and move around these pre-made items’. You should be able to design the landscape, background, weather, colors, items, textures, maybe even game modes and AI?
>
> If the map editor is similar to how it is in 4 I am probably not going to get this game. Matchmaking is fun but customs are where I get most of my play time from. I just couldn’t get into forge in Halo 4 as it felt about the same as Reach and there are just other options out there now where I can be much more creative and expansive.

I love this idea! I think a mix of forge and a map editor like in Far Cry 3 (except better) would be amazing!

6

This would also save 343 some time on the map making front as they would not have to design multiple large Forge Worlds which all essentially have the same boring color palette.

7

Tho everyone is wanting a Far Cry 3 like map editor, that’s based on the Xbox.
I completely disagree, YES it’s convenient, you don’t need a supercomputer to run it. BUT it’s just a slight step up from forge, with terrain editing, and other minor editing.

I want a full blown map creator on the PC. Hear me out on this.
Make a Map Creator on the PC, have it using your Xbox LIVE account, when you create a map, you save it to your PC, you publish it onto Xbox LIVE either as a private map, where only you can access it and test it on your Xbox One. Or Public where the whole world can access it and download it.

The reason I believe this will work is because Blizzard’s Starcraft 2’s Map editor is set up like that. In order for you to create a map in the editor, and play it in Starcraft 2, you have to publish it just like I explained above. Once you publish the map, you can then download it to any computer using Starcraft 2 or the SC2 Map Editor.

By having the map creator PC based, you can do a lot more with it, you can use 3rd party modeling software like 3D max, or Maya, and create a map model, import it into the map creator, either texture it in the map creator or import the textures into the map creator. You can do custom character, weapon, vehicle, scenery, and Projectile models and textures. You can’t do that with a Xbox based editing program, due to microsoft’s restrictions.

But what if your computer can’t run the map creation software? Well, stick to Forge, and work on saving up for a computer that can meet the minimum required specs. This does have its cons, but the pros are that the map quality will go up a lot, or people will start teaming up with others who know how to model, and are actually good modelers.

Plus this will cut down on the massive amount of copies of maps and/or rips of past maps.

In Halo Custom Edition, there are more versions of Blood Gulch, than actual custom maps. And the actual good custom maps are about 50% of what’s left.

8

> Tho everyone is wanting a Far Cry 3 like map editor, that’s based on the Xbox.
> I completely disagree, YES it’s convenient, you don’t need a supercomputer to run it. BUT it’s just a slight step up from forge, with terrain editing, and other minor editing.
>
> I want a full blown map creator on the PC. Hear me out on this.
> Make a Map Creator on the PC, have it using your Xbox LIVE account, when you create a map, you save it to your PC, you publish it onto Xbox LIVE either as a private map, where only you can access it and test it on your Xbox One. Or Public where the whole world can access it and download it.
>
> The reason I believe this will work is because Blizzard’s Starcraft 2’s Map editor is set up like that. In order for you to create a map in the editor, and play it in Starcraft 2, you have to publish it just like I explained above. Once you publish the map, you can then download it to any computer using Starcraft 2 or the SC2 Map Editor.
>
> By having the map creator PC based, you can do a lot more with it, you can use 3rd party modeling software like 3D max, or Maya, and create a map model, import it into the map creator, either texture it in the map creator or import the textures into the map creator. You can do custom character, weapon, vehicle, scenery, and Projectile models and textures. You can’t do that with a Xbox based editing program, due to microsoft’s restrictions.
>
> But what if your computer can’t run the map creation software? Well, stick to Forge, and work on saving up for a computer that can meet the minimum required specs. This does have its cons, but the pros are that the map quality will go up a lot, or people will start teaming up with others who know how to model, and are actually good modelers.
>
> Plus this will cut down on the massive amount of copies of maps and/or rips of past maps.
>
> In Halo Custom Edition, there are more versions of Blood Gulch, than actual custom maps. And the actual good custom maps are about 50% of what’s left.

So long as we keep forge, I’m all for this. I’m in the midst of learning how to do the above anyway (well, I’m in the midst of learning how to make my own game, that’s just a part of it) and it definitely opens up a lot of barriers that forge has.

At the same time, we should still move forge to a far-cry esque editor so that people who don’t meet the specs or don’t want to learn the editor still have something a little more sophisticated to work with.

And if none of the above is possible, there’s always this.

9

Yesh, like the fellow said above me, I’d love to have Forge (except not a devolved version) and a real map editor (better and easier to use than Far Cry 3’s, maybe?) working side by side as separate game modes. Oh, and a custom games browser… with all our custom options back, and more.

10

> So long as we keep forge, I’m all for this. I’m in the midst of learning how to do the above anyway (well, I’m in the midst of learning how to make my own game, that’s just a part of it) and it definitely opens up a lot of barriers that forge has.

Well yes, Forge has to stay, it makes it easier to make minor adjustments to spawns, weapon/vehicle placements, and scenery placement. Having both Forge and a full blown map creator would not only make better maps, but also helps the community stay strong longer. It would be very beneficial to everyone having both.

> At the same time, we should still move forge to a far-cry esque editor so that people who don’t meet the specs or don’t want to learn the editor still have something a little more sophisticated to work with.

I’m slightly on the fence about this, but it all depends on what features it has.

11

Its nice and lovely, and they know that we want it, if we get it, I bet not.

This tells you that they know what we would like.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Z-GFq9XNrM

12

> Great ideas

Yes, I had this idea as well. Having a PC map editor to go alongside H5 would be great for the community. It would make remakes a whole lot easier, among a lot of other things.

13

> Lots o’ filled with donut stuff

As a player of SC, I have to say that their editor is amazing, you could make custom textures, models, units, sounds, modes/gametypes, cutscenes, and sometimes even a full Campaign.

This is the power of PC, which I think would work do to Microsoft’s ‘cloud’ storage which could send your PC data.

Although I think that we should also allow 3rd party programs to make editors as well(SCII’s galaxy editor), so people can find the preferences that they want.

Waypoint could even be the hub where you download all these cool ideas.

We could even pit cross platform playing between the ‘One’ and PC players(I know many people who miss Halo on PC+ more sales)

This is what I mean by taking a look at the other AAA titles, even if they aren’t similar to Halo.

14

> So long as we keep forge, I’m all for this. I’m in the midst of learning how to do the above anyway (well, I’m in the midst of learning how to make my own game, that’s just a part of it) and it definitely opens up a lot of barriers that forge has.
>
> At the same time, we should still move forge to a far-cry esque editor so that people who don’t meet the specs or don’t want to learn the editor still have something a little more sophisticated to work with.
>
> And if none of the above is possible, there’s always this.

Agreed. It is fine if you are able to fully edit maps on your pc however I feel most people will not want to do that thus they must include a vastly improved forge mode. I really like the idea of the forge and anvil gametypes in your link.