Anyone agree?
I was very into the forging when Halo 3 came out. Foundry started it mostly for me, since it actually let us players create maps. Sandbox was a gift from the gods. Sure it had its problems like you needed to use canvas maps in order to get a ton of objects, and that merging was a pain and all, but it was worth it. It had a big room that was perfect for darker, enclosed maps. It had a Big flat ground area, perfect for making BTB and 4v4 maps on, tons of good vehicle combat opportunity. Then The Grid high above was perfect for finally making floating maps, which made so many good maps possible.
And then Reach. Amazing. So many new tools, new items, new areas. I needed a new change of pants and something to clean up all the drool when I first saw Forgeworld. It had a flat 4v4-sized area WITH a cliff, it had an indoor room like foundry, it had a ton of open space over water or land, it had an island with unique terrain, it had a small cave, it had some more unique terrain seperating the parts (Montaska, aka Montana and Alaska) and it had the Blood-Gulch styled box Canyon). It had SO MUCH. Its only major downside was the framerate problems at times and then the fact that it was all 1 basic texture.
So Halo 4 comes around and we find out there will be 3 maps. I was excited because I thought it meant 3 different palletes of items, 3 unique areas to forge in, etc. Which it does, but it lacks one major problem.
They all suck.
Ravine: Has the “Forge World” look to it, which is fine. The terrain is bumpy though, looks weird, and isn’t huge. Not nearly as big as the Blood Gulch Canyon. There is a forerunner building which looks cool, but doesn’t serve much function other than being another, weird shaped foundry and a good potential base for asymmetrical 1sided objectives. The “Ravine” that the map is named for is tiny. Too tiny to make a map inside at least. Thats was I was hoping for, was that it would be this immense crack in the land that you could build a whole map in between. I was hoping to remake that old HaloCE map (can’t even remember the name, its the one in between 2 ships, basically 2 walls). Its tiny though. All you can do is build on one or two of the edges a bit, or put a bridge over it. So Ravine is the one I will be using the least.
Impact: This one looks really cool, spacey-styled. Then I saw a round building on a big bumpy rock. I hoped and dreamed you could delete that building, and that the meteor would be flat. Nope, you can’t delete it. So that is one prime forging area removed. There is another giant rock to forge on/around, but it isn’t flat enough or big enough. You could fit a small 4v4 map on it, but even that would probably have to extend outwards into the open space. The only reason to forge on this map is the giant open area in between the two rocks. So there might as well not even be rocks on this map. There is just nowhere big enough for a map.
Erosion: The final hope. The Lagoon looks strait up bad -Yoink-. Then I found out you can’t go in the water (unless someone can correct me, but thats what I heard). So no under water maps, but thats fine, still looks really really cool. The thing that kills it is the same as the first two maps. There is NO FLAT TERRAIN. Its all bumpy. Sure it looks cool, but its the kind of thing I want to see on multiplayer-ready maps, not on forge maps. That large tower is completely useless, and blocks out half of the cliff, so we can’t even use that correctly. Literally the only 2 good forging areas on this map is the giant Foundry room inside the building, and the ONCE AGAIN open space over the Lagoon. I doubt we can even forge on top of the building, which is the flattest looking outdoor area on the map.
So I am dissapointed with the forge maps. My main complaint is they are too much like multiplayer-ready maps that have too much natural terrain and not enough forge-minded areas. There is not a single big open field flat enough like Sandbox, and not even one thats decently workable like the blood-gulch area of ForgeWorld. There is no way to make a decent 4v4 or larger map withought being indoors, dealing with bumpy natural terrain, or just plain out floating.
Anyone share my feelings?
NOTE: I am merely coming at this as a Forger. The maps look beautiful and tons of fun, just not the Forge Maps they were bragged up to be. Honestly I would rather just have a Forge World 2.0 with the updated forge and graphics then have 3 “unique terrain/style” maps.