I'm a Custom Games Creator, and I'm Fed Up.

Games Other Halo
1

Tired of being ignored is more like it.

Time has taught me patience, but frankly I’m tired of waiting and asking. I’ve been polite. I’ve gone through the right channels. I’ve done what any person who desperately wants some answers would do: Conduct myself in a professional and courteous manner, and hope that I will be given the answers to my questions in time.

Things have not turned out as I’d hoped.

Since Halo 3 was released, it seems like nobody in charge has given a Grunts behind about Custom Game creators. For the uninformed, we proud few are the ones you see diddling around in Forge all day and Custom game lobbies to create unique gametypes that usually play nothing like Halo at all. We do this because we enjoy the creative freedom that Halo allows us, and we like to see what original content we can come up with to give us a break from your standard Halo gameplay. This stuff can branch from simple Zombies maps to full-blown mini-games like Pinball or Double Rainbow. It’s a wonderful world.

A world that has been repeatedly and consistently ignored by whoever’s in charge of the Halo franchise, be that Bungie or 343.

Let me tell you all a little story. When Halo Reach came out, every custom game creator out there was super excited. We were happy to get to play with Armor Abilities and all the new gametypes Reach offered. What we got was a disaster. Anyone with enough experience with gametypes will tell you that somebody at Bungie QA did not do their job, or simply didn’t care. Juggernaut alone is testament to just how little work went into custom games in Reach (You cannot change any Juggernaut traits at all, despite them being customizable in the menu). Almost every gametype has some kind of huge bug in it that can be replicated quite easily. Anyone with a brain can see that it was not up to par, and anyone who cared wouldn’t have released them in such a state.

Yet, it never got fixed. The only gametype that got any attention was Infection, and that was because Jeremiah (God bless the man, the only Bungie employee who ever gave a crap about the playerbase) needed to push out Alpha Zombies for matchmaking. Custom game creators like myself cried out for fixes, but none came.

I digress. The past year or so has been a dark one for customs. Nobody makes them because nobody can. All the possibilities are dried up, and we’re hoping so badly for Halo 4 to be our second coming. But, only being a little over a month from release… We have heard YOINK ALL about Customs in Halo 4. They’ve answered questions about this map, or this mechanic, or this weapon; Pretty much anything the regular playerbase wants to know, 343 has given an answer on.

But what about us?!*
- Is VIP in the game?
- Can these new Flood models be turned off in favor of regular spartan models? Can we give them weapons/AAs/Mods?
- How about AAs, can we still place them in the maps?
- Can you force players to have certain armor mods/specializations in customs without them unlocking them first?
- Can we get any details at all about Forge other than “It exists AND LOOK SHADOWS!”?
- Are there any new options for player traits, or weapon traits, or anything of use at all for us?
- Are there any new features or options at all that were built with us in mind?
Most of these are simple yes or no questions, yet most of them have gone completely unanswered. Hell, most of them aren’t even acknowledged. It seems that just because we don’t have a big enough community, we don’t get a voice and we don’t get to know anything about what we care about in Halo 4 the most.
But, I have hope. I have hope because I remember one day a few months ago, before most of the big Halo 4 news started to break… I sent a small letter to our lovely bs angel about custom games in Halo 4. It was a short letter, not too many paragraphs, and it explained just a few points of what the custom games community is looking forward to in Halo 4, and maybe how the design team could do a few small things to help us out. She politely replied and said she passed it along to those who could do something about it. It was a beacon, but we never heard a word about customs since.
343, I know you guys are listening. I know you care. It is very obvious that you care a great deal. So please, please throw us Custom Creators a bone and give us some information. Answer just a few questions. Please give us something to look forward to. We are a battered, lonely little community that could really use some love right about now.
I hope that you poured as much passion and care into Halo 4’s custom game options as you have with the rest of the game, because Halo 4 looks amazing. Thank you for the game, and best of luck in finishing it up.
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I feel that this individual’s reply encapsulate’s my concern perfectly:
> - Can these new Flood models be turned off in favor of regular spartan models? Can we give them weapons/AAs/Mods? Perhaps. <mark>Don’t see why you would want to though.</mark>
This, right here, is exactly what I’m afraid the developers are thinking right now. I’m terrified because they don’t think things through like custom game creators do. We don’t look at Flood and think “Ok, this is a gameype for zombies. Okay.” We think “How can I use this for something original, maybe even involving two sides of human players, each with different traits? Hmm…” and then the cogs start moving.
These gametypes are not limited to their base function, and that’s something Bungie NEVER realized, and something that many people still don’t realize. I saw tons of Infection variants in my time with Halo 3 and Reach, and stuff that went far beyond the confines of “Humans vs. Zombies”.

2

They gave us trait zones, multiple forge environments, and tossing things. That’s good, but if they don’t fix Juggernaut I’ll still facepalm.

3

Really? We’re not a month from release - we’re 6 weeks.

That is plenty of time for them to release info on Forge and custom game options. They have everything planned on a schedule that they’re balancing between the press releases and the completion of the actual assets in the game.

Be patient. They will reveal what needs to be known when they reach that point.

4

I’m…gonna have to agree with you…to an extent. I believe what Bungie gave us in Reach was gold. Forge World, higher budget, floating objects, etc. Halo 4 will have magnets, dynamic lighting, lock objects, clone objects, etc. That was just the tip of the iceberg with forge. I’m guessing they’ll add even more options and give us the ability to create new gametypes and customization. I have wanted a double objective system (not invasion) in which the team can either plant the bomb or capture their flag. Not really a new gametype but I see where you’re coming from and I understand. I really hope they give us almost unlimited flexibility.

5

> But what about us?!*
> - Is VIP in the game? Don’t know
> - Can these new Flood models be turned off in favor of regular spartan models? Can we give them weapons/AAs/Mods? Probably
> - How about AAs, can we still place them in the maps? Probably
> - Can you force players to have certain armor mods/specializations in customs without them unlocking them first? Probably
> - Can we get any details at all about Forge other than “It exists AND LOOK SHADOWS!”? sometime in the future
> - Are there any new options for player traits, or weapon traits, or anything of use at all for us?
> - Are there any new features or options at all that were built with us in mind? probably
> *
[/quote]
so really a high chance for a yes for most of the questions*

6

Bungie screwed up bad with custom games in Reach. The gametypes were full of bugs and glitches, the camouflage power up was broken until 343 patched it, there were many gametypes that didn’t have enough options, and most of all, there was SO MUCH WASTED POTENTIAL.

Bungie gave us the ability to SPAWN in vehicles, and what did they do? Confine it to only Race mode. Why on Earth wouldn’t they give us this option in a gametype people actually play?! It would have been the greatest thing ever, to make a Slayer gametype where everyone spawned in a random vehicle, or some crap. COME ON!

Then there’s the fact that they REMOVED a bunch of options, for no reason. Instant kill was gone, a long with grenade regen, and numerous other things. That’s garbage, we should never be going backwards.

I really hope they get it right this time with Halo 4, every custom game option that has ever existed should be in, plus a million new ones.

7

I hope we learn more about customs and forge. I hope for the sake of custom games that it Halo 4 has the flair that Halo 3 did in Forge & Customs that Reach seemed to lack.

8

Thank you good sir, for pointing this out!
I’m very anxious to find out more about Forge and Custom games for quite some time now. I think there’s a good chance we will have some info on the Flood gametype in the upcoming Bulletin.

Also, let us not forget about the Theater! Will machinima makers get something new to look forward to?

As with customising Forge maps, I really hope they have put in the cool feature Bungie had leave out due time restrictions. The one were you could use a picture of your map to show up in the lobby for everyone to see. This would give people a better idea about the map beforehand, instead of the regular(Forge world) one.

9

Personally I’d like to see some more tools for forgers, such as a ‘scroll through’ or ‘highlight’ option for finding weapons, vehicles and objects around the map that are on the list but you can’t find quickly.

Also, they’ve got to condense the gametypes in forge back down into one game mode, having to end and reboot the game for every new gametype just gets so tedious.

10

We still have plenty of time to see information. More than a month.
I’d say we’ll see at least 1 Bulletin on Forge and the game customization options.

With how much 343i has been expressing their view on customization (they say there will be very high levels of customization), I don’t think you’ll be dissapointed. Trait Zones alone are going to begin a whole new level of custom game fun.

And I’ll take a chance at your questions:
-We don’t know for sure, but the emphasis on teamwork and use of waypoints they’ve shown us make it seem that at least creating a VIP gametype will be possible. I do hope its in the game.
-I’d say its likely. We have yet to see it in action though, so its no surprise that we haven’t heard much about it. Either that or you could make your own regular Infection game mode.
-I don’t see why they would remove this. Sure there are loadouts, but they know switching abilities on the map are important in some customs. It wouldn’t make sense if they took out the ability to place AAs.
-More than likely. There are already pre-set loadouts in matchmaking regardless of your unlocks, so it is very likely that you’ll have the ability to disable custom loadouts and use pre-set loadouts.
-Soon hopefully…
-I’m not really understanding why you think they’re just going to take away all the fun stuff from Reach. They already brought in Trait Zones, so removing outside influence on the game traits just doesn’t seem likely. It’ll be in, perhaps even expanded.
-Trait Zones. And we’ve seen very little of the actual customization, and 343i have said that there is a lot.

11

Good post, OP. Reach was terrible for custom game settings.

I missed VIP, too.

> - Can these new Flood models be turned off in favor of regular spartan models? Can we give them weapons/AAs/Mods?

I consider this one to be really important.

Okay, flood in infection is cool and all, even if a little gimmicky. But the most fun i’ve had in infection has come from custom gametypes with things like different weapons and such.

The new AAs and armour mods open up a lot more possibilities, and it’d be a shame if we aren’t able to utilize them properly in infection.

12

> They gave us trait zones, multiple forge environments, and <mark>tossing things</mark>. That’s good, but if they don’t fix Juggernaut I’ll still facepalm.

Not the flag :stuck_out_tongue:

13

I have to agree. Reach was personally, a clustered mess of unknown for me. I’m hoping Halo 4 adds more in depth customization that can be understood and actually works. Forge has given me hope.

14

> They gave us trait zones, multiple forge environments, and tossing things. That’s good, but if they don’t fix Juggernaut I’ll still facepalm.

Yes… the “Multiple forge environments” which we haven’t seen yet. Although I find myself rather anxious to view all aspects of this genre I would be most partial to a view of each of the forge environments and which species forge items are used in it. Be it the metallic forerunner objects, the sandstone forerunner objects, human, covenant or even something completely new. Either way I am eager to find out and commence forging.

15

[deleted]

16

Too much campaign, too little forge and custom games.

Reach had a lot of wasted potential. And broken things.

17

[EDIT]Whoops, wrong thread.

18

I still remember the incredible Custom Games of Halo 3.

I want Halo 4’s Customs to be even better than those!

19

> But what about us?!*
> - Is VIP in the game?
> - Can these new Flood models be turned off in favor of regular spartan models? Can we give them weapons/AAs/Mods?
> - How about AAs, can we still place them in the maps?
> - Can you force players to have certain armor mods/specializations in customs without them unlocking them first?
> - Can we get any details at all about Forge other than “It exists AND LOOK SHADOWS!”?
> - Are there any new options for player traits, or weapon traits, or anything of use at all for us?
> - Are there any new features or options at all that were built with us in mind?
> <mark>- Is the Haloball gametype in the game?</mark>
> *
[/quote]
Added that one to the list for you. Oh the things we could do with that gametype, yet none of it every properly implemented into Matchmaking.*

20

What would really make my day is some sort of Custom game hopper, where you can see open hosts and the map they are hosting with of course a join option. It would really be helpful for those who don’t have custom game friends online 24/7 or just want to try something new.