Save Forge!

Games Halo 5: Guardians
1

Hey 343,
I’ve found myself early on really enjoying what was brought to the table as far as forge goes when it was first brought into the universe with Halo 3. I would get home from school and instead of getting right into matchmaking, spent countless hours making maps for my friends to play. I don’t know what it was about forge that had me hooked but I couldn’t stop. I loved learning all the little tips and tricks to making maps look really good without using the limited about of supplies you were given. For instance remember when you couldn’t actually “phase” objects into one another when forge was just getting started? Or even simply making objects float? Anyone who knew anything about forge knows that these tricks are what set you apart from the ordinary player making maps. Just these little things made your maps appear a lot more… polished. Then came what is in my opinion (The Greatest Forge Ever). Halo Reach and Forge world were just revolutionary. The editing system was just amazing and the canvas…spectacular! I don’t think there is really much I can put into words to say what the community has already done in game, which is simply making really amazing and also really “FUN” maps to play on.

We all know the amazing custom games that came from both these games forge days. Just to list a few of the more popular ones. Duck Hunt, Cops v Robbers, Fat Kid, or my personal favorite Halo on Halo. Now I’m aware that some people may not have ever played any of these customs but that’s not really the point. The point is Forge used to be so simple as well as the objects used, and what came of it’s simplicity was something that I will never forget from my childhood…

Halo 4 Fans tread lightly…

Now I don’t know how this next part of my little story may potentially upset some Halo 4 fans but if Halo 4 Forge is something that you found enjoyable great! You can probably stop reading and go continue to make maps. If you’re someone who maybe sees things a little more in the way that I’ve been describing them, stick around and read a little more.

Halo 4 Forge had some absolutely awesome ideas!..but that’s about it…Please keep in mind that this is my opinion some or none of you may agree but just hear me out at least. Halo 4’s tools that it brought to the table had (and still has) great potential. The ability to duplicate objects and snapping is something that fans and myself have wanted for a long time. Now where my issues lie…I believe that one of the key factors to Halo Reach and the original Forge Worlds success was simply that it was simple. It was One place, that everyone knew, even when you played online multiplayer you knew that whatever map you were playing on whether it was infection on some variation of The Cage or Paradiso you knew that it was a part of this larger picture that was Forge World. This to me was really a neat idea. Halo 4 Forge kinda breaks away from that kind of set up though, and personally I wasn’t a fan. Having 3 medium sized maps with different themes just doesn’t have the same feeling to me that one really beautiful one really large map did. Also it wasn’t that it was even one map that made it great because yes it’s one map when you load it up but in reality it’s multiple. Depending on what style of game you were looking to make dictated where you would be building in this larger world and if you didn’t want people going anywhere else you simply made it so with your spawns and boundaries. Maybe that’s how I should have explained it earlier.

1. Simply put it was 1 map to load up consisting of multiple areas to build with, not 3 different maps and if you wanted to build on a different area you then had to quit out and select another one of 3 maps.

So that for me was issue numero uno (number one).

2. Issue number two is this. TOO BRIGHT!

What do I mean by this? Well if you spent any amount of time in Halo 4’s Forge I would hope that you can agree with me when I say what is with the spot lights? When you are in the Forge Ball Mode every object that you can click on has this quite frankly…really annoying intense glow about it. Then in turn, when you drop out of this mode none of the map looks anything like you thought it did (brightness wise) because everything was lit up the entire time you were building. I personally see no point in this AT ALL. In Reach what you saw when you were building was what you saw when you were finish, plane as that.

  1. Flood Mode and Infection MUST BE SEPARATE!

Finally, and this is a biggy for me is that if Flood Mode is going to exist so should Infection when dealing with Forge, and this is why. In the games that I really enjoyed back in the day playing Halo 3 and Reach in the custom games that I mentioned earlier, Infection was a must. Without it those games just do not exist. This is because those modes allowed the infected to carry an actual weapon. With Flood Mode they have this really cool skin on them…but it doesn’t allow them anywhere in the setting to swap that floody lookin sword arm out for a sniper, gravity hammer, etc. I don’t know if I speak for any other Forgers but myself when I say that if Forge is to survive this has to change!

I really hope that my story will be able to save forge in some way, some may agree with me and some may not even read this far… Aside from all the negative and positive mixed feelings I have for Forge currently here is just a small list of what I hope to see in Forge with Halo 5 Guardians.

  • 1 really detailed, massive, and absolutely stunningly beautiful map

  • weather variants

  • If possible through next gen. tech. no cap or seemingly no cap on how much you can make. I get that map rendering is a thing and must be taken into account.

  • More options for lighting

  • I know this one is a hard one as they’ve talked about before but some form of an “undo” button would be amazing.The list for me could honestly go on an on but I hope some people take the time to read this and leave their comments and I’ll see you all on Halo 5!

2

The hell? Save forge? We don’t even know how it’s going to be like, but seeing the tools they gave us for Halo 2 Anniversary. I wouldn’t be worried. Just relax and see what is there before you jup out the bad wagon.

you played the beta, you know 2 or 3 of those maps were made in Forge, it’s there. Chill

3

> 2533274803137071;2:
> The hell? Save forge? We don’t even know how it’s going to be like, but seeing the tools they gave us for Halo 2 Anniversary. I wouldn’t be worried. Just relax and see what is there before you jup out the bad wagon.
>
> you played the beta, you know 2 or 3 of those maps were made in Forge, it’s there. Chill

Agreed. Slow your roll OP

4

> 2533274859413227;3:
> > 2533274803137071;2:
> > The hell? Save forge? We don’t even know how it’s going to be like, but seeing the tools they gave us for Halo 2 Anniversary. I wouldn’t be worried. Just relax and see what is there before you jup out the bad wagon.
> >
> > you played the beta, you know 2 or 3 of those maps were made in Forge, it’s there. Chill
>
>
> Agreed. Slow your roll OP

Thank you for the support my friend

5

In the famous words of Ron Burgundy: boy…that escalated quickly…I mean that really got out of hand fast.

6

> 2533274833352612;1:
> Well if you spent any amount of time in Halo 4’s Forge I would hope that you can agree with me when I say what is with the spot lights? When you are in the Forge Ball Mode ever object that you can click on has this quite frankly…really annoying intense glow about it. Then in turn, when you drop out of this mode none of the map looks anything like you thought it did (brightness wise) because everything was lit up the entire time you were building. I personally see no point in this AT ALL. In Reach what you saw when you were building was what you saw when you were finish, plane as that.

The glow is pretty useful IMO; it helps to prevent people from grabbing a piece they don’t mean to. I don’t recall it being very bright, but different TVs have different color settings.

As for the brightness changing when you drop out of Edit Mode? That’s due to changes in how shadows are computed.

The first Halo games used lightmaps. The idea is that Bungie would precompute the lighting in every accessible point on the map (using radiosity) before releasing the game. When you placed a Forge object, the entire object would be shaded based on the location of its centerpoint, according to the lightmap. This approach was simplistic and very quick to render, but it was also fairly inaccurate; sometimes, you’d get a pitch-black object right next to a fully lit object, and you’d never see the environment cast exact, accurate shadows on Forge objects.

Halo 4 still seems to use lightmaps on some maps, but on its canvases, the game computes brand new “shadow maps” according to what you place. With this change, the Forge objects you place can now cast and be covered by partial shadows, rather than having “all or nothing” lighting as they did in the past. The problem is that the shadow map needs to be recomputed when a round starts or when you’ve placed new pieces, and the computations aren’t quick enough to be done in real-time.

> 2533274833352612;1:
> With Flood Mode they have this really cool skin on them…but it doesn’t allow them anywhere in the setting to swap that floody lookin sword arm out for a sniper, gravity hammer, etc. I don’t know if I speak for any other Forgers but myself when I say that if Forge is to survive this has to change!

This wasn’t actually a problem with the Flood player models themselves; a few in-game glitches prove that they had all the animations and other data they needed to hold weapons. Weapons would clip into a Flood player’s claw-arm, but they would still be perfectly usable. 343i disabled the weapon settings anyway, putting form over function.

If you ever play Flood again, then head to Theater afterwards, look at where a Flood player respawns, and watch them frame-by-frame. For a few frames, the respawning player will be animated as if they were holding an assault rifle.

7

Yes, I was referring to the inability to change the flood mode settings to allow flood to hold other weapons not exactly that Infection had to be brought back.

8

> 2533274803137071;2:
> The hell? Save forge? We don’t even know how it’s going to be like, but seeing the tools they gave us for Halo 2 Anniversary. I wouldn’t be worried. Just relax and see what is there before you jup out the bad wagon.
>
> you played the beta, you know 2 or 3 of those maps were made in Forge, it’s there. Chill

9

This tedious post could have have been condensed into one paragraph, but because it wasn’t―and because it’s the Great Wall of Text―most won’t read it. Looking past this, Forge doesn’t need saving ― Forge 2.0 from H2A is amazing. Besides, we literally don’t know anything about Halo 5 Forge outside of the two Forge maps from the BETA.

10

> 2533274843742113;6:
> > 2533274833352612;1:
> > Well if you spent any amount of time in Halo 4’s Forge I would hope that you can agree with me when I say what is with the spot lights? When you are in the Forge Ball Mode ever object that you can click on has this quite frankly…really annoying intense glow about it. Then in turn, when you drop out of this mode none of the map looks anything like you thought it did (brightness wise) because everything was lit up the entire time you were building. I personally see no point in this AT ALL. In Reach what you saw when you were building was what you saw when you were finish, plane as that.
>
>
> The glow is pretty useful IMO; it helps to prevent people from grabbing a piece they don’t mean to. I don’t recall it being very bright, but different TVs have different color settings.
>
> As for the brightness changing when you drop out of Edit Mode? That’s due to changes in how shadows are computed.
>
> The first Halo games used lightmaps. The idea is that Bungie would precompute the lighting in every accessible point on the map (using radiosity) before releasing the game. When you placed a Forge object, the entire object would be shaded based on the location of its centerpoint, according to the lightmap. This approach was simplistic and very quick to render, but it was also fairly inaccurate; sometimes, you’d get a pitch-black object right next to a fully lit object, and you’d never see the environment cast exact, accurate shadows on Forge objects.
>
> Halo 4 still seems to use lightmaps on some maps, but on its canvases, the game computes brand new “shadow maps” according to what you place. With this change, the Forge objects you place can now cast and be covered by partial shadows, rather than having “all or nothing” lighting as they did in the past. The problem is that the shadow map needs to be recomputed when a round starts or when you’ve placed new pieces, and the computations aren’t quick enough to be done in real-time.
>
>
>
>
> > 2533274833352612;1:
> > With Flood Mode they have this really cool skin on them…but it doesn’t allow them anywhere in the setting to swap that floody lookin sword arm out for a sniper, gravity hammer, etc. I don’t know if I speak for any other Forgers but myself when I say that if Forge is to survive this has to change!
>
>
> This wasn’t actually a problem with the Flood player models themselves; a few in-game glitches prove that they had all the animations and other data they needed to hold weapons. Weapons would clip into a Flood player’s claw-arm, but they would still be perfectly usable. 343i disabled the weapon settings anyway, putting form over function.
>
> If you ever play Flood again, then head to Theater afterwards, look at where a Flood player respawns, and watch them frame-by-frame. For a few frames, the respawning player will be animated as if they were holding an assault rifle.

Thank you.

11

A long time ago, after Reach came out, I made a loooooong article talking about the downfall of Custom Games, and Forge in Halo.

Sadly, I don’t have that article anymore; the site I wrote it on shut down, the hardrive it was saved on crashed, and I wouldn’t have the faintest idea of where to find it again, lest my paper notes of it still exist somewhere scribbled on a notepad that’s likely shoved in a dainty, lovely, cardboard box.

However, I still remember the gist of it all, and if need be could recite it likely word for word - I won’t, but I could - because it’s something I stand by wholeheartedly.

I’m going to start here by saying I agree with you somewhat, and that the general stance of my article was that Forge killed Custom Games. Now, that statement might sound a bit crazy, but it’s not.

Lemme defend it a little bit:

In the beginning Bungie created Forge so that players could edit the base maps of Halo 3; give them a few tweaks, add a little bit of cover, throw a few weapons down, change up the spawns, and make maps that shouldn’t work for objective gametypes work for objective gametypes. It was all fine and dandy, and they rolled the dice hoping that people would enjoy the new feature, and could give the game a little bit more replayability… However, it evolved into much more than just a simple map editor. Forge became a phenomenon in gaming, an accidental speck of genius that wasn’t meant to be so amazing.

It sparked the creative soul of gamers worldwide, with its easy to understand mechanics, straightforward editing/saving system, and simplistic nature-- From simplicity, you can create beauty.

I was there from the beginning, and I’ll likely be one of an extreme minority you’ll ever hear this from, but: I HATE Halo 3. There’s a burning hatred I have for Halo 3, from its campaign, right down to its netcode. I could spend literally hours explaining why I have this insatiable hatred for it, but I won’t. Instead, I’ll say that its two redeeming features were Forge, and well designed Custom Games (and I can’t forget to mention Theater here, but that’s not the topic at hand). I spent the vast majority of my time Forging, since I obviously didn’t like the MM. I made some of the most popular maps and gametypes back in the day, such as the original Chubby Stadium, to Fatkid. I became a master of Forge, knowing all the tricks, makin’ all the cool mapz. In fact, some of my fondest memories in gaming go back into Halo 3, just Forging, and hosting Custom Games, that would sometimes last for days. Open Lobbies man, those were the days.

Sketching out designs, thinking of new ideas, building whatever came to mind with whatever pieces I had at hand. I know Foundry, and Sandbox like the back of my hand. Just playing with friends, testing, experiencing the best parts of the community of Halo-- That’s what made Halo 3 bearable for me. Creativity at its finest, and it wasn’t just limited to me. Everyone could go into Forge, drop down a wall or two, plop down a few red and blue spawns, and boom they had an infection map. There was ALWAYS something to do, especially when you were like me, and were a stalker of the File Shares, downloading and playing every single map that everyone had to offer.

There was NOTHING to limit the player base… Except at the same time, Forge could be so much more, so much more complex, with new mechanics, and even more interesting ideas.

drum roll

Halo: Reach

Fancy, shiny, sparkly, new, complex, beautiful, innovative-- It was finally what we Forgers wanted, and what we so dearly needed. Phasing, fixing, merging, dedicated maps, a reworked file share, overhauled custom games, and a complex forge, with a wonderful palette. It was perfect.

Or, so it seemed, and so it likely still seems to many, but sadly it was deeply flawed. Complexity brings with itself many issues, including unapproachability, daunting mechanics, and instability.

In retrospect, complexity is truly the beginning of the end for the Custom Game community.

People could no longer just quickly go into forge, throw down those couple walls, plop down some spawns, and have their infection map. Gametype labels, while absolutely fantastic for veteran forgers who didn’t mind learning a few new tricks, stifled innovation in the casual player base, which in turn cutoff that constant flow of custom games that was constantly being hosted in the previous game. Honestly, how often did you see someone making an invasion map in Reach? It was pretty darn rare if you’re asking me, especially knowing that I didn’t even want to really learn the tricks to making an invasion map until late into Reach’s lifespan. All those steps, so many playtest sessions where everyone would die instantly to a too soon spawned kill zone… It was just a bit too complex, even for some of the veterans. You know what they say, old dogs can’t learn new tricks.

This isn’t to say the complexity made forge any worse in general, it certainly was an improvement, just with a major issue. I was able to pump maps out like there was no tomorrow, each better than the last, and thousands of times more amazing than anything I had ever made in Halo 3. Slayer, CTF, Assault, Infection, Invasion, etc, I made 'em all.

But you don’t have a clue how many friends, most of which were amazing forgers, would say to me “Hey, I’ve got this really cool Invasion map idea… Would you mind setting up the labels, and spawns for me?”

It made the process of making maps too arduous, and restarting the match every time you wanted to change the labels on somethings was the biggest pain in the whole game.

So, there was room for more improvement, the lighting could do some work, the pallet could use a refresh, we could use some maps, and maybe you could simplify a couple things.

drum roll

Halo 4

Everyone cheer, the next game’s out! Forge has dynamic lighting, we’ve got THREE dedicated maps all with their own pallets, snapping, locking, magnets, duplicating, etc, etc. We’ve seen it all by now, yadda yadda. The lighting glitched a bit, the maps weren’t as good as they could have been, but they did their jobs well enough, the pallets were a bit meh, snapping was a tad jumbly, magnets didn’t work at first, but ya’know what? Duplicating worked perfectly, we worked around the pallets, made our own landscapes, eventually ended up with an amazing Forge map for free, item highlighting was the best thing ever, and they fixed a load of stuff.

Sadly, complexity decided he wanted to stay, and ALL the issues Reach had moved over to Halo 4-- especially all those darn coord jumping engine glitches.

The casual crowd was still heavily limited, and the good Forgers didn’t have a working fileshare system at launch; basically, Customs died a hard, painful death. It was swift, and I still count it as one of the major reasons why Halo 4’s population dropped off so fast. There was no customs to hold peoples attention since there was no maps made by all the angry forgers, with all the custom issues.

There’s a billion threads talking about all the issues Halo 4 introduced, but in a all honesty, I love Halo 4, and will still say that had people come back after the TU’s, and saw the added improvements, and fixes to stability to Forge post launch, they’d have been much happier people. But either way, Forge needed work, it could be a little bit more simple. This isn’t saying that its needs to be ridiculously simple, but a good example of complexity, and simplicity, is Minecraft. Approachable.

Continued

12

It dosent need saving , it needs improvements

13

Continued–

Minecraft is an approachable game, with simple mechanics, that enforces creativity on a large scale. It’s simplicity eventually builds upon complex systems, that allows veteran builders to construct awesomely detailed structures, with highly complicated engineering behind them.

Sure, Minecraft might not be a perfect example, but it’s at least slightly fitting to what we’re talking about: A system built for player creativity, or at the very least something that evolved into that.

So, anyway, Halo 4 was a little bit of a bust, to put it lightly Hugs his Halo 4 Limited Edition tightly and it could have used a lot more work in the Forge, and Custom Games department.

drum roll

Halo: The Master Chief Collection

Do I need to say more? Halo CE(A), Halo 2(A), Halo 3, and Halo 4, all at 60 FPS, 1080p, all on one disc. That said, we all experienced the unfortunate launch… But out of it all, we got something we desperately needed - SURE, it didn’t work then, but it works now - a really good Forge, and a really good Custom Games. Littered with issues, yes, but chock full 'o promise. In its current state we’ve got working dynamic lighting, a working File Share, working Custom Games, heck, they even fixed Flood mode, and made it so that the Flood skin is an effect on the player. They added loads of new things, basically everything we’ve been asking for ever since Forge came around. They made the palette less cluttered looking, gave us open dedicated maps, with different types of backgrounds, got rid of the ridiculous credit system and made it so there’s just a massive object limit, gave us programmable objects, etc.

They brought everything down a notch, kept a lot of the complexity that allowed good Forgers to make interesting maps, and casual Forgers to jump into it, quickly learn the ins and outs, and make a map. It’s moving in the right direction, but sadly there’s no way we’re going to revive MCC, since everyone is too hard headed to say it’s actually perfectly fine now.

So, perhaps Halo 5 will continue in the right direction too? I’m sure we’ll see soon. Either way, Halo 5 doesn’t look like it’ll have the issues of the past couple games. There’s a lot of amazing things in Halo 2A’s Forge, that make me extremely excited to see where they can go with Halo 5’s Forge… My mouth waters thinking about the WIP palette we saw in the Beta.

14

I’m sure he died in supernova.

Surely 343 continues to make Forge better.