I’m guessing that some of you may or may not have seen this video? For those of you who have seen it, what are your thoughts on the new Forge system so far? For those of you who have not seen the video I’m talking about, please refer yourself up to the red text in the previous sentence. To be honest, I’m not really digging it so far and I’m going to explain why.
First of all, I would like to point out that the Halo 3 Forge system just plain sucked. In Bungie’s defense, they weren’t really anticipating that the community would want a map editor in the game series and Forge wasn’t really made initially for map making. They said it themselves in a Vidoc for Reach. However, the community worked with what it had available, and we managed to fashion amazing, and I mean amazing maps out of simple crates map scenery and a few teleporters on maps like Sandtrap, Foundry, Sandbox, Avalanche, etc. Even with all of it’s flaws, and lack of a coordinate system and snaps, rotations etc., the Halo 3 Forge system was still better than the Halo: Reach Forge System. Why? Because it had variety, whereas the Halo: Reach forge system lacked it drastically. Please hear me out before you go “NO NO NO NO NO!”
With the Halo 3 Forge system, you could go onto any map of your choosing, and you would find such a variety of gadgets and pieces that you could place on the map, each scenario was different. For example, compare Foundry to Sandbox. Both were specifically made for the community so that we could create our own maps. But each basic map and item palette had variety to it. You had different pieces with different textures for different scenarios. Foundry was an industrialized, urban warehouse thing where the theme of Sandbox was a barren Desert with ruins and -Yoink-. What I’m trying to say is, Halo 3 didn’t restrict our Forge limitations to just one map. We were able to work with all of the maps. Halo: Reach restricted us to just one map, Forge World. And it had only one main theme. Boring, dull, gray forerunner structures. And after watching that video above, I fear that this is what 343 Industries is doing to us again. They are restricting us to just one map (which looks oddly enough like forge World again).
To be honest with all of you, I’m OK with being restricted to just one map to work with, so long as the pieces on the Forge palette have variety. Halo: Reach’s Forge World palette did not. If 343 threw us back into Forge World for Halo 4, I would be thrilled so long as they fixed the Z-fighting glitch that Halo 3 and even Halo: Reach suffered from, and so long as they allowed for the use of weather FX. I’d also suggest that if this were the case again, that those of you at 343i reading this please throw in multiple textures for Forge pieces such as walls, ramps, bridges, vehicles, etc. this way we Forgers and players don’t grow bored when playing custom maps.
In conclusion to this ridiculously long post (I don’t even know why I bother I doubt the employees even care to read my posts), I would like to pat 343 industries on the back for their work on Halo 4 so far. I will admit I do like the way it looks so far and I plan on buying it. But please show the forge community some love. And for the love of God, if you guys are going to throw in Air Vehicles like the Falcon or the Pelican/Phantom, PLEASE ALLOW US TO RIDE IN THE PASSENGER SEATS FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.
