Support NeoGAF

[Shake Appeal]

Nice video, Voltron. The aggressive double kill with close to no shields was cool.

Edit: pistol unloading is definitely a little slower. Did the grenades feel different? They seem to fly farther than I remember from the beta.

Edit 2: I laughed: http://www.forgehub.com/forum/halo-reach-forge-discussion/101632-reach-forge-too-easy.html

 

[Miggytronz]

holy shit at this thread, i need some tissues........

 

[Zeouterlimits]

Edit 2: I laughed: http://www.forgehub.com/forum/halo-reach-forge-discussion/101632-reach-forge-too-easy.html

I can't access the site at work, but even the title makes me laugh.

 

[The Librarian]

Edit 2: I laughed: http://www.forgehub.com/forum/halo-reach-forge-discussion/101632-reach-forge-too-easy.html

What the fuck. It's too easy?:lol

From the G4TV live-blog, the guy said you could edit the terrain some. What exactly can you edit? I wonder if I can remake Valhalla.

 

[Drakken]

Kart gametypes were already hugely popular in Halo 3, thanks to certain gametype loopholes and people's persistent Forging. See, for instance:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpV_RXAz-bc

In Reach they have made it a standard gametype, put in lap counters, timers, speedometers, etc. It's still a diversion from all the shooting, but pretty well fleshed out now.

This is amazing! I had no idea people were doing this kind of stuff. Rainbow Road looks like a ton of fun.

 

[metareferential]

I wonder if I can remake Valhalla.

In the last twelve hours or so, you said "valhalla" at least a hundred times.

We get it. :lol

Jokes aside, the terrain question is crucial.

But even without terrain modifications, Forge 2.0 is stunning.

 

[squidhands]

Wow you guys are impressed with the stupidest stuff.

You've convinced me. Pre-order canceled.

Edit 2: I laughed: http://www.forgehub.com/forum/halo-reach-forge-discussion/101632-reach-forge-too-easy.html

He's right; it will be waaaaaay to easy. Pre-ordered again just so I can cancel.

 

[big ander]

What the fuck. It's too easy?:lol

From the G4TV live-blog, the guy said you could edit the terrain some. What exactly can you edit? I wonder if I can remake Valhalla.

I thought I remembered it being small rocks, but it'd be awesome if you could place and delete some features like hills and cliffs.

 

[B_Rik_Schitthaus]

Forge is a joke compared to the Far Cry 2 editor, sure. Still looks kinda fun, though.

Full map creation without a quick(Less then 3 min) easy way of sharing the levels is pointless.

 

[electricpirate]

Since Eazy seems to be slacking here with some anti hype, I'm going to have to step up to the plate.

While the fly through of forge world is fantastic, how much does having this as one huge map actually add? Are we going to see any good maps that jump from one space to the next? Probably not, that's just going to end up with game play that's too scattered for it's own good.

The other problem with putting a giant forgeable world like this together is the visual palette and objects have to be the same. Every single forge base map will be made with fore-runner pieces on the ringworld. Visually that's going to get boring eventually. Bungie mentioned that this was originally 5 totally seperate maps, and I think 5 maps, with 5 full object palettes would have provided more variety, while not losing very much.

Which brings us to the other issue, the overall variety of maps. 9 total unique maps, 2-3 of them will end up as invasion maps, 1 is Forgeworld, and that leaves us with 6-7 maps for classic halo gameplay. If you count all the various unique Forgeworld variations, you are looking at 11-12 on the disc, with 5 of those being visually identical.

On top of that the game feautures 4 remakes, 1 a full a remake and 3 forge remakes. With this few maps, if any of the core maps is the next Isolation or Epitaph, it's a big issue. Considering also that Sword base got mixed reviews (I enjoyed it though...). Make that doubly so for invasion, which looks to be sporting very few maps come launch. Even further, how do you specialize the maps with so few? Already looking at the list there's a major shortage of arena style maps, and a bounty of 1 flag focussed maps. There are maybe 3 revealed so far that could even remotely support 2 flag CTF (Gulch remake, sanctuary remake, and zealot).

It really seems like Bungie is hoping to forge their way out of this map hole, with a 5 forged maps out of the box (I'm not counting the griffball court :lol ), and more to likely hit shortly after release (with wizard and lockout remakes being shown) it seems we are in for a lot of fore-runner archictecture sitting on green grass.

 

[Gui_PT]

What the fuck. It's too easy?:lol

From the G4TV live-blog, the guy said you could edit the terrain some. What exactly can you edit? I wonder if I can remake Valhalla.

Well, you can edit rocks. Maybe there are more elements you can add/alter? Maybe trees and small patches of grass.

 

[Genesis Knight]

You know at some point Bungie just doesn't have the time/manpower to do everything. Forge 2.0 is clearly a sort of evolution of Forge 1, and probably shares a bunch of the same tech. For all we know terrain deformation would have required completely rewriting the game engine or the Forge infrastructure itself, just as allowing Forge on Firefight would have required completely overhauling the AI system. And when you start talking about that sort of project then return on investment begins to factor in. Sometimes what you get back from a feature just isn't worth the labor hours.

 

[metareferential]

Well, you can edit rocks. Maybe there are more elements you can add/alter? Maybe trees and small patches of grass.

That dragon-giant cat spitting fireballs, is made out of little rock pieces, if I'm getting it right.

So, we could eventually build entire hills out of little stones.

 

[Lazslo]

Here's Dan Shoe's (bitmob) MultiPlayer Preview, it's pretty good.

 

[∀ Narayan]

I like what I see.

 

[Hydranockz]

Wow you guys are impressed with the stupidest stuff. This is called a sloppy map editor that is based off of a extremely sloppy bordering on unusable map editor. Woop-dee-doo. And it's called LOD not secret amazing LOD created by Bungie. It's just LOD. The same tech used since the beginning of 3d development. It's amazing stuff really, well it was 20 years ago. As ugly as those maps look and assets look, they better have some excuse for it...like that part of the map that isn't being used at all is being partially rendered for no real reason.

Sure LOD has been around for years... but so has fuel efficiency and with advance in technology scientists discover ways to make fuel even more efficient. Similarly, Bungie have refined their LOD algorithms to allow them to render far away objects cheaper than ever before. Go complain about Google using search algorithms.... because those things have been around for ages....

But hey, you wouldn't have watched the Vidoc if you weren't interested so I'll give you that... you silly troll.

 

[GhaleonEB]

Couple notes on the stuff since I did the sleeping thing.

Thanks for the gameplay vid, Voltron. The Cage looked like a very simplistic layout from the overview, and it is in terms of navigating it, but it had some great cross map sight lines and choke points. And visually, the pieces are much more interesting to look at than any of the building blocks from Halo 3.

Couldn't have put it better myself. Those maps are stunning, and I'm particularly excited about the one where you go outside the ship for a low-g section. Reminds me of the first level of Halo 2, and might be a hint of a mission from Campaign. All three maps look just stunning in both art and fidelity. I added a link to it in the OP if anyone is looking for it.

Don't know where to start with that post, really.

I started by firing up the Ignore feature, personally.

 

[Kuroyume]

Someone post pictures of all the maps revealed so far.

 

[Schmitty]

Since Eazy seems to be slacking here with some anti hype, I'm going to have to step up to the plate.

While the fly through of forge world is fantastic, how much does having this as one huge map actually add? Are we going to see any good maps that jump from one space to the next? Probably not, that's just going to end up with game play that's too scattered for it's own good.

The other problem with putting a giant forgeable world like this together is the visual palette and objects have to be the same. Every single forge base map will be made with fore-runner pieces on the ringworld. Visually that's going to get boring eventually. Bungie mentioned that this was originally 5 totally seperate maps, and I think 5 maps, with 5 full object palettes would have provided more variety, while not losing very much.

Which brings us to the other issue, the overall variety of maps. 9 total unique maps, 2-3 of them will end up as invasion maps, 1 is Forgeworld, and that leaves us with 6-7 maps for classic halo gameplay. If you count all the various unique Forgeworld variations, you are looking at 11-12 on the disc, with 5 of those being visually identical.

On top of that the game feautures 4 remakes, 1 a full a remake and 3 forge remakes. With this few maps, if any of the core maps is the next Isolation or Epitaph, it's a big issue. Considering also that Sword base got mixed reviews (I enjoyed it though...). Make that doubly so for invasion, which looks to be sporting very few maps come launch. Even further, how do you specialize the maps with so few? Already looking at the list there's a major shortage of arena style maps, and a bounty of 1 flag focussed maps. There are maybe 3 revealed so far that could even remotely support 2 flag CTF (Gulch remake, sanctuary remake, and zealot).

It really seems like Bungie is hoping to forge their way out of this map hole, with a 5 forged maps out of the box (I'm not counting the griffball court :lol ), and more to likely hit shortly after release (with wizard and lockout remakes being shown) it seems we are in for a lot of fore-runner archictecture sitting on green grass.

Well said. My only hope is that 'color' option in Forge changes the theme of the objects from Forerunner scenery.

 

[Falagard]

You know at some point Bungie just doesn't have the time/manpower to do everything. Forge 2.0 is clearly a sort of evolution of Forge 1, and probably shares a bunch of the same tech. For all we know terrain deformation would have required completely rewriting the game engine or the Forge infrastructure itself, just as allowing Forge on Firefight would have required completely overhauling the AI system. And when you start talking about that sort of project then return on investment begins to factor in. Sometimes what you get back from a feature just isn't worth the labor hours.

Absolutely it would have. Halo's engine has always used polygon soup style geometry for terrain, meaning that the environmental artists use 3d modeling tools such as 3DS Max for creating everything, including buildings and terrain. This style of geometry requires its own specific systems for level of detail (or often the case - no level of detail on world geometry, but stream in things like textures).

Farcry uses a heightmapped terrain system, where the terrain consists of a regular grid of points. The points always stay the same distance apart when viewed from above, but each point can be raised or lowered to create terrain (their height changes). Most heightmapped terrain systems in the past wouldn't allow things like caves or overhangs unless they were extra geometry pieces that sat on top of the heightmapped terrain. Crysis had new tech that allowed caves, with certain limitation - probably based on metaballs / marching cubes algorithm where the terrain is converted from a heightmap into a volumetric space.

Anyhow - that is absolutely different from the technology being used in Halo, not to mention the other major problem - Halo uses a precalculated lighting system. Every piece of world geometry has a unique set of UV coordinates that are used for lighting and therefore the world geometry cannot be modified without messing up the precalculated lighting. Since the lighting takes so much processing power (Forge World probably took days to calculate the lighting for) it's not something that can be easily be recalculated after you modify the geometry.

So there pretty much was never any chance of editing terrain in Forge with Halo Reach's engine.

 

[FlawlessCowboy]

Ascension + Ivory Tower + Midship + Blood Gulch = Hell yeah! Thank you, Bungie!

 

[Metroidvania]

Holy shit Ivory Tower.

Holy shit.

Best maps coming back confirmed.

 

[The Librarian]

In response to seeing, playing, and experiencing the same type of Forge maps becoming quite tiresome, I'm sure by the time that happens, we'll probably be getting (or hearing about) a new Forge World. Like a Covenant-themed one.

 

[Genesis Knight]

Absolutely it would have. Halo's engine has always used polygon soup style geometry for terrain, meaning that the environmental artists use 3d modeling tools such as 3DS Max for creating everything, including buildings and terrain. This style of geometry requires its own specific systems for level of detail (or often the case - no level of detail on world geometry, but stream in things like textures).

Farcry uses a heightmapped terrain system, where the terrain consists of a regular grid of points. The points always stay the same distance apart when viewed from above, but each point can be raised or lowered to create terrain (their height changes). Most heightmapped terrain systems in the past wouldn't allow things like caves or overhangs unless they were extra geometry pieces that sat on top of the heightmapped terrain. Crysis had new tech that allowed caves, with certain limitation - probably based on metaballs / marching cubes algorithm where the terrain is converted from a heightmap into a volumetric space.

Anyhow - that is absolutely different from the technology being used in Halo, not to mention the other major problem - Halo uses a precalculated lighting system. Every piece of world geometry has a unique set of UV coordinates that are used for lighting and therefore the world geometry cannot be modified without messing up the precalculated lighting. Since the lighting takes so much processing power (Forge World probably took days to calculate the lighting for) it's not something that can be easily be recalculated after you modify the geometry.

So there pretty much was never any chance of editing terrain in Forge with Halo Reach's engine.

 

[big ander]

Here's Dan Shoe's (bitmob) MultiPlayer Preview, it's pretty good.

:lol Shishka with a "devilish twinkle."

 

[Loxley]

Since Eazy seems to be slacking here with some anti hype, I'm going to have to step up to the plate.

While the fly through of forge world is fantastic, how much does having this as one huge map actually add? Are we going to see any good maps that jump from one space to the next? Probably not, that's just going to end up with game play that's too scattered for it's own good.

The other problem with putting a giant forgeable world like this together is the visual palette and objects have to be the same. Every single forge base map will be made with fore-runner pieces on the ringworld. Visually that's going to get boring eventually. Bungie mentioned that this was originally 5 totally seperate maps, and I think 5 maps, with 5 full object palettes would have provided more variety, while not losing very much.

Which brings us to the other issue, the overall variety of maps. 9 total unique maps, 2-3 of them will end up as invasion maps, 1 is Forgeworld, and that leaves us with 6-7 maps for classic halo gameplay. If you count all the various unique Forgeworld variations, you are looking at 11-12 on the disc, with 5 of those being visually identical.

On top of that the game feautures 4 remakes, 1 a full a remake and 3 forge remakes. With this few maps, if any of the core maps is the next Isolation or Epitaph, it's a big issue. Considering also that Sword base got mixed reviews (I enjoyed it though...). Make that doubly so for invasion, which looks to be sporting very few maps come launch. Even further, how do you specialize the maps with so few? Already looking at the list there's a major shortage of arena style maps, and a bounty of 1 flag focussed maps. There are maybe 3 revealed so far that could even remotely support 2 flag CTF (Gulch remake, sanctuary remake, and zealot).

It really seems like Bungie is hoping to forge their way out of this map hole, with a 5 forged maps out of the box (I'm not counting the griffball court :lol ), and more to likely hit shortly after release (with wizard and lockout remakes being shown) it seems we are in for a lot of fore-runner archictecture sitting on green grass.

What's this? Some Devil's Advocacy that isn't trolling? Take notes GAF.

I agree that it's entirely possible that, aesthetically, the Forge stuff could get old quickly. I'm not holding my breathe but I think it'd be neat of Bungie allowed players to use Covenant architecture as well (it's possible they can add that in the future, I'm guessing). I think combining the Forerunner look with Covenant technology could make for some pretty interesting synergy in structure building. Although the likely result is we'd get more hideous maps than those that look good, but still

 

[Merguson]

Everything looks fantastic, I'm surprised they were able to build a map like Forge World, it's huge.

 

[Raide]

Looks awesome but I really hope Bungie plan on releasing new Forge items. It would be great if you could have some extra natural objects, Forerunner bits or maybe even some Flood goodness. :lol

Vidoc looks awesome and I cannot wait to delve into the new Forge and make some crazy stuff.

 

[Genesis Knight]

No, I mean I completely agree with Electricpirate. It was my biggest takeaway from last night.

Our only - and I mean only - hope for visual variety is heavy DLC support from 343 this Christmas. A five-count map pack would be great.

 

[Pinko Marx]

So I never did anything with Forge in Halo 3, but you can only Forge things in existing maps? You can't make a map from scratch?

 

[Orhyanos]

Yeah it kinda sucks that it seems like you can't edit the weather or lightning and stuff like that. Even a few simple things like fog, different skyboxes and more decorations like trees and plants and flowers and shit would really help to make the maps look more varied. Everything looks so clean, but I'm sure Bungie will add more forge objects/make new forgeable maps in the future. With all the infinite possibilities for gametypes (HOLY FUCK CAN I HAZ HALO (Galaxy?) KART!!!) this is a bit depressing. Overall I'm still pretty fucking hyped though!

But damn i would like to make a hugeass nighttime foggy map with zombies, jetpacks and falcons!

Spoiler

Oh and hi HaloGAF! Been lurking here for damn long...

 

[The Librarian]

No, I mean I completely agree with Electricpirate. It was my biggest takeaway from last night.

Our only - and I mean only - hope for visual variety is heavy DLC support from 343 this Christmas. A five-count map pack would be great.

Why 343? I'm 100% positive Bungie's going to be dishing out new content for Reach at least as long as they did with Halo 3.

 

[Pete Rock]

In response to seeing, playing, and experiencing the same type of Forge maps becoming quite tiresome, I'm sure by the time that happens, we'll probably be getting (or hearing about) a new Forge World. Like a Covenant-themed one.

Yep, if they can digest the community output of Forge & Foundry and reply in kind with Sandbox, imagine where they can take the new DLC Forge spaces in Reach. Of course it would be cool to have palette swaps (ground textures, skybox, scenery style) right in Forge World, but that doesn't sound reasonable with the way they've explained baked in assets in the past, and they've got to harvest space bucks somehow. Have they improved the "filters" or scrapped them? They did a decent job at changing the lighting conditions for the custom map, at least slightly.

 

[Schmitty]

Why 343? I'm 100% positive Bungie's going to be dishing out new content for Reach at least as long as they did with Halo 3.

Yeah, I think they'll separate into teams like they did for ODST and Reach. One team will be for Reach DLC and support, and the other for their new project.

 

[Genesis Knight]

Why 343? I'm 100% positive Bungie's going to be dishing out new content for Reach at least as long as they did with Halo 3.

I thought Bungie was washing their hands after release and said in the conference that 343 would be handling DLC support. If I'm wrong then just replace '343' with 'Bungie' and it's the same point.

 

[Hydranockz]

Yeah it kinda sucks that it seems like you can't edit the weather or lightning and stuff like that. Even a few simple things like fog, different skyboxes and more decorations like trees and plants and flowers and shit would really help to make the maps look more varied. Everything looks so clean, but I'm sure Bungie will add more forge objects/make new forgeable maps in the future. With all the infinite possibilities for gametypes (HOLY FUCK CAN I HAZ HALO (Galaxy?) KART!!!) this is a bit depressing. Overall I'm still pretty fucking hyped though!

But damn i would like to make a hugeass nighttime foggy map with zombies, jetpacks and falcons!

Spoiler

Oh and hi HaloGAF! Been lurking here for damn long...

I sensed your presence long ago.

My main thought now is... with all that water, surely there will be at least one new vehicle to help us traverse it. Can a ghost glide over it I wonder?

Watching that gamespot video, I noticed that "Shade turret" was in the vehicles section.... por que???

 

[Grady Durden]

I think forge world will give us plenty of variety. People shouldn't worry.

 

[Genesis Knight]

My main thought now is... with all that water, surely there will be at least one new vehicle to help us traverse it. Can a ghost glide over it I wonder?

Maybe that Revenant thing.

 

[The Librarian]

Yep, if they can digest the community output of Forge & Foundry and reply in kind with Sandbox, imagine where they can take the new DLC Forge spaces in Reach. Of course it would be cool to have palette swaps (ground textures, skybox, scenery style) right in Forge World, but that doesn't sound reasonable with the way they've explained baked in assets in the past, and they've got to harvest space bucks somehow. Have they improved the "filters" or scrapped them? They did a decent job at changing the lighting conditions for the custom map, at least slightly.

Don't know about the filters, but the panel did some playing around with those Forge light things.

Spoiler

Oh and hi HaloGAF! Been lurking here for damn long...

Welcome!

 

[metareferential]

A Covenant Forge World as dlc would make me cry.

 

[see5harp]

Nice work Bungie.

 

[Plywood]

Wow you guys are impressed with the stupidest stuff. This is called a sloppy map editor that is based off of a extremely sloppy bordering on unusable map editor. Woop-dee-doo. And it's called LOD not secret amazing LOD created by Bungie. It's just LOD. The same tech used since the beginning of 3d development. It's amazing stuff really, well it was 20 years ago. As ugly as those maps look and assets look, they better have some excuse for it...like that part of the map that isn't being used at all is being partially rendered for no real reason.

Even freggin Trials HD had map editing features better than this...and that's an indy game with an editor that was pretty blatantly minimalized indy. Let's not even get into the new rage of creation games like LBP and Warioware DIY that really step up to the plate in terms of console-game editting. This stuff is no longer interesting, Bungie. The game industry has moved on. The jack-of-all-trades mentality has left a lot to be desired here both in terms of how many maps the game is releasing with and the still ho-hum map editor. Luckily, H3 left the bar so low, as long as you put in an editor that functions sorta like an editor, you're gonna amaze the shit out our your fans.

Maybe Forge 3.0 will have trigger boxes or a terrain editor (which would make forge world obsolete). WOOOAH. How do they do it? Can't wait to watch the pat-on-the-back dev video on that amazing feature and then hear the fans scream about how the possibilities are endless.

Time to let go.


Also Ivory Tower remake is gorgeous.

 

[Photolysis]

I'm quite impressed by the aesthetics of some of those forge pieces. Off screen youtube footage isn't the best indicator admittedly but some of those built in forge maps look like they could easily pass for actual geometry.

 

[Shake Appeal]

I'm quite impressed by the aesthetics of some of those forge pieces. Off screen youtube footage isn't the best indicator admittedly but some of those built in forge maps look like they could easily pass for actual geometry.

One of the advantages of a Forerunner theme is it isn't as immediately apparent when it is faulty or false (as is the case with recognizably human structures), and it is much more geometrical/Legolike than Covenant architecture.

Also the texture work is sort of neutral, which helps.

 

[Falagard]

I thought Bungie was washing their hands after release and said in the conference that 343 would be handling DLC support. If I'm wrong then just replace '343' with 'Bungie' and it's the same point.

Nah. When answering a direct question about future DLC, they've said that they'll provide the same amount of post-release support for Halo Reach as they have for Halo 3, so it looks like it'll be Bungie creating DLC maps for Reach.

Also, there's been nothing to suggest that 343 has access to the engine used for Halo Reach, so it's entirely possible they don't have access to the engine or tools required to make maps for Reach, let alone the artists and expertise to work with that toolset.

 

[op_ivy]

Since Eazy seems to be slacking here with some anti hype, I'm going to have to step up to the plate.

While the fly through of forge world is fantastic, how much does having this as one huge map actually add? Are we going to see any good maps that jump from one space to the next? Probably not, that's just going to end up with game play that's too scattered for it's own good.

unless you can make invasion game modes in the forge world... which i'd think is likely, and would be insanely epic

 

[pahamrick]

Man, some of you folks complaining about such little things really crack me up. Bungie just delivered a full 5 course meal, and you're bitching that they forgot the lemon garnish in your free glass of water.

Forge 2.0 looks amazing, I can't wait to see how flexible it is. I showed the video to a buddy of mine who spent most of his time in H3's forge mode and he was amazed. He's more excited for the new forge than anything else Reach has to offer.

Sept 14th can't get here fast enough now.

 

[jetsetfluken]

The thing that killed Forge/custom maps for me in Halo 3 was that only you and your friends could play them privately.

So much wasted potential.

Are there any plans on getting public matchmaking playlists full of monthly "best of" custom user-created maps for example?
That would be great.

 

[GhaleonEB]

unless you can make invasion game modes in the forge world... which i'd think is likely, and would be insanely epic

Bungie has said that every game type can be made on every map. So yeah, epic, multi-part Invasion games.

Me, I'm thinking up an epic Stockpile game.

 

[Genesis Knight]

Are there any plans on getting public matchmaking playlists full of monthly "best of" custom user-created maps for example?

Give this man a medal. C'mon Shishka.