Precipice

[Siliconmaster]

Well, this is it: the release of my Halo map, Precipice. Thanks to everyone who has helped along the way, especially Llama Juice, with his ever-harsh criticisms, Con, with his beautiful sky, and Inferno, who helped me accomplish all the technical things I had imagined but never dreamed were possible.

And so, without further ado, I present Precipice.

Screenshots (In full 2048x1152 glory)
http://img221.imageshack.us/img221/9236/finalscreenshot1.jpg
http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/7076/finalscreenshot2.jpg
http://img405.imageshack.us/img405/8963/finalscreenshot3.jpg
http://img510.imageshack.us/img510/8236/finalscreenshot4.jpg
http://img440.imageshack.us/img440/198/finalscreenshot5.jpg

Promotional Video Thread: http://www.modacity.net/forums/showthread.php?22824-Precipice-Promotional-Trailer

Download Links:

Filefront: http://www.filefront.com/17736797/precipice.rar

Halomaps: http://hce.halomaps.org/index.cfm?pg=3&fid=5708

Sky download thread (Thanks to Con): http://www.modacity.net/forums/showthread.php?22829-Precipice-Sky

Credits: To save time, here's the credits as they appear in the map:

http://img823.imageshack.us/img823/3711/precipicecreditsplaque.jpg

This map IS protected, since I'd like at least a little while before the endless mods of it come out. I am planning to release an unprotected version in a month or two, after anyone who would play the map has already done so.

[Ro0ster]

Sweet DLing now. Someone needs to get a server up.

[BobtheGreatII]

*Squee*

[Dwood]

'Bout frippen time bro.

[Siliconmaster]

Tell me about it. Unfortunately, due to my crappy internet, I won't be able to join any playtests on my desktop until the end of January when I go back to school. I might be able to join in on my laptop if I go to someone else's house.

[Pyong Kawaguchi]

Beautiful.

[Con]

Needs moar dedi. Someone has a server up but its locked for some reason. Everyone else forgot to forward their ports.

[Ro0ster]

I got my non-dedi back up. Sorry I couldn't restart it, I was devouring food.

[jcap]

I'll set a server up. brb

back

server's up: http://hce.halomaps.org/server/?IP=71.188.71.229&Port=2302&returnURL=../index.cfm?pg=66 hope I got the gametype right :-/

[Higuy]

The map definitely deserved the time it had gotten to be developed.

[Dwood]

Tell me about it. Unfortunately, due to my crappy internet, I won't be able to join any playtests on my desktop until the end of January when I go back to school. I might be able to join in on my laptop if I go to someone else's house.

I'm not sure if you knew this yet, but you've released the map by now. There are no more playtests. Only game nights.

[Con]

He's been developing it for 7 years I think he's stuck in that state. Give him time.

[Siliconmaster]

Lmao- nice catch. Yeah, it'll take a while to get used to having the map done. Would definitely be nice to play with you guys, but might have to be after the 22nd.

[TeeKup]

I remember when you showed this idea to me...years ago.

[ghk]

beautiful map,lighting was sweet...and it was fun to play on :-)

[klange]

I remember playtesting this over a year ago.

Also, I've been wearing this hat since 2009.

I'm not sure where my CD key is, so it's going to be a while before I can get around to installing CE on my new laptop..

[Warsaw]

I remember when you showed this idea to me...years ago.

Same here...gawd...we are as old as oldfags can be.

Downloading now.

[EagerYoungSpaceCadet]

Great map, just tried it out, looks epic, haven't tried playing on it yet since I haven't found any players on the servers hosting it...

[TEMPTii]

Got a home server up for a little.

[POQRyan]

PÕQ Clan is hosting a 24/7 dedicated server for your map. I must say, excellent work. And we found your Activision CEO. ;)

More info at http://poqclan.com/

[Vadam930]

PÕQ Clan is hosting a 24/7 dedicated server for your map. I must say, excellent work. And we found your Activision CEO. ;)

More info at http://poqclan.com/


That's right! All are welcome to come and play. :downs:

[Corndogman]

Just played a few games in the PQQ server, the map is a lot of fun and looks great. Nice work Siliconmaster!

[Con]

Wow, people are actually playing this. 10/16 people in that one server. CTF is a lot of fun with more people.

[sanni]

Well I played it today on realworldce.com. Great map. Fantastic visuals. :neckbeard:
The only thing I didn't like was that there a too few weapons on the map. There are some places where a sniper or pistol spawn really would help the gameflow. There are many great sniper spots but the sniper only spawns in the base. :-3

Also that one door with the red lights where the banshee spawns, it would be cool if it would open and lead to some place, maybe to the other banshee spawn, in case the banshee is already taken. :eng101:

But this map is so much fun :woop:

[Siliconmaster]

Assuming the spawn changes happened, there should be a sniper spawn topside in the trees/grass on each side. The dirt paths lead to them, as well as health packs.

And as for that idea of connecting the banshee pads, that's actually a pretty cool concept. Far too late now, but definitely interesting. Personally, I like having the flood forms running around behind the doors though- it entertains me :P

Edit: Wow, people are playing it? Dammit, I wish I had a good internet connection. I'm going to miss my own map's 15 minutes of fame/playtime.

[Corndogman]

and now nobody's playing...

[ghk]

i played in the poq server on opening night and there were quite a few people there...
seriously, we should make an effort to have a gamenight

[Llama Juice]

I <3 you Noah. The release of this map makes me happier than you could imagine.

[Con]

got a guy in the server into your mystery room

http://img718.imageshack.us/img718/2633/49376658.jpg

[Pooky]

Well, the map LOOKs incredible, but from what little I played the gameplay is kind of... bad. My first experience of this map consisted of spawning in and immediately being splattered by a Banshee, then spawning in and immediately being headshotted by a sniper. So the spawns could definitely use more work, as could the weapon layout. I'm not sure what the logic behind putting a highly effective sniper perch in a dark area overlooking a team spawning area was.

[Hotrod]

So urk posted a little something about this :
http://www.bungie.net/News/Blog.aspx?mode=news#cid30211

Looks like Modacity is now gonna be known across Bungie.net :S

[EagerYoungSpaceCadet]

Well, the map LOOKs incredible, but from what little I played the gameplay is kind of... bad. My first experience of this map consisted of spawning in and immediately being splattered by a Banshee, then spawning in and immediately being headshotted by a sniper. So the spawns could definitely use more work, as could the weapon layout. I'm not sure what the logic behind putting a highly effective sniper perch in a dark area overlooking a team spawning area was.I found it fun...

I played one game then started poking around the map with Freelancer, yes that was me :wave:

[Siliconmaster]

Well, the map LOOKs incredible, but from what little I played the gameplay is kind of... bad. My first experience of this map consisted of spawning in and immediately being splattered by a Banshee, then spawning in and immediately being headshotted by a sniper. So the spawns could definitely use more work, as could the weapon layout. I'm not sure what the logic behind putting a highly effective sniper perch in a dark area overlooking a team spawning area was.

Hrm, that's unfortunate. To be fair, we could never get a playtest together that had more than 5 or 6 people, so we could never fully test spawn-whorability. The sniper spawns theoretically were to do the exact opposite: let the home team snipe the shit out of anyone coming in through the main entrances. Guess people are turning it around and using it on the way in through the bashee pads. Ah well. Nothing we can do about it now. Sorry. :/

[Cortexian]

There's a phantom BSP near/on one of the crashed banshees on the bridge, kind of annoying but not a big problem. And yea, poked around all the nooks and crannies of the map with help from Rec0's Devicator.

[EagerYoungSpaceCadet]

That scenario would have been prevented if the teleporters leading to the shee roosts were one-way. Well, you can't do anything about it now since you released it and all...

EDIT:
There's a phantom BSP near/on one of the crashed banshees on the bridge, kind of annoying but not a big problem.The crashed banshees and burning hogs were supposed redirect you from the path of the phantom bsp.

[Con]

Also, in one of the sniper roosts there's a hole in the map and you can fall out. Weird!

[NitrousOxide]

That stupid phantom BSP problem has plagued Halo forever. When I got into Bungie, that's one of the first things I asked Chris Carney, was how to deal with this. He told me "Halo loves the grid" and to use the snap functions in 3D Studio Max to avoid the phantom BSP problem.

[Pooky]

Hrm, that's unfortunate. To be fair, we could never get a playtest together that had more than 5 or 6 people, so we could never fully test spawn-whorability. The sniper spawns theoretically were to do the exact opposite: let the home team snipe the shit out of anyone coming in through the main entrances. Guess people are turning it around and using it on the way in through the bashee pads. Ah well. Nothing we can do about it now. Sorry. :/

Yeah, don't get me wrong, this map is definitely an artistic achievement, it just needed a good workover from some real play testers. I know how hard testers can be to find, particularly for an old game like this. I wish I'd been there myself, I think I could have offered some useful insights into map flow and object placement.

[Siliconmaster]

A hole in the sniper roost? Bizarre. And the issue with making the banshee teleporters one was was that people would get stuck if there was no banshee. The easy fix seemed to be to let them go back in if they wanted to.

[sanni]

My favorite attack route is to get the sniper, get in the shee, fly to the enemy shees and go through the teleporter and camp the sniper until my team gets the flag. :downs:

The sniper whoring isn't that much of a problem and could be easily solved by spreading out the spawn points. Place one spawn point at each banshee spawn, so now the sniper whore does not only need to focus on the bottom where the enemy spawns but also on the other sniper spot in case enemys spawn by the banshee and walks back and also at the tele behind him.
Also you can throw nades from the bottom to the sniper spot to kill the sniper.

Another idea: Let an additional sniper spawn in the spartan laser room at each side of the teleporters. Makes some good sniper duels.

Also the lower bridge ... it's insane. There needs to be some sort of cover. The snipers sniping at the shee spawn and the spartan laser have it way to easy to kill one on the lower bridge. Or maybe let a sniper spawn there to so you can first kill all the enemy snipers and than cross the bridge really fast.

I can't wait to play some more :woop:

There is always room for a V2 after half a year or so :neckbeard:

[Sever]

Make the teleporter from the sniper to the banshees one way, then put another one way teleporter from the banshees to somewhere else. It's that simple.

[Siliconmaster]

Lol dammit. Why didn't this conversation happen months ago? I fully admit some of these spawn issues could have been easily fixed, but without large scale testing there was no way to know it played like that. And less than a week after release, rereleasing would mess with everyone.

[sanni]

there should be a sniper spawn topside in the trees/grass on each side. The dirt paths lead to them, as well as health packs.

Either I am blind or the sniper spawn on the blue side is bugged. I have found it on the red side but hadn't had any luck on blue. :raise:
I see the path but no sniper :ugh:

[Vadam930]

Hey Silicon... sorry to burst your bubble, but you know there's a rather large BSP error in/next to the holographic planet in the control room, right?

EDIT: And you beat me to a bungie.net news item about Precipice ;P

[DarkHalo003]

That stupid phantom BSP problem has plagued Halo forever. When I got into Bungie, that's one of the first things I asked Chris Carney, was how to deal with this. He told me "Halo loves the grid" and to use the snap functions in 3D Studio Max to avoid the phantom BSP problem.
THANKS! Is there a tut on how to do this efficiently?

[Siliconmaster]

Heh- just played a very short lived game with a few others, including Lateksi. Somehow my being at my girlfriend's house makes her internet function as badly as mine. Still, it was fun chatting with some people. Amazing how many of them are convinced Precipice has the same lightmap switch system as Coldsnap. Guess those progress shots in the trailer look like time of day lighting switches.

Also, I forgot how bad I am at Halo CE o_o I love the art form, but goddamn, I hate playing it.

Lmao. The irony.

[LlamaMaster]

This was released 8 days ago? What, how did I miss this!? I'd rep you if I had the ability.

[Siliconmaster]

Haha- almost all of my rep was from the WIP thread, and then after they take rep away, the map gets released. My god, the rep would have been legendary :P

[PlasbianX]

I remember the initial play tests.. its funny to see how people are agreeing with some of what I used to tell you over xfire. It's a beautiful map, but the gameplay isn't all there yet.

[Siliconmaster]

I remember the initial play tests.. its funny to see how people are agreeing with some of what I used to tell you over xfire. It's a beautiful map, but the gameplay isn't all there yet.

Yeah. yeah :P I accept all derpiness related to gameplay and playtests, and whatever failures I may have committed in fixing it. :)

[Warsaw]

I'm still lamenting the removal of the caves...

[Siliconmaster]

Okay, those were unnecessary, and removing them definitely helped gameplay. That I can say for certain. Other huge helpful gameplay changes included removing the landbridge from gameplay, moving the control room much closer and higher vertically, and completely redesigning the bases. You have to admit those made it far more fun to play than it used to be.

[Warsaw]

They did. But I liked the backdoor approach. It was also physically impossible to get sniped down there without the sniper coming to you.

[LlamaMaster]

I tried to play a little bit today, but the only server that was playing it was full of people looking for the "secret room." Figures. I didn't get to actually play a game on it, but of course everything looks beautiful (as you have heard a thousand times before). It also made me realize how badly my gamma was screwed up, because it looked nothing like your screenshots before I turned it down. Thanks for that. :p

[Siliconmaster]

Yeah, I'm not really surprised there are fools trying to get to the secret room, even though it's not really a secret- I even put a shot of it in the promo video.

Oh yeah, and guess what everyone: After sanni posted about the sniper rifle, I went and checked on it.

...it's not there.

Dammit. That was one of the last changes we made, adding snipers topside, and apparently something went wrong and only the one on red side actually spawns. Officially the worst fail ever. I apologize profusely to anyone affected by this lapse in spawn settings. I wish we could fix spawn settings retroactively like Bungie can. Grr. Guess there's nothing I can do about it now other than grit my teeth and glare at Inferno, who made those last changes.

[ghk]

anytime anyone adds any kind of "secret" anything to their maps....it does nothing except cause the noobs to waste server time looking for them.....or saying to anyone who joins "lets look for the secret room"...revelations had this same problem...

[Cortexian]

The Precipice "hidden" room isn't exactly hard to find. Unless there's more than just the credit room I've seen.

[Siliconmaster]

The Precipice "hidden" room isn't exactly hard to find. Unless there's more than just the credit room I've seen.

The sync room. Seriously, it's a sync room, not a secret lol. There is a pretty hilarious vid online of someone driving the sync room warthogs around. So much fail.

[Cortexian]

Besides the sync room, I've been there already as well as it's not hard to find at all. And the slowpoke/flood rooms and bottom "Fight for Her" sign. Seen all that and I don't think there's any more.

Unless you put in an epic secret room a bajillion miles away from the main skybox that you need to find secret invisible teleporters to get into. Those are the best kinds of secret rooms.

[EagerYoungSpaceCadet]

Unless you put in an epic secret room a bajillion miles away from the main skybox that you need to find secret invisible teleporters to get into. Those are the best kinds of secret rooms.And yet the most visited and the biggest gameplay killing secret rooms. *cough* yoyorast island *cough*

[Siliconmaster]

Besides the sync room, I've been there already as well as it's not hard to find at all. And the slowpoke/flood rooms and bottom "Fight for Her" sign. Seen all that and I don't think there's any more.

Nah, that's it. And the stuff behind the windows in the credits room was all meant to be viewed from the ingame area. The flood run in view of the window, etc. The point isn't to get into the actual room where the flood is.

[SirBobbington]

It seems as though something like this happens every time I come back from a real-life break from CE. First it was Church and Yoyo v2, now this.

Congrats! Hopefully the community still has enough of a pulse to enjoy your hard work!

[yoyorast]

Hey here ! Nice to see you finished your map Siliconmaster after all this work and devotion (I know what it is :) ). You must and can be proud, very good and clean work... Bravo to every guys involved. See ya guys :)