A modest proposal

[SirBobbington]

Keep in mind that everything in this post is nothing more than an idea that I have been toying with for a while. I am posting this only to see if the HCE community as a whole shares my sentiments on this subject.


We are just over a month away from the 8th anniversary of the release of Halo CE. Our community has held together remarkably well, despite all the hardships we have faced along the road. According to Halomaps, we have released more than 2,000 custom maps in that time period, with a very large number that can easily compete with “official” Bungie maps in terms of playability, balance, and fun.


However, the hard truth remains that Halo CE has been in a constant state of decline since the release of Halo 2 back in 2004. Of all the numerous projects of grand scale that have ever been announced, very few have actually been completed. Log on at any time of any day, and you will be lucky to see even 200 players online, 90% of which are probably playing Blood Gulch. The rest are playing one of the other maps that came with the game, or are 13 year old kids mulling around in Hugeass or Extinction, waiting for players to join so that they can nuke the living daylight out of them. Although many projects continue to march onward, we have to come to terms with the fact that the golden days of people actually PLAYING custom maps on public servers and hosting decent games on them... are long over.


So, here is the idea that has been bouncing through my mind:


>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
We, as a community, contact 343 Industries with the proposal to offer the highlights of our community accomplishments so that they can be ported as a FREE map pack for Halo Anniversary players. This would allow us to pass on our legacy to the next generation of gamers (not saying this means the end of CE) while 343 gets to release a map pack to their community with minimal work involved in terms of planning, design, and testing—these are tried and true maps that are fun to play.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<


Before the flaming hailstorm hits me, hear me out.


I understand that many of you see these projects as your brain-child. But, would you have made these maps in the first place if you didn't want anyone to play them? I understand that you do not want 343 taking all the credit and making money off of your hard work. But were you making money off of these maps in the first place?


Give that some thought before shooting the idea down right off the bat.


So, if we as a community can stand behind this proposal, read below for what I envision as the terms of this deal. If we cannot, I will simply go back to my usual habit of lurking and we can pretend this never happened in the first place.


Here is our end of the bargain:


We as a community select 10-20 maps that we believe are the pinnacle of our achievements.
Keeping in mind the environment we will be porting these ideas into, they should not rely heavily on custom content (like Hugeass/PoA Space) or contain copyrighted third-party material (Zelda/Sonic/Metroid mods)
No map shall be released without the express consent of the creator(s) of the map, unless it can be reasonably demonstrated that the creator has abandoned the map to the community.



Here is their end of the bargain:


They will not make a profit from the maps
They will give credit to the CE community and/or original authors for the creation of the maps
The maps shall be recreated faithfully and not be modified without the consent of the original creator(s)





Keeping in mind that I do not have the authority to formally offer these maps, here are some maps that I believe would be good candidates for the port:




Night Camp CE by SomeRhino
Why: Excellent, simple design, very popular in early life of CE


Wartorn Cove by Schwinnz
Why: One of the most popular and played maps in CE, could be easily ported


Claustrophobia by DocOctavius
Why: One of the most well-designed small maps we have ever received as a community


Cliffhanger by Molkien
Why: Again, excellent design and well-balanced for all gametypes


New Mombasa Classic by Halo 2 CE Team
Why: I think we can all agree that this map holds a warm sense of nostalgia for us.


Sciophobia by Ranger
Why: One of the few excellent maps released midway through CE's life with a “Classic” theme


FissureFall by CrispySpartan
Why: One of the most impressive maps from the early months of CE





These maps are possible candidates:




Yoyorast Island by Yoyorast
Why: Fun gameplay and a community classic
Why not: May be too complex, CTF games can drag on for 2+ hours


Haloball by ???
Why: Quirky and fun
Why not: Probably will not translate well into the new engine


Immure by Mothergoat / Neuro ko Neza
Why: Fun and popular level
Why not: May rely too heavily on Wasp vehicle, which if I remember correctly, is heavily based off of some sci-fi movie


Church by Crowpath
Why: Complex and intriguing design that shows a lot of thought and planning
Why not: May be too large for serious gameplay


Precipice by Siliconmaster
Why: One of the most carefully-designed and impressive maps released to date
Why not: May be too large for competitive gameplay


Snow Grove by Arteen/CMT
Why: Excellent design and very popular
Why not: Would it be as fun with boring old Halo 1 weapons?




And of course, many, many more that I am forgetting about at the moment.

So there you have it. That is my 2 cents on the situation of Halo CE, and one possible solution that we can act upon to make sure that our maps are not entirely lost when the fateful day comes that we are no longer able to develop for a game that was released when a computer with 1 GB RAM was considered pretty darn fast. I turn this over to you to discuss as a community, and please... try to keep an open mind and consider all points before this thread degrades into a flame-fest.

Thank you.

[supersniper]

at first this title reminded me of the satire "a Modest Proposal" about ireland lol

[El Lobo]

You named some great maps. I am a fan of SirBobbington.

[TeeKup]

I'm a fan of pushing this forward, but I highly doubt 343 will even think about this, considering they're in full swing of development for Halo 4. Its a nice gesture but unlikely. A member from 343 already visited us earlier and gave us an opportunity to showcase just what the CE community has done, I think we gave her a good show. The devs of the Halo series acknowledge our existence, despite as little as we see it.

Either way I'd support it.

[Amit]

Yes.

[Kornman00]

Pretty sure there's nothing in the HA10 engine for supporting any new DLC. Unless you are referring to the Halo Reach engine. In which case, someone would have to port all those maps into the Reach engine. Then configure them for the Reach sandbox. Don't hold your breath for MS to let someone get anywhere near that who isn't already working at 343i. There is no such thing as "with minimal work involved in terms of planning, design, and testing" in both cases.

343i's time would be better spent working on PC support for Halo4 with an editing kit. This community would be able to do so much more with that. So just continue to let them know that the PC and modding communities like Halo too, not just Xbox players. Will get farther doing that than trying to convince them about any of this.

[Higuy]

Like Kornman said, rather than attempting to get DLC for HA10 or Reach, or even Halo 4, we should be pushing for mapping and modding tools for Halo 4 that are similar to the ones that were given with CE (and, of course, release it on PC).

[DarkHalo003]

Boycott Halo 4 until we have our PC and modding rights back!

[yoyorast]

Hi there ! So long time I didn't came here, reminds me of the good old times.. I don't know if there's still people I used to know around, hope everybody is ok.
I'm posting here cause I saq this trhead and think this is defenatly a super idea. SirBobbsington you really should push your projet to the end. Make a poll here of diferent maps people would like in an official map pack maybe, then contact the authors of the maps and then propose the stuff to 343.
Sometimes there are some wired coincidences cause I today made a thread on 343 Industries forum asking them to remake my map for Halo4.
http://www.343industries.org/forum/topic/7259-message-for-343-industries-yoyorast-island-v3-for-halo-4/
I know there's little chances but I tried it.

Keep it on.

[Cortexian]

Hey Yoyorast!

A lot of us are still around (this is Freelancer), good to see that you're still popping in every now and then!

[Hotrod]

Why not post it on the actual Halo/343 Industries forums? : http://halo.xbox.com/forums/

[t3h m00kz]

not to be a negative nancy bro,

but that's now how game companies work

[yoyorast]

Why not post it on the actual Halo/343 Industries forums? : http://halo.xbox.com/forums/

I just did it. Thanks.

And Freelancer, nice to see you're still there too.. I was thinking of you yesterday cause was looking to your yoyorast v2 videos but couldn't find them anymore...

[EX12693]

Glad to see you're still here yoyo! I was actually messing around by myself on the island the other day, because I am planning on re-creating the island in minecraft, and I needed to get a sense of how big the island is. It's absolutely huge.. :p

Anyway, best of luck to you, and I'm completely behind getting some community maps into the game. I don't see why they wouldn't allow it..

[Skyline]

messing around by myself

Who're you?

[EX12693]

Who're you? No one. Absolutely no one.

[Rainbow Dash]

Most of the good mappers here have the self respect to be immediately ashamed if their maps were put into h4.

[EX12693]

Most of the good mappers here have the self respect to be immediately ashamed if their maps were put into h4. So hip.

[El Lobo]

I would hate to be an amatuer map maker and have my creation put into a professionally developed project.

I can literally think of nothing worse.

Nothing.

[Cortexian]

Well its not like they'd take the model and plop it in the engine and call it done. There would be lots of texturing and other such polish that they would need to do, however I'd love to see a professionally touched up Yoyorast Island in Halo 4.

Even though I won't be playing any Halo games unless they come out on PC.


And Freelancer, nice to see you're still there too.. I was thinking of you yesterday cause was looking to your yoyorast v2 videos but couldn't find them anymore...
arXnea45j44

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[Ryx]

A lot of these maps are fun but have terrible balance :|

[Siliconmaster]

at first this title reminded me of the satire "a Modest Proposal" about ireland lol

Indeed, was my first thought as well. And a similarly themed post would have gone well with April Fools.

[t3h m00kz]

not to mention it would be kind of fucking selfish for us to expect 343 to take time out of their tight schedule working on meeting deadlines and finishing their own project to work on our shit don't you think??

[nuttyyayap]

not to mention it would be kind of fucking selfish for us to expect 343 to take time out of their tight schedule working on meeting deadlines and finishing their own project to work on our shit don't you think??
:like:
Let's also consider the fact that the few that had at least one thought of gameplay put into them were designed for HCE, not REACH.

[yoyorast]

not to mention it would be kind of fucking selfish for us to expect 343 to take time out of their tight schedule working on meeting deadlines and finishing their own project to work on our shit don't you think??

So, I'm selfish then. But maybe you are right, let's not try anything.
I have absolutly no ego problem to give my work to 343, if they can make the map accessible to the mainsteam.. It's a dream I would love to see become real. At least I'd prefer that than making maps for 500 hundred people, but if that's the "good mapper's" goal, then good for them.

[t3h m00kz]

no offense meant bro!

it's just, from the outside looking in there's a lot people don't know about game developement. people assume the developers are constantly throwing around random ideas and working on all sorts of content, when the reality of it is there are lock downs, and set areas of focus. everything is extremely structured and planned. by the time the first reveal of any sort of gameplay is shown to the public, games often times have pretty much most of their plan and design set in stone.

perhaps it's elitist of me, but the naivety of people on the outside looking in hoping to communicate directly with the company is concerning -- I recall all sorts of times members of certain forums wanted to get in contact with a bungie representative or designer to ask how to make a certain weapon or get their map put into the game or something along those lines.

you know what though? go post about it on their forums. if there's enough hype around anything, odds are they'll consider it. consider being the keyword. they'll treat it as a suggestion -- and in the game development industry, many suggestions, including internal suggestions, are often turned down. they already have professional producers and designers making the game. they don't want non-employees and fans backseat driving their project. the closest you'll get is a response to feedback from public testing -- and even then it's never guaranteed things will get changed.

[Timo]

There's no harm in trying. The chances are pretty slim, but i'd blow a load if I could play fissurefalls on reach.

[Cortexian]

WTB Halo 4 PC w/working HEK.

[Ryx]

WTB Halo 4 PC w/working HEK.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

but really, let's get serious here.

[Sean Aero]

A lot of these maps are fun but have terrible balance :|
Exactly my thinking.

[SirBobbington]

no offense meant bro!

it's just, from the outside looking in there's a lot people don't know about game developement. people assume the developers are constantly throwing around random ideas and working on all sorts of content, when the reality of it is there are lock downs, and set areas of focus. everything is extremely structured and planned. by the time the first reveal of any sort of gameplay is shown to the public, games often times have pretty much most of their plan and design set in stone.

perhaps it's elitist of me, but the naivety of people on the outside looking in hoping to communicate directly with the company is concerning -- I recall all sorts of times members of certain forums wanted to get in contact with a bungie representative or designer to ask how to make a certain weapon or get their map put into the game or something along those lines.

you know what though? go post about it on their forums. if there's enough hype around anything, odds are they'll consider it. consider being the keyword. they'll treat it as a suggestion -- and in the game development industry, many suggestions, including internal suggestions, are often turned down. they already have professional producers and designers making the game. they don't want non-employees and fans backseat driving their project. the closest you'll get is a response to feedback from public testing -- and even then it's never guaranteed things will get changed.

That is a very valid point, and as much as it pains me to say it, the odds that this project will actually get anywhere are not good. But, what do we as a community have to lose? When was the last time you actually PLAYED on a custom maps server? Sure, some dedicated servers run custom map cycles, but at the very best, you are looking at a 12-year-old who is AFK on the map because his mom called him down to dinner. Most of the best maps never make it onto servers at all, and the ones that do typically struggle to get more than 2-4 players at any given time. If people play CE multiplayer anymore, it is generally to play Blood Gulch CTF on a 24/7 dedicated server.

Sure, CE is still alive and kicking. The people who stuck around are the most hardcore of fans, and are fueled by a nostalgia for the golden age that ended in October '04. My point in posting this thread is not to assume that we are more important than whatever 343 is working on in terms of Halo 4, but to acknowledge that we have seen some great ideas come to life in fun and innovative maps, and we do not want those ideas to stagnate and die when the last of us throws in the towel and moves on with our lives. As a recently married college graduate trying to make his way in the corporate world, I have only had time for 30-50 matches in the past 2 years or so. One by one, it will happen to all of us, and I think we can all agree that we do not want these maps to be lost when that day comes. I will try reaching out to 343 so see how far I can push this project. I'll keep you updated.