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Rob Oplawar
March 31st, 2008, 03:32 PM
Hey guys. I've got news for ya. It's posted at http://argo.spacebrick.net, but I'll repost it here:



Posted by Rob Oplawar on 2008-03-31 11:47:25.

*clears away dust*

Ahem, holy cow, look at that, the last update was in January. Well, I am here to make an announcement, which explains the lack of updates. Here goes:



I am putting this project on the backburner.



What does this mean?

I'm not shelving it entirely, but unless I have free time and really feel like working on it, I won't. This means that there is no prediction whatsoever to when the first map will be released. It is entirely possible that it will never be released.

But... why, Rob, why???

Two years ago, I became aware of the Halo modding scene and decided to make a multiplayer map. As often happens, my ambitions grew and grew and grew, and instead of starting simple, I somehow ended up working on a massive project by myself. I ended up trying to lead a team of 7, and as it turns out, I am a terrible manager. I'm a modeler- that's what I do. I'm not good at managing and organizing and leading.
Anyway, this just isn't good for me. I have school to worry about, and lately my grades have been faltering. I'm going to have to spend more time on school and less time on massive, overambitious projects.

What will become of the project?

Even if I don't ever release the map, I don't consider this a loss. I have gained a ton of experience from this, and I do have a lot of BSPs to include in my portfolio now. That's all well and good for me, but alas, I have no consolation to offer you, the Halo CE player who wanted to see the first complete HCE SP mod. It's terribly typical of me to start a massively ambitious project and then leave you hanging. All I can say is, it looks like I failed to take the advice of the entire modding community, and bit off more than I could chew.

But don't consider the project completely gone. I may yet finish it. The website will stay up. I'll stay in contact with the CE community. I'll still mess around with the BSPs, and continue to add to my now thousands of lines of scripting for the level. Progress will continue, just at a publicly admitted slow pace. And I won't be making any updates unless there is something noteworthy to announce.

Before I go, I just want to thank everyone for showing interest, for offering encouragement, for being excited, and for understanding when I let you down. I also want to thank everybody who made a contribution to the map in any way- WoL, Mass, Apoc, Sever, Southpaw, Zephyrr, Dano, p0lar, Duce, Korn, ki11a, Neuro, Zeph, Snaf, Atty, The Ghost, Sunny, Flyin Rooster, Ross, Timo, Conscars, and probably a whole hell of a lot of people I'm forgetting. Thanks guys. Sorry for bailing on you.

Sincerely,
Robert James Oplawar
BCE Project Lead





I'll be hanging around this thread, so I'll answer any questions or comments you have here.

teh lag
March 31st, 2008, 03:49 PM
:( Sad to see a project like this go under.

Also, http://www.h2vista.net/forums/member.php?u=2406

wat?

Also, *looks at calendar* :v

LlamaMaster
March 31st, 2008, 04:08 PM
Can't say I'm surprised, I've never seen any great CE project finished. Of course I'm bummed, but whatever. Could you just like release part of it as a MP map or something? I just want a taste of what might of been :/

Sever
March 31st, 2008, 04:18 PM
Simply put (from firsthand experience with this project), the layout would not be conducive for a good multiplayer experience.

Syuusuke
March 31st, 2008, 05:29 PM
Wasn't it going to be an SP map? Well, even if you knew that...

Sucks to see this in hibernation.

blind
March 31st, 2008, 05:33 PM
Can't say I'm surprised, I've never seen any great CE project finished. Of course I'm bummed, but whatever. Could you just like release part of it as a MP map or something? I just want a taste of what might of been :/

Theres only been one great CE project, and it was completed.
Its called Wartorn Cove.

Bad Waffle
March 31st, 2008, 08:55 PM
guys, ima confirm this to not be an april fools joke. Rob and mass are now helping me with some projects instead of bridge.

Apoc4lypse
March 31st, 2008, 09:03 PM
Theres only been one great CE project, and it was completed.
Its called Wartorn Cove.

lol I almost agree with this.... other then the halo 2 project, I mean the real halo 2 project... that was fun to watch evolve, god that came a looong way.

Other then that not too much comes to mind as a really big project, other then the cmt mod campaign as it was the first more or less full mod to the campaign.

Schwinz aka WTC was an amazing map... seriously, we need another map to do this to ce again. I think most of the reason for its success aside from it being the best layout ever and most fun. I think its because it was the best map released when there was the least amount of maps to choose from and it was the best for a long time in that selection afterwards, always had servers running it. Nowadays maps get released left and right... most people just want to play there maps, or what interests them, we don't have one map that everyone likes, like we did back then with schwinz aka WTC.

Sever
March 31st, 2008, 09:06 PM
True, sad but true. He might also be helping me sometime in the (probably distant) future with some H3-style Covenant interior spaces and structures and whatnot.

Rob Oplawar
March 31st, 2008, 11:06 PM
guys, ima confirm this to not be an april fools joke. Rob and mass are now helping me with some projects instead of bridge.

You fuckin party pooper, the april fools joke was gonna be that people were gonna think this was an april fools joke.

heh.

Also, I have no idea who this (http://www.h2vista.net/forums/member.php?u=2406) is. Don't trust him.
Edit: so one of my public e-mail addresses received the activation request for the account- he signed up with help_wanted? ,':|
Well, being the idiot I am, I followed the activation link thinking I could set the password and take control of the account. Dur, I can't do that, the password's already set, and now the account is active to boot. Admins, er, ban plz? halp?

n00b1n8R
April 1st, 2008, 02:54 AM
bridge is > anything else short of some other singleplayer level.

DON'T WASTE THE LAST X YEARS OF YOUR LIFE D':

Timo
April 1st, 2008, 02:41 PM
Sucks to see this being put on the shelf for a while, it was one of the last CE creations I was looking forward to :-(

Rob Oplawar
April 2nd, 2008, 12:06 AM
Well, I decided to put it away for good and cut my losses.
That means I'm never going to work on this again, and I have no plans to resurrect this project nor hand it off to anyone else.

To try to make it less of a total waste, I'll release the latest build of the map ( OMG ).
http://www.spacebrick.net/downloads/bridge.rar
This map file is the culmination of 2 year's work. It may seem a little short, and there are a couple of scripting bugs, but I'm real proud of it. It took a ton of work and I think it shows.

Enjoy!

Timo
April 2nd, 2008, 12:12 AM
Ack - i'm not sure if this is better or worse :-p

Ki11a_FTW
April 2nd, 2008, 12:45 AM
downloading now

E: i already dont know what to do im stuck after the 2nd set of enemy ai :-o

Mass
April 2nd, 2008, 01:01 AM
lol is all I have to say

cryptic, ooo-oooo-oooo

Rob Oplawar
April 2nd, 2008, 07:05 PM
Ack - i'm not sure if this is better or worse :-p
how do you mean?



E: i already dont know what to do im stuck after the 2nd set of enemy ai :-o
It's a kind of complicated script trigger- originally I had planned for there to be an ai telling you what to do, but I haven't recorded any lines so...
Anyway, what you need to do is go back to where the pelican was from the opening cinematic (in the final version you were going to go pick up a gun it dropped off for you, but the guns are missing from this build, so you need to use cheat_all_weapons) and then you need to take it back inside and jump up on top of the center platform (where you'll have a better vantage point) and knock over the turrets so they can't shoot at you any more, and then some hunters will spawn and you kill those and then you get teleported to the rooftop.

Rob Oplawar
April 4th, 2008, 01:28 AM
Bumpdoublepost! I do that a lot, don't I?

So, like, I was hoping for a bunch of disappointed posts so I could jump in and shout "April Fools!", but it looks like the joke's on me, because I see a decided lack of interest in this thread.

Yes, the project's on the backburner, but I'm still working on it. In fact I worked on it today. That's not the joke tho. The joke is the map file I released is from October 2006. It only contains those two encounters- that stuff about the complicated script trigger was bogus. Hurr! I have a feeling the majority of you guys figured this out by yourselves.

So yes, I'm still working on it, and yes, the level is quite a lot longer and more polished than that old map file.

Since that old horrible build is out, I feel like I have something to prove now, to prove that it's really not that bad. But I can't do that, can I? It's a secret!



...oh fuck it. Here. Have a youtube video.
aAWy5Lq6Nk8p

e: Video doesn't seem to be showing up for me. Here's a direct link to youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAWy5Lq6Nk8
It seems to be working there.


ee: Some disclaimers about the vid:
Sorry bout how dark the cinematic is- that build has the wrong radiosity on it and is way darker than it's supposed to be. There's not much to see there anyway.
Nothing's done, and a lot of shit is buggy, especially the elevator "cinematic" at the end and the grenade cinematic at the beginning.
I'm playing on Legendary, and yes, I have deathless_player on. >_>
The player model is shown as the MC in this build- don't be fooled. It won't be MC in the final build.
The sound may be just a tiny bit edited because the final music hasn't been properly added to the map yet.

Botolf
April 4th, 2008, 01:42 AM
Nice arena encounters you have thar!

If you're fighting that long non-stop, though, maybe it'd be a good idea to mix in a few new enemies to break the pattern of Elites & Grunts.

Bad Waffle
April 4th, 2008, 01:49 AM
man, i wonder who did that awesome biped?

so rob, can i post pics of it now?

Rob Oplawar
April 4th, 2008, 01:54 AM
WoL, I got tired of asking you to give me epic renders to post. Yes for the love of god post it! I mean, yes, that would be reasonable.

Pooky
April 4th, 2008, 08:00 AM
Encounter looks nice but suffers a bit from lack of any ambient music or noise. I'm sure you'll fix that though.

Apoc4lypse
April 4th, 2008, 05:15 PM
Encounter looks nice but suffers a bit from lack of any ambient music or noise. I'm sure you'll fix that though.

alpha :rolleyes:

I think this will be epic if its ever fully realized, intro looks very cool, just needs better lighting, final textures and voice overs. The scripting and camera work of it seems pretty good I like it. I hope this gets finished, and I hope I get to really help you with it eventually...

As for there not being enough variety in enemy characters... meh its like only 1-2 encounters he showed, and not over much distance, might do good with a Jakal or 2 but what ever.

Masterz1337
April 4th, 2008, 05:35 PM
Video was great. Love the HUD stuff you did.