HALO 3
With September 25th quickly approaching, Bungie is finally lifting the veil on the Halo finale. After it's lukewarm reception at E3 in July, Bungie has spent the last month releasing details and media about the Xbox 360 blockbuster which has already exceeded 1 million preorders. Now that Gamersyde's exclusive videos put aside any fears of Halo 3 being, "Halo 2 in HD" I find myself drawn to the "Halo 3 package". Much like Valve Software's, "Half-Life 2 Orange Box" Bungie appears to be packing an amazing amount of content, features, and replay value into Halo 3. Bungie has officially announced a single player campaign, 4 player Coop in campaign, multiplayer and all its variants, a video replay and editing feature, and Forge, an object placement/modifying utility. These features and modes are inline with Bungie's objective to not reinvent Halo, but to refine and enrich the foundation fans love. While it is too early to assess the game itself, the sheer amount of content may be the difference between a "good, but tried and true" experience and a great game that keeps gamers coming back, literally, for years.
FORGE
Most of the aforementioned modes are well understood, I do find the mystery of Forge intriguing. What is Forge? Some are calling it a map editor, but that is a little too broad because...
- Forge cannot create or modify geometry
- Forge cannot create or modify textures
- Forge cannot move major objects, like bases
- Forge does not work in Single Player
So what does Forge do? The details are sketchy and scattered across the internet (Bungie, IGN, Screen Play, etc) and game publications (EGM). While there remains a lot of questions, we do know the following:
- Forge allows users to add, remove, and modify weapons, equipment, objects, vehicles, spawn points, teleporters, tools, and other items found in Halo 3 while playing in the Forge mode as an editor (or "monitor" as Bungie is calling them). Modification are accomplished in real-time while navigating the map in monitor mode.
- Forge controls, as a monitor, are fairly straight forward:
+ Tapping the D-Pad instantly switches the user from monitor mode to a player (Spartan). As a monitor you are a small sphere.
+ The Right Stick is used to lock and rotate selected items; the Left Stick is used to move and rotate selected items.
+ The Left Trigger is your thrusters; the Right Trigger rotates the selected item when held down.
+ The Left Bumper moves the user down; the Right Bumper moves the user up.
+ The Y Button deletes an item; the B Button drops items when held down; the A Button picks up/drops items.
+ Pressing the X Button activates the 'Item Properties List' where the user can alter object settings (like respawn rate and whether it appears at the start of a match) as well as modify game settings (symmetric or asymmetric game, single or multi-flag CTF, etc.)
- Forge modes works with the multiplayer maps and all the available multiplayer modes. Thus Forge modifications can be played with rules like Slayer, Team Slayer, Virus, etc.
- Forge is a multiplayer game and object editor -- simultaneously. 8 players can be in Forge via splitscreen, system link, and/or Live. After modifying a map monitors can instantly "pop" into the game (by tapping the D-Pad), test out changes, and change right back to monitor mode to make more changes. All users can be making changes and/or be playing the map simultaneously.
- Forge allows users to permit all players to be monitors or to restrict monitor status to the party leader. It is unknown if Forge can be filtered to allow a specific number of monitors on each side (e.g. one monitor per side), and if so if Forge forces a symmetric number of monitors on each side.
- Monitors cannot attack other players and are vulnerable, although they can drop objects on players. A filter is available to make monitors invincible.
- Monitors can delete objects placed by other monitors; you cannot delete a vehicle a person is using, although you can grab it and move it, and the player, around the map. It is unknown if Forge can restrict monitors from opposing teams from modifying and moving the opposing teams objects.
- Users can modify weapons by altering their respawn timer, ammo count, and other minor tweaks.
- Each map has an "asset budget" in Forge due to performance and online limitations; a gun may cost 2 points, a vehicle 40 points, etc. The currency limit on each map is shared between both teams. It is unknown if individual limits, lower than the global limits, can be prescribed to each team.
- Each map has a different asset budget, but user may place most objects on most maps. The Elephant is only available on Sandtrap.
- Forge allows users to modify gravity, scoring for every action, rules for status changes of the leader, and a variety of victory conditions. Bungie would consider adding rule varieties that people enjoy to the global matchmaking lists (Forge, by default, is not included in matchmaking).
- Users can create custom power-ups. Variables like damage inflicted, gravity, speed, health regeneration, shield effects, power-up duration, and so forth. Variables can be mixed and matched at will to create your favorite combo.
- Forge maps can be shared via Live with other players. A voting system will allow favorite content to be more visible, even added to Bungie's, "Recommended Content" page and possibly included into multiplayer matchmaking.
- Forge games can be recorded and viewed with the Halo 3 film tools.
MOVIE MAKING
My immediate thoughts about Forge were, "Machinima to the extreme". Being able to add, remove, and modify content at whim allows for an amazingly amount of diversity and ingenuity in creating fan flicks. With the film editing tools Bungie is offering, as well as game session data being compact (about 12 minutes can fit into 1MB) we may very well see some interesting story telling from the Halo community.
Of course it will be lacking some of the posing tools found in Gary's Mod, and the lack of tools to modify textures, geometry, models, etc will be a major limiting factors. But none of this stopped Red vs. Blue from becoming a major success. In the least, these two tools ensure the future success of Red vs. Blue and should provide Microsoft with an ingenious viral marketing tool. Expect YouTube to be flooded with user created movies hours after the Halo 3 release. It is inevitable.
SKEPTICISM
My next thought wasn't so enthusiastic: Gimmick. Followed by:
Realtime Spawn Editor? Yawwwn. Ho-hum.
First, the press was presenting this as a map editor... but you cannot really, you know, modify the map. It is an object and spawn editor. While every feature is a welcome addition (as long as it works!), it did have me scratching my head. It is standard fair for PC FPS to have a map editor of some sort, and a number of console FPS have wet their feet here as well (notably TimeSplitters 2 and Far Cry Instincts). While an object editor may excite Halo fans, for the rest of us Forge sounds pretty... spartan. Or is that Spartan II? Anyhow, it didn't initially sound like much of a selling point.
More importantly, I question the wisdom of allowing users to modify the work Bungie has done. Bungie has spent 3 years creating, testing, and balancing their multiplayer maps. Allowing users to... ruin them... doesn't sound like a great idea. True, Forge maps are not part of match making, but the potential for glitching and totally unbalanced gameplay seems as inevitable as some cool movies being made by the tool. Pardon my cynicism, but did Halo 3 really need another gimmick to get fans to play the game for another 3 years?
Further, the Forge ideas floated by Bungie in the first interviews sounded superficial at best in most cases.
- A Jenga style stacking game. Monitors stack fusion coils, alternating coils with crates. One misstep and... boom!
- Grab the Mongoose, where one player drives a Mongoose and the other players, playing as monitors, attempt to grab the ATV.
- A "Magic Carpet" variant where a Spartan with a sniping rifle hops on a crate and a monitor moves him around the map as the Spartan and other players try to take each other out.
- Virus Fortress, where a monitor builds a fortress to defend, only for infected players to try to infect him.
- A Slayer mode where each team has a monitor feeding players weapons and vehicles and deleting the content added by the other teams monitor.
Not a very inspired list to say the least, although the Virus and resource aid/management ideas (RTS? more on that later) may have potential. The idea of zooming away in a firefight, ala Neo from the Matrix movies, sounds like a more interesting gameplay dynamic than some of the sample ideas Bungie gave. The possible chaos and disruption caused by monitors could make for a frustrating experience, which makes you wonder why Bungie would put so much work into Forge. While Bungie found the idea of an Elephant spitting out fusion coils and vehicles left and right as it tumbled around a map entertaining, we question how long such would be entertaining. An hour? A week? The fact that there are so few details about filters, rules, and other mechanisms to direct play (if they even exist) hampered much of my initial interest in Forge. The press labeling it a map editor didn't help.
CAUSE FOR OPTIMISM?
So initially I was pretty skeptical of the value of Forge in terms of a solid gameplay experience. Everyone has different tastes, and an open ended sandbox with few rules could be fun... for a short time. But a major component of map making is balance, and the initial reports seemed quite thin in regards to tools to balance and enforce rules. Subsequent interviews are beginning to indicate there is a bit more depth to Forge than simply modifying, creating, and deleting objects and their attributes. In the Screen Play interview Bungie comments,
Hold the presses! A full functional race mode doesn't sound like basic map modification, but significant modification to the game rule parameters. While this falls under the Forge abilities to modify, "scoring for every action, rules for status changes of the leader, and a variety of victory conditions," the specific example shines some light on how deep Forge may be.
Racing isn't typically the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about Halo, or any FPS for that matter. True, YouTube has a number of videos of impromptu racing matches in Halo, but the fact Bungie has included parameters that users can insert into Forge matches to create functional race courses is amazing. Who needs Halo Karts when you can create it in Forge? Bungie is indicating that this is just scratching the surface as they have added special objects specifically for Forge (like teleporters and permanent grav lifts) as well as a number of game variables.
This example made me a little bit more optimistic about what Forge may allow budding Forgers to accomplish. But I got bigger fish to fry, and it looks like Bungie may be thinking the same thing.
The reference to "honor rules" isn't encouraging--anyone who has played games online, especially on Live, knows there is no honor among thieves... errr, gamers. Does Bungie even play their own games online? I digress. And still no confirmation about the ability to restrict monitors beyond "one or all". The fact monitors can be made invulnerable is encouraging, though, and indicates that there are more features and filters not announced.
Yet something else caught my eye, which immediately excited me. The letters: R-T-S.
RTS?!
It is well known that the first Halo franchise spin-off is Halo Wars, a Realtime Strategy Game (RTS) by Ensemble Studios. What is less known to many fans is that Halo was originally designed to be an RTS, which explains some of the early design decisions that made the original Halo so fresh. I am a huge fan of the dead RTS-FPS hybrid genre. I still play Battlezone (PC, 1998) to this day due to the depth, variety, and complexity of the game. The news that Forge will open the door, to arguably the biggest FPS franchise on the market, and drag it kicking and screaming into the RTS realm is a surprising development. A pleasant one I may add.
The EGM interview does temper the excitement, to a degree when they mentioned monitors deleting the opposing teams items. While having a monitor supply equipment sounds great, the idea of deleting the other teams content doesn't sound so great for an "RTS". Can the rules be modified to prevent such interference?
Without further information on filters, rules, and gameplay modifiers it is hard to known. The fact Bungie isn't shying away from mentioning quasi-RTS modes is encouraging. Sure, there won't be any AI players, no real resource management, no intuitive command structure for IU or command delegation, and 8 people makes for an awfully small RTS experience... but maybe this is a testing grounds for a new Halo experience?
FILTERS? WE NEED FILTERS!
One thing we do know is that Bungie won't be creating specific game modes for Forge, instead leaving that up to users.
From the information we have given it appears these custom games will be dictated by "honor rules" and in-game settings that dictate scoring, status changes, and victory conditions. The suggestion of creating a quasi-RTS game in Forge raises a lot of questions. Does Forge allow you to assign costs and limits to the content so you can create your own RTS balance? Are users able to disallow certain weapons, deployables, and vehicles? Can users tie "resources" -- be it kills, flag captures, the total time holding a territory, etc -- to the monitor "buying" ability.
Since Forge and Halo don't have a proper resource model (material and power), to make a proper RTS you really need the ability to tie the monitors ability to create content with the "value" of objects. Without this ability any "RTS" mode reverts back to a spam session. Without knowing the rules and filters Bungie has in mind I remain cautious, although optimistic about a possible RTS-FPS mode.
At this point I am going to venture away from discussing Forge, and discuss some more of my ideas about necessary filters to create new game types and some game ideas. Hopefully others can begin mapping out their own ideas and filter suggests.
We need filters. Lots of filters. The ability to dictate game parameters and enforce them is vital for any structured game. A map with a dozen tanks, a dozen Spartan lasers, a dozen Brute choppers, and a dozen fuel rods is going to be pretty lame. Here are some filters and parameters I would like to see in Forge--hopefully Bungie lets us know soon what to expect so we can get our think tanks warmed up.
- Limit the number of Forgers. Allow asymmetric values for each side; include expiring conditions for Forgers (death, time, game conditions/objectives).
- Monitor status changes: allow monitor status to pass on to other players after various events such as death, time, objectives, etc.
- Resource Quotas. Allow Forgers to alter the starting limits, as well as limits, for each team, as well as independently from each other.
- Parameters to increase/decrease resource quotas. Allow Forger defined variables like time, kills, objectives, territories, hill hold time, flags scored, etc. to affect the team and/or monitors resources.
- Monitor activity restrictions: dictate where monitors can modify objects. Anywhere, in own base, capture points, near teammates, etc.
- Modify object value. Allow Forgers to modify each items "cost" to a monitor for gameplay purposes. e.g. Forgers can set values to objects for gameplay purposes (independent of the values for the global caps for performance purposes... of course gameplay balance will need to fall under these caps).
- Fine grained control over allowed weapons, equipment, vehicles, items, etc.
There are limitless numbers of filters, modifiers, parameters, rules, dependencies, and ideas that could be used in Forge to create totally unique gameplay experiences. Bungie has hinted that it is much deeper than an object editor, and the presence of objects not in Halo 3 and modifiers that are totally divergent from Halo's gameplay (like racing) gives slight encouragement.
Bungie seems very receptive about supporting Forge, and even including popular rules into matchmaking. As Bungie team member Lars says, "I'm not under the illusion that there's not someone out there that can do a better job."
MY IDEAS
Ok, I don't have an Xbox 360. I probably won't have one when Halo 3 is released next month. But thinking about Forge gets my creative juices flowing. It also has me interested in a product that had taken backseat to Call of Duty 4 and Team Fortress 2. Sure, Halo 3 was always going to be good and a sales monster, but I wanted something a little more fresh and new. Forge, you know, that gimmick, has the potential to make a console FPS "fresh and new" for years. Sure, it could flop because it is too constricting and the modifiers limiting and impractical (Epic is laughing at Microsoft right now... see, you should allow PC created content!), but it has potential.
And here are some sample games I would love to try out in Forge. If they actually worked Halo 3 could become a real addiction for me.
RTS Territories. Two teams. 1 monitor on each team (who can switch to being a Spartan if they wish). Each team has a base as well as 3 control points they are trying to capture. Gameplay is ticket based. When a team has a 1 flag advantage, the other team loses a small amount of tickets; ticket bleed increases with a 2 flag advantage, and is extremely fast with a 3 flag advantage. Monitors can create objects in bases and captured control points only. Monitor budgets are determined by the number of capture points in possession of the team. The more control points controlled, the larger the budget. Victory is accomplished when one team reaches zero tickets or whoever has the most tickets when time expires.
Variation: Add a low cost Forge item (like coils) and evenly distribute them throughout the map that players collect. Instead of control points determining monitor resource collected (and possibly collected and returned to home base) "credits" affected resources. This could be played without control points as well.
Halo Karts. A basic racing game: start line & finish line with checkpoints in between. Like Mario Kart Double Dash!!, each vehicle has 2 people (a driver and gunner). Littered on the course are various power-ups--weapons, temporary invulnerabilities, invisibilities, etc. Grav lifts are placed on the courses with specific check points to ensure they are used.
Jail Break. Standard CTF, King of the Hill, Territories, etc. modes with an objective. But the wrinkle is when a player died they respawn at a location, barricaded in, without a weapon. The barricade is a destroyable object, but respawns within about 10 seconds. While you play you must periodically free your teammates from jail.
Destruction Choppers. A game starts with 1 Brute Chopper manned by the game starter and 7 Warthogs w/o weapons. As the Brute Chopper can cut Warthogs in half, the goal is for the Warthogs to avoid the Chopper and the Chopper to kill the Warthogs. When Warthogs/Drivers are destroyed they respawn with their own Chopper and must assist the Brute squad in destroying the Spartans. Last Spartan standing wins.
Last Stand. A single monitor and Spartan against 6 Brutes. The Spartan must defend his base while the Brutes are trying to assault it and destroy it (get a flag in, etc). Brutes get very basic weapons, whereas the monitor can give the Spartan a laundry list of resources. Spartan wins if time expires, Brutes win if they invade his base. Spartan health may need to be adjusted for balance.
Variation: Brutes get no weapons, but do get vehicles (without weapons). They must break into the Spartan stronghold, steal a flag, and return it to their base. The Spartan retains the assistance of the monitor.
Variation: One Man Army. 6 Brutes guard a base, with a single Spartan attempting to invade. Brutes have basic weapons whereas the Spartan has the monitor at his disposal.
Variation: Brutes, in either example, have a limited number of lives (e.g. 3). The Spartan, after every death, gets an extra 5 second tacked onto his respawn time (for example: respawn_time = 10seconds + [5sec * #deaths]). With a time limit crunching down for both sides, this adds a penalty for deaths.
Assault and Defend. A series of control points are setup on a map (for example, 5 in a linear path across the map). One team is assaulting (Brutes), one defending (Spartans). Once a control point has been "converted" (touched, destroyed, whatever) it now mains on the Brute side and Brutes can spawn at the point. Spartans can spawn at any point they control. The points must be activated in order. The Spartan objective is to prevent the Brutes from converting all 5 spawn points before the time limit and/or death quota is met. The Brutes' objective is to convert all 5 spawn points before the time limit and/or death quota is met. Each team has a monitor who can switch back and forth between player and monitor. Monitors can only spawn items at control points they control; monitor budget slowly refills over time. e.g. They start with 100 points and diminishes with every purchase. Every 1 minute they get 10 more points.
I HAVE A DREAM... WILL BUNGIE FULFILL IT?
As you can tell, I missed my calling as a wannabe game designer. I also have an odd infatuation with RTS-FPS games and seeing Master Chief in a Mario Kart game. But isn't that what sandbox games are about? Isn't that the E3 2005 sales pitch: Customize your experience to game your way?
I probably wasted a lot of time thinking up example game modes that most likely won't be supported but Forge's tools. But what if they are? And even if they are not, Forge is setting the framework to move more control and armchair designing to gamers as well as opening the door for more Forge like tools in other games. Will it succeed as a basic design platform? Who knows, but the idea of giving gamers this ability is... empowering.
A better question is: Does it matter if Forge excels? If gamers have fun toiling away, attempting all sorts of whacking permutations and video taping them for their friends to see--and are having fun doing so--isn't that what really matters? The fact something useful could come from this is just a bonus.
From Bungie's perspective, the fact they got a diehard PC FPS player who initially scoffed at the mere idea of Forge (a spawn editor?!) actually interested in their game and actively plotting possible game designs says a lot about the concept. Forge, if well executed, looks to be the perfect trifecta for Bungie and Microsoft: It will be used as a major marketing tool, it extends the value of the game, and it opens the door for millions of gamers to possibly create refreshing online modes that could serve as a foundation to future projects. In the least Halo fans are going to get to monkey around in their favorite game playing in the ultimate Halo universe sandbox.
While there are surely more secrets to uncover in Forge the reality is that the concept is very simple, but the possibilities could be endless. And even if Forge ultimately fails, it seem inevitable that developers will begin toying with the idea of giving more and more creative design tools to gamers to create their own gaming experiences. We can dream, right?
With September 25th quickly approaching, Bungie is finally lifting the veil on the Halo finale. After it's lukewarm reception at E3 in July, Bungie has spent the last month releasing details and media about the Xbox 360 blockbuster which has already exceeded 1 million preorders. Now that Gamersyde's exclusive videos put aside any fears of Halo 3 being, "Halo 2 in HD" I find myself drawn to the "Halo 3 package". Much like Valve Software's, "Half-Life 2 Orange Box" Bungie appears to be packing an amazing amount of content, features, and replay value into Halo 3. Bungie has officially announced a single player campaign, 4 player Coop in campaign, multiplayer and all its variants, a video replay and editing feature, and Forge, an object placement/modifying utility. These features and modes are inline with Bungie's objective to not reinvent Halo, but to refine and enrich the foundation fans love. While it is too early to assess the game itself, the sheer amount of content may be the difference between a "good, but tried and true" experience and a great game that keeps gamers coming back, literally, for years.
FORGE
Most of the aforementioned modes are well understood, I do find the mystery of Forge intriguing. What is Forge? Some are calling it a map editor, but that is a little too broad because...
- Forge cannot create or modify geometry
- Forge cannot create or modify textures
- Forge cannot move major objects, like bases
- Forge does not work in Single Player
So what does Forge do? The details are sketchy and scattered across the internet (Bungie, IGN, Screen Play, etc) and game publications (EGM). While there remains a lot of questions, we do know the following:
- Forge allows users to add, remove, and modify weapons, equipment, objects, vehicles, spawn points, teleporters, tools, and other items found in Halo 3 while playing in the Forge mode as an editor (or "monitor" as Bungie is calling them). Modification are accomplished in real-time while navigating the map in monitor mode.
- Forge controls, as a monitor, are fairly straight forward:
+ Tapping the D-Pad instantly switches the user from monitor mode to a player (Spartan). As a monitor you are a small sphere.
+ The Right Stick is used to lock and rotate selected items; the Left Stick is used to move and rotate selected items.
+ The Left Trigger is your thrusters; the Right Trigger rotates the selected item when held down.
+ The Left Bumper moves the user down; the Right Bumper moves the user up.
+ The Y Button deletes an item; the B Button drops items when held down; the A Button picks up/drops items.
+ Pressing the X Button activates the 'Item Properties List' where the user can alter object settings (like respawn rate and whether it appears at the start of a match) as well as modify game settings (symmetric or asymmetric game, single or multi-flag CTF, etc.)
- Forge modes works with the multiplayer maps and all the available multiplayer modes. Thus Forge modifications can be played with rules like Slayer, Team Slayer, Virus, etc.
- Forge is a multiplayer game and object editor -- simultaneously. 8 players can be in Forge via splitscreen, system link, and/or Live. After modifying a map monitors can instantly "pop" into the game (by tapping the D-Pad), test out changes, and change right back to monitor mode to make more changes. All users can be making changes and/or be playing the map simultaneously.
- Forge allows users to permit all players to be monitors or to restrict monitor status to the party leader. It is unknown if Forge can be filtered to allow a specific number of monitors on each side (e.g. one monitor per side), and if so if Forge forces a symmetric number of monitors on each side.
- Monitors cannot attack other players and are vulnerable, although they can drop objects on players. A filter is available to make monitors invincible.
- Monitors can delete objects placed by other monitors; you cannot delete a vehicle a person is using, although you can grab it and move it, and the player, around the map. It is unknown if Forge can restrict monitors from opposing teams from modifying and moving the opposing teams objects.
- Users can modify weapons by altering their respawn timer, ammo count, and other minor tweaks.
- Each map has an "asset budget" in Forge due to performance and online limitations; a gun may cost 2 points, a vehicle 40 points, etc. The currency limit on each map is shared between both teams. It is unknown if individual limits, lower than the global limits, can be prescribed to each team.
- Each map has a different asset budget, but user may place most objects on most maps. The Elephant is only available on Sandtrap.
- Forge allows users to modify gravity, scoring for every action, rules for status changes of the leader, and a variety of victory conditions. Bungie would consider adding rule varieties that people enjoy to the global matchmaking lists (Forge, by default, is not included in matchmaking).
- Users can create custom power-ups. Variables like damage inflicted, gravity, speed, health regeneration, shield effects, power-up duration, and so forth. Variables can be mixed and matched at will to create your favorite combo.
- Forge maps can be shared via Live with other players. A voting system will allow favorite content to be more visible, even added to Bungie's, "Recommended Content" page and possibly included into multiplayer matchmaking.
- Forge games can be recorded and viewed with the Halo 3 film tools.
MOVIE MAKING
My immediate thoughts about Forge were, "Machinima to the extreme". Being able to add, remove, and modify content at whim allows for an amazingly amount of diversity and ingenuity in creating fan flicks. With the film editing tools Bungie is offering, as well as game session data being compact (about 12 minutes can fit into 1MB) we may very well see some interesting story telling from the Halo community.
Of course it will be lacking some of the posing tools found in Gary's Mod, and the lack of tools to modify textures, geometry, models, etc will be a major limiting factors. But none of this stopped Red vs. Blue from becoming a major success. In the least, these two tools ensure the future success of Red vs. Blue and should provide Microsoft with an ingenious viral marketing tool. Expect YouTube to be flooded with user created movies hours after the Halo 3 release. It is inevitable.
SKEPTICISM
My next thought wasn't so enthusiastic: Gimmick. Followed by:
Realtime Spawn Editor? Yawwwn. Ho-hum.
First, the press was presenting this as a map editor... but you cannot really, you know, modify the map. It is an object and spawn editor. While every feature is a welcome addition (as long as it works!), it did have me scratching my head. It is standard fair for PC FPS to have a map editor of some sort, and a number of console FPS have wet their feet here as well (notably TimeSplitters 2 and Far Cry Instincts). While an object editor may excite Halo fans, for the rest of us Forge sounds pretty... spartan. Or is that Spartan II? Anyhow, it didn't initially sound like much of a selling point.
More importantly, I question the wisdom of allowing users to modify the work Bungie has done. Bungie has spent 3 years creating, testing, and balancing their multiplayer maps. Allowing users to... ruin them... doesn't sound like a great idea. True, Forge maps are not part of match making, but the potential for glitching and totally unbalanced gameplay seems as inevitable as some cool movies being made by the tool. Pardon my cynicism, but did Halo 3 really need another gimmick to get fans to play the game for another 3 years?
Further, the Forge ideas floated by Bungie in the first interviews sounded superficial at best in most cases.
- A Jenga style stacking game. Monitors stack fusion coils, alternating coils with crates. One misstep and... boom!
- Grab the Mongoose, where one player drives a Mongoose and the other players, playing as monitors, attempt to grab the ATV.
- A "Magic Carpet" variant where a Spartan with a sniping rifle hops on a crate and a monitor moves him around the map as the Spartan and other players try to take each other out.
- Virus Fortress, where a monitor builds a fortress to defend, only for infected players to try to infect him.
- A Slayer mode where each team has a monitor feeding players weapons and vehicles and deleting the content added by the other teams monitor.
Not a very inspired list to say the least, although the Virus and resource aid/management ideas (RTS? more on that later) may have potential. The idea of zooming away in a firefight, ala Neo from the Matrix movies, sounds like a more interesting gameplay dynamic than some of the sample ideas Bungie gave. The possible chaos and disruption caused by monitors could make for a frustrating experience, which makes you wonder why Bungie would put so much work into Forge. While Bungie found the idea of an Elephant spitting out fusion coils and vehicles left and right as it tumbled around a map entertaining, we question how long such would be entertaining. An hour? A week? The fact that there are so few details about filters, rules, and other mechanisms to direct play (if they even exist) hampered much of my initial interest in Forge. The press labeling it a map editor didn't help.
CAUSE FOR OPTIMISM?
So initially I was pretty skeptical of the value of Forge in terms of a solid gameplay experience. Everyone has different tastes, and an open ended sandbox with few rules could be fun... for a short time. But a major component of map making is balance, and the initial reports seemed quite thin in regards to tools to balance and enforce rules. Subsequent interviews are beginning to indicate there is a bit more depth to Forge than simply modifying, creating, and deleting objects and their attributes. In the Screen Play interview Bungie comments,
Hold the presses! A full functional race mode doesn't sound like basic map modification, but significant modification to the game rule parameters. While this falls under the Forge abilities to modify, "scoring for every action, rules for status changes of the leader, and a variety of victory conditions," the specific example shines some light on how deep Forge may be.
Racing isn't typically the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about Halo, or any FPS for that matter. True, YouTube has a number of videos of impromptu racing matches in Halo, but the fact Bungie has included parameters that users can insert into Forge matches to create functional race courses is amazing. Who needs Halo Karts when you can create it in Forge? Bungie is indicating that this is just scratching the surface as they have added special objects specifically for Forge (like teleporters and permanent grav lifts) as well as a number of game variables.
This example made me a little bit more optimistic about what Forge may allow budding Forgers to accomplish. But I got bigger fish to fry, and it looks like Bungie may be thinking the same thing.
The reference to "honor rules" isn't encouraging--anyone who has played games online, especially on Live, knows there is no honor among thieves... errr, gamers. Does Bungie even play their own games online? I digress. And still no confirmation about the ability to restrict monitors beyond "one or all". The fact monitors can be made invulnerable is encouraging, though, and indicates that there are more features and filters not announced.
Yet something else caught my eye, which immediately excited me. The letters: R-T-S.
RTS?!
It is well known that the first Halo franchise spin-off is Halo Wars, a Realtime Strategy Game (RTS) by Ensemble Studios. What is less known to many fans is that Halo was originally designed to be an RTS, which explains some of the early design decisions that made the original Halo so fresh. I am a huge fan of the dead RTS-FPS hybrid genre. I still play Battlezone (PC, 1998) to this day due to the depth, variety, and complexity of the game. The news that Forge will open the door, to arguably the biggest FPS franchise on the market, and drag it kicking and screaming into the RTS realm is a surprising development. A pleasant one I may add.
The EGM interview does temper the excitement, to a degree when they mentioned monitors deleting the opposing teams items. While having a monitor supply equipment sounds great, the idea of deleting the other teams content doesn't sound so great for an "RTS". Can the rules be modified to prevent such interference?
Without further information on filters, rules, and gameplay modifiers it is hard to known. The fact Bungie isn't shying away from mentioning quasi-RTS modes is encouraging. Sure, there won't be any AI players, no real resource management, no intuitive command structure for IU or command delegation, and 8 people makes for an awfully small RTS experience... but maybe this is a testing grounds for a new Halo experience?
FILTERS? WE NEED FILTERS!
One thing we do know is that Bungie won't be creating specific game modes for Forge, instead leaving that up to users.
From the information we have given it appears these custom games will be dictated by "honor rules" and in-game settings that dictate scoring, status changes, and victory conditions. The suggestion of creating a quasi-RTS game in Forge raises a lot of questions. Does Forge allow you to assign costs and limits to the content so you can create your own RTS balance? Are users able to disallow certain weapons, deployables, and vehicles? Can users tie "resources" -- be it kills, flag captures, the total time holding a territory, etc -- to the monitor "buying" ability.
Since Forge and Halo don't have a proper resource model (material and power), to make a proper RTS you really need the ability to tie the monitors ability to create content with the "value" of objects. Without this ability any "RTS" mode reverts back to a spam session. Without knowing the rules and filters Bungie has in mind I remain cautious, although optimistic about a possible RTS-FPS mode.
At this point I am going to venture away from discussing Forge, and discuss some more of my ideas about necessary filters to create new game types and some game ideas. Hopefully others can begin mapping out their own ideas and filter suggests.
We need filters. Lots of filters. The ability to dictate game parameters and enforce them is vital for any structured game. A map with a dozen tanks, a dozen Spartan lasers, a dozen Brute choppers, and a dozen fuel rods is going to be pretty lame. Here are some filters and parameters I would like to see in Forge--hopefully Bungie lets us know soon what to expect so we can get our think tanks warmed up.
- Limit the number of Forgers. Allow asymmetric values for each side; include expiring conditions for Forgers (death, time, game conditions/objectives).
- Monitor status changes: allow monitor status to pass on to other players after various events such as death, time, objectives, etc.
- Resource Quotas. Allow Forgers to alter the starting limits, as well as limits, for each team, as well as independently from each other.
- Parameters to increase/decrease resource quotas. Allow Forger defined variables like time, kills, objectives, territories, hill hold time, flags scored, etc. to affect the team and/or monitors resources.
- Monitor activity restrictions: dictate where monitors can modify objects. Anywhere, in own base, capture points, near teammates, etc.
- Modify object value. Allow Forgers to modify each items "cost" to a monitor for gameplay purposes. e.g. Forgers can set values to objects for gameplay purposes (independent of the values for the global caps for performance purposes... of course gameplay balance will need to fall under these caps).
- Fine grained control over allowed weapons, equipment, vehicles, items, etc.
There are limitless numbers of filters, modifiers, parameters, rules, dependencies, and ideas that could be used in Forge to create totally unique gameplay experiences. Bungie has hinted that it is much deeper than an object editor, and the presence of objects not in Halo 3 and modifiers that are totally divergent from Halo's gameplay (like racing) gives slight encouragement.
Bungie seems very receptive about supporting Forge, and even including popular rules into matchmaking. As Bungie team member Lars says, "I'm not under the illusion that there's not someone out there that can do a better job."
MY IDEAS
Ok, I don't have an Xbox 360. I probably won't have one when Halo 3 is released next month. But thinking about Forge gets my creative juices flowing. It also has me interested in a product that had taken backseat to Call of Duty 4 and Team Fortress 2. Sure, Halo 3 was always going to be good and a sales monster, but I wanted something a little more fresh and new. Forge, you know, that gimmick, has the potential to make a console FPS "fresh and new" for years. Sure, it could flop because it is too constricting and the modifiers limiting and impractical (Epic is laughing at Microsoft right now... see, you should allow PC created content!), but it has potential.
And here are some sample games I would love to try out in Forge. If they actually worked Halo 3 could become a real addiction for me.
RTS Territories. Two teams. 1 monitor on each team (who can switch to being a Spartan if they wish). Each team has a base as well as 3 control points they are trying to capture. Gameplay is ticket based. When a team has a 1 flag advantage, the other team loses a small amount of tickets; ticket bleed increases with a 2 flag advantage, and is extremely fast with a 3 flag advantage. Monitors can create objects in bases and captured control points only. Monitor budgets are determined by the number of capture points in possession of the team. The more control points controlled, the larger the budget. Victory is accomplished when one team reaches zero tickets or whoever has the most tickets when time expires.
Variation: Add a low cost Forge item (like coils) and evenly distribute them throughout the map that players collect. Instead of control points determining monitor resource collected (and possibly collected and returned to home base) "credits" affected resources. This could be played without control points as well.
Halo Karts. A basic racing game: start line & finish line with checkpoints in between. Like Mario Kart Double Dash!!, each vehicle has 2 people (a driver and gunner). Littered on the course are various power-ups--weapons, temporary invulnerabilities, invisibilities, etc. Grav lifts are placed on the courses with specific check points to ensure they are used.
Jail Break. Standard CTF, King of the Hill, Territories, etc. modes with an objective. But the wrinkle is when a player died they respawn at a location, barricaded in, without a weapon. The barricade is a destroyable object, but respawns within about 10 seconds. While you play you must periodically free your teammates from jail.
Destruction Choppers. A game starts with 1 Brute Chopper manned by the game starter and 7 Warthogs w/o weapons. As the Brute Chopper can cut Warthogs in half, the goal is for the Warthogs to avoid the Chopper and the Chopper to kill the Warthogs. When Warthogs/Drivers are destroyed they respawn with their own Chopper and must assist the Brute squad in destroying the Spartans. Last Spartan standing wins.
Last Stand. A single monitor and Spartan against 6 Brutes. The Spartan must defend his base while the Brutes are trying to assault it and destroy it (get a flag in, etc). Brutes get very basic weapons, whereas the monitor can give the Spartan a laundry list of resources. Spartan wins if time expires, Brutes win if they invade his base. Spartan health may need to be adjusted for balance.
Variation: Brutes get no weapons, but do get vehicles (without weapons). They must break into the Spartan stronghold, steal a flag, and return it to their base. The Spartan retains the assistance of the monitor.
Variation: One Man Army. 6 Brutes guard a base, with a single Spartan attempting to invade. Brutes have basic weapons whereas the Spartan has the monitor at his disposal.
Variation: Brutes, in either example, have a limited number of lives (e.g. 3). The Spartan, after every death, gets an extra 5 second tacked onto his respawn time (for example: respawn_time = 10seconds + [5sec * #deaths]). With a time limit crunching down for both sides, this adds a penalty for deaths.
Assault and Defend. A series of control points are setup on a map (for example, 5 in a linear path across the map). One team is assaulting (Brutes), one defending (Spartans). Once a control point has been "converted" (touched, destroyed, whatever) it now mains on the Brute side and Brutes can spawn at the point. Spartans can spawn at any point they control. The points must be activated in order. The Spartan objective is to prevent the Brutes from converting all 5 spawn points before the time limit and/or death quota is met. The Brutes' objective is to convert all 5 spawn points before the time limit and/or death quota is met. Each team has a monitor who can switch back and forth between player and monitor. Monitors can only spawn items at control points they control; monitor budget slowly refills over time. e.g. They start with 100 points and diminishes with every purchase. Every 1 minute they get 10 more points.
I HAVE A DREAM... WILL BUNGIE FULFILL IT?
As you can tell, I missed my calling as a wannabe game designer. I also have an odd infatuation with RTS-FPS games and seeing Master Chief in a Mario Kart game. But isn't that what sandbox games are about? Isn't that the E3 2005 sales pitch: Customize your experience to game your way?
I probably wasted a lot of time thinking up example game modes that most likely won't be supported but Forge's tools. But what if they are? And even if they are not, Forge is setting the framework to move more control and armchair designing to gamers as well as opening the door for more Forge like tools in other games. Will it succeed as a basic design platform? Who knows, but the idea of giving gamers this ability is... empowering.
A better question is: Does it matter if Forge excels? If gamers have fun toiling away, attempting all sorts of whacking permutations and video taping them for their friends to see--and are having fun doing so--isn't that what really matters? The fact something useful could come from this is just a bonus.
From Bungie's perspective, the fact they got a diehard PC FPS player who initially scoffed at the mere idea of Forge (a spawn editor?!) actually interested in their game and actively plotting possible game designs says a lot about the concept. Forge, if well executed, looks to be the perfect trifecta for Bungie and Microsoft: It will be used as a major marketing tool, it extends the value of the game, and it opens the door for millions of gamers to possibly create refreshing online modes that could serve as a foundation to future projects. In the least Halo fans are going to get to monkey around in their favorite game playing in the ultimate Halo universe sandbox.
While there are surely more secrets to uncover in Forge the reality is that the concept is very simple, but the possibilities could be endless. And even if Forge ultimately fails, it seem inevitable that developers will begin toying with the idea of giving more and more creative design tools to gamers to create their own gaming experiences. We can dream, right?
Forge shouldn't be ranked.
