A modest proposal

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 8^th 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:

1. Night Camp CE by SomeRhino
   Why: Excellent, simple design, very popular in early life of CE
   
   
2. Wartorn Cove by Schwinnz
   Why: One of the most popular and played maps in CE, could be easily ported
   
   
3. Claustrophobia by DocOctavius
   Why: One of the most well-designed small maps we have ever received as a community
   
   
4. Cliffhanger by Molkien
   Why: Again, excellent design and well-balanced for all gametypes
   
   
5. 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.
   
   
6. Sciophobia by Ranger
   Why: One of the few excellent maps released midway through CE's life with a “Classic” theme
   
   
7. FissureFall by CrispySpartan
   Why: One of the most impressive maps from the early months of CE
   
   

These maps are possible candidates:

1. 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
   
   
2. Haloball by ???
   Why: Quirky and fun
   Why not: Probably will not translate well into the new engine
   
   
3. 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
   
   
4. 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
   
   
5. 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
   
   
6. 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.

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

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

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.

Yes.

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.

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).

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

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/t...v3-for-halo-4/
I know there's little chances but I tried it.

Keep it on.

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!