NOTE : Do not reply without reading through all of this. Let's keep stupid posts out of here, and stay to intelligent discussion.
I've been meaning to ask this for a while, as I'm sure much of the community has, and I think it's time to ask for an answer.
Why has so much content been removed from the Halo 2 Map Editor's tagset? (Never mind the locked down toolset, part of which is understandable if a desire of keeping "traditional" Halo 2 gameplay was an issue.) The Help File refernces several tags that simply are not present, indicating that we were, at one point, going to receive a complete MP tagset... but for some reason or another, an incredibly large portion vanished.
We were told, when the editing kit portion of the game was announced, that we would have acess to full multiplayer map creation resources. Yet, there seems to be a very conspicuous lack of things that one would expect for a functional editing kit. There is a very lackluster amount of environmental shaders and bitmaps; the only ones supplied are for forerunner industrial maps. The Help File makes a reference to the folder "tags\scenarios\bitmaps\multi\zanzibar," and points us to "basic_concrete.bitmap" in the shader setup portion of the map creation tutorial. But, when one goes in search of it, the bitmap and folder are nowhere to be found. We have no human or covenant shaders to work with, and I could not find any water shaders, leaving us to find out how to set up the shader_template for water properly ourselves. (It should also be noted that shader_template tags, while NOT accessible through the standard Guerilla tags list, ARE accessible by opening the referenced tag in a .shader, or simply double clicking them in the "all tags" view. Why one method of acess is locked and another is not is beyond me.)
In the gravity lifts section, we are pointed to "tags\scenarios\objects\multi\lockout\lockout_lift _tube\lockout_lift_tube.crate". It is not included. We are also pointed to "tags\scenarios\objects\multi\halo\coagulation\pow erhaus\powerhaus.crate." It is not included. Not only are we deprived of exising gravity lifts listed in the help file, but due to H2Tool's strip-down, we cannot create our own. The only gravity lift that I could find was tags\scenarios\objects\marathon\gemini\jump_pad, and I'm sure anyone will agree that a one-size-fits-all approach to gravity lifts in the editink kit is going to put severe restrictions on what we can do in our maps.
Onto backgound sounds - as with other tags, we are severely deprived of them and are unable to make our own. We are given sounds for forerunner industrial interiors, a forest/bloodgulch-ish area, and some sound_scenery tags, which are generally used for adding to existing backgound and ambient sound. Also, we have another case of missing sound mentioned in the Help File - I could not find "tags\sound\ambience\turf\old_mombasa\new_mombasa. sound_looping," which is given as a possible backgound sound tag in the sound effects section. The inability to make our own sounds is also restrictive on its own - part of creating and maintaining a level's feeling is sound. I had plans for a level based on an endless fall through an elevator shaft. Custom sounds (or at least, environmental sounds such as those from the part in The Oracle after you cut the cable) would add immensely to the feeling of being in a fast-moving forerunner platform.
Scenery is another thing that seems rather missing. This also includes "crate" tags. Granted, we can do instancing, but we cannot make our own crates, or create scenery that is inherintly supposed to be destroyed or damaged. (The covenant sheild device is a perfect example.) There is a very small amount of scenery and other bojects that create ambience to choose from, and I think that having them, or at least being able to make our own, would greatly improve any map.
I thank you for reading this.
