[The Final Dakar]

I don't have a name for the map yet. It's also not quite complete. This preview will look at the focus on the driving concept for my first map: A divider between the two bases best known as "The Great Wall."

East



The goal of the wall was to accomplish two things: To split the map in smaller more playable areas, and to provide a goal or focus for inhabitants of the map.

Here, you'll see a Shade Turret, a welcome addition to Forge. While weaker than I'd like, it has stunning mobility; If invaded, the turret is capable of swinging to take aim at the guard towers to it's and rear-left and rear-right.


The Sky Above



The turret is only a part of the offensive firepower located around the fortress. Here a Falcon intrudes on left of the frame. It is slow and late to spawn, and visible to the entire field, and accessible only through grav lifts that will leave one quite visible and vulnerable to most of the field.

At the right we get a close view of one of the guard towers. It comes equipped with two windows for shielding and rockets as vehicle counter-measures. A health pack is also included to handle sustained firefights away fro the core of the fortress.

Finally, above is one of my prouder concepts: The dedicated artillery Wraith. Locked onto it's platform it's sole purpose is to rain damage upon the masses. This is accomplished with its high perch that gives it an unmatched view of the battlefield. Delivering that damage consistently, however, requires mastery of its cannon's arc.


The Heart


The Heart of the Fortress houses the Holy Grail of the battlefield – The Scorpion Tank. This bad boy also spawns late, and dwells with two Ghosts. An energy shield provides a window for teams on either side of the battlefield to determine its availability, but they'll find this is as beneficial as the shield gets. The shield is one-way only, and prevents access from the outside, while allowing the Scorpion easy entrance to the battlefield. To own this vehicle, you must make an incursion from the sides.

Above, the second floor of the Heart allows access to the roof, towers and battlements. Lining the room are cubbies with weapons or grenades. Thanks to expansive nature of the room, two mancannons allow quick traversal of the shielded interior to the adjacent battlement walls.


The Core


Thanks to the might of the fortress, invaders saw fit to create small bunkers near the face of the base. While not of great direct offensive benefit, they do provide the only true anti-vehicle weapon – The Spartan Laser. Also contained are Armor Abilities with which to match your possible strategies (such as thrusters for scaling the battlements).

The bunkers also include minimal cover, a mongoose for ground level transport and a mancannon that will place you right on the fortress wall, though precariously between the Heart and East Tower. The bunker can also be easily accessed via teleporters at each side's main base.


From Above


The layout of the Fortress Roof.


Imposing Mass


A beauty shot of the Fortress exterior.


---

A second final post, featuring the bases and outlining points of interest will come later this week (hopefully)

[Stogieman]

Oh man, I can't wait to try out this map. I think you have outdone yourself this time Dakar.

I love how you incorporated the artillery Wrath and one way shields. How soon will the map be ready for a MacNN meetup?

[The Final Dakar]

Originally Posted by Stogieman 

I love how you incorporated the artillery Wrath and one way shields. How soon will the map be ready for a MacNN meetup?

Next Monday, at the latest. I have to finish building the red base, touch up the blue one, decide on the West artillery situation, and then do all the spawns and weapon placements.

I know I won't be working on it tonight, with all the great challenges available.

[Stogieman]

For the Survivor challenge (7 sprees), I suggest we do a sniper fight on Beachhead instead of a rocket fight. You can earn 5 spree medals by killing 20 enemies with the sniper rifle. Kill yourself, then kill 10 more enemies for another 3 medals.

[The Final Dakar]

Yeah, I didn't read that well. That's actually challenging.

[The Final Dakar]

Going back to my map, I could see some great Objective variants on it. Territories, Bomb (If I can make a variant that allows either team to nuke the center base), One Flag, Headhunter, and Stockpile.

Ideally, i think I could make a great Invasion map, but I think it would be a ton of work and not really appreciated/desired/desirable.

[Jawbone54]

Hoooooooly crap...

[The Final Dakar]

Just wait till I have shots with people on it for scale.

[The Final Dakar]

My ****ing hero: Bungie.net : Halo: Reach Forum : Lack of a mid range weapon makes this game blow.

Most of the responses have been laughable.

[The Final Dakar]

Also, the bastards removed my Rogue helmet from Reach. Bastards.

[The Final Dakar]

Originally Posted by Kevin Bogues 

1. Yes, honestly i was playing terrible, we all know i'm extremely inconsistent but last night was worse than usual (I couldn't even play SWAT, which is usually a strong suite)

Not only that but your lifetime k/d is under 1.0. That's not the Bogues I remember.

Originally Posted by Kevin Bogues 

2. Mostly, I love the game play just based on the fact that i feel it represents how i play games (i can go crazy running and gunning, sprint into a wide open room and still walk away with a double kill)

I need a video of this "running" and gunning.

Originally Posted by Kevin Bogues 

For some reason, i enjoy objective type games much more in halo (as opposed to MW) i think only because of vehicles, and therefore it generally has more staying power.

I think you have a good point here. Probably the good side-effect of it being impossible to kill anyone.

Originally Posted by Kevin Bogues 

t i have to agree with fatty on the side bases, while i love the design, they don't seem useful (except for the man-cannon jumps to the cliffs), I think that in actual gameplay they will only be used as spawn points, and there complexity and size are not advantages to battles, although they are a step up to the simple small bases Bungie dropped into a remake of a level 10 years old.

We'll see. I'm sure everyone will be throwing their bodies against the walls trying to take the fortress, but the general idea behind the main bases is to make them useful if the fight gets taken to you. In essence, mini-fortresses.

[The Final Dakar]

For the Quintuple…

Originally Posted by Stogieman 

Bungie.net : Reach : Game Details

Here's a video of him shooting a warthog while it was still in the air. (Ok, one wheel was touching the ground but it was still a good shot.)

Hog Shot

That was totally clutch.

DO you have bungie pro or something? Ether way, thanks for spending the render points (I think that's how it works)

Originally Posted by Stogieman 

We ended up losing the game but I wasn't mad. (Probably because I had a splatter spree. See video below.)

Splatter Spree

It's a real shame they didn't spawn two seconds earlier.

Also, what about MW2 having terrible spawns?

[Stogieman]

Originally Posted by The Final Dakar

Also, what about MW2 having terrible spawns?

MW2 does have terrible spawns. Just not as bad as some of the Reach maps (Boneyard in particular).

Originally Posted by The Final Dakar

DO you have bungie pro or something? Ether way, thanks for spending the render points (I think that's how it works)

Yeah, I had some leftover MS points and used them to towards Bungie Pro. I can see myself using the video rendering feature a lot. It's very convenient.

Originally Posted by The Final Dakar

It's a real shame they didn't spawn two seconds earlier.

I was just happy to get that final splatter in while I was getting highjacked.

[The Final Dakar]

Originally Posted by Stogieman 

MW2 does have terrible spawns. Just not as bad as some of the Reach maps (Boneyard in particular).

sek and I played H3 a few weeks ago. Trust me, its not just the maps. Halo has more flawed and exploitable spawns than MW2.

[sek929]

The biggest problem is that sometimes it spawns you way out in the middle of ****ing nowhere. At least in MW2 you could sprint and duck behind some cover quickly, but like Dakar said earlier, Halo is a game of cluster-f**k maps and wide open maps.

After playing 20 days of MW2, and 10 years of Halo I can say that Halo has the poorer spawns in general.

[The Final Dakar]

Yeah, last night on that snipers game I finally decided I had enough an camped one my own spawns so I wouldn't die. Eventually, the game just spawned someone from the toter team there and I assassinated them. Awful.

---

Came so close to that Firefight challenge last night. A better map or less players or more friends or time and I would have gotten it. Instead I went into Forge, where I spent an hour more than I meant and did a lot of polishing to what was the already completed Fortress roof. Team bases are now 90% complete as I'm tying up some loose ends on concept and still figuring out how to access the main parts from the ground. (In other news, teleportation areas are quite customizable)


Finally, regarding today's challenges: Multiplier - Earn 5 multikills in a multiplayer Matchmaking game
Where was that last night when I got a Killtrocity with the tank? Bastards.

[sek929]

Should be easy, I average one double-kill per game.

Also just checked my medals and I am now averaging 5 headshot kills per game. Not bad for an aimbot-cyborg eh?

[The Final Dakar]

Originally Posted by sek929 

Should be easy, I average one double-kill per game.

You have my reading issues from yesterday. 5 in 1 game, like 7 sprees in one firefight.

[The Final Dakar]

Originally Posted by sek929 

Also just checked my medals and I am now averaging 5 headshot kills per game. Not bad for an aimbot-cyborg eh?

No offense, but the frequency with which SWAT and Snipers comes up taints the quality of that number.

Edit: I'm terrible at this game and I still manage 2.

[Stogieman]

Originally Posted by The Final Dakar 

You have my reading issues from yesterday. 5 in 1 game, like 7 sprees in one firefight.

I ended up getting that 7 Spree challenge after you left.

Game Stats: Sniperfight - Corvette

[The Final Dakar]

I figured you would. Legit?

I forgot to mention I unlocked some avatar award during my tank multi-kill orgy last night.

[Stogieman]

Yeah it was legit. The other players weren't that good. I was stealing kills left and right.

It looks like your killtactular unlocked Jorge's helmet (far left). That's one of the five I don't have.

[Leonard]

Originally Posted by The Final Dakar 

Finally, regarding today's challenges: Multiplier - Earn 5 multikills in a multiplayer Matchmaking game
Where was that last night when I got a Killtrocity with the tank? Bastards.

That should be easier to get. One good game of Rocket Firefight should do it.

Like Dakar, I misread that 7 spree challenge of yesterday. I didn't know it had to be done in one game.

[The Final Dakar]

Originally Posted by Leonard 

That should be easier to get. One good game of Rocket Firefight should do it.

multiplayer not firefight.

[KCrosbie]

Originally Posted by Kevin Bogues 

Still on Exodus, that level is kicking my a**

The level wasn't so bad until after I got the last checkpoint after hitting the first 2 switches at the end. Those f'n wraiths are a bitch. Their accuracy is ridiculous, even if you're way across the field.

Basically just try to avoid everything at the end and just make sure you have camo and rockets at the end base where the last switch is. There are 2 elites that you may have to take out. If you can get to the switch and hit it, then the level will end.

I still got 3 levels left on legendary to do.

[The Final Dakar]

Forgot to mention, we had a rare 50-50 game.

Bungie.net : Reach : Game Details

[sek929]

Originally Posted by The Final Dakar 

You have my reading issues from yesterday. 5 in 1 game, like 7 sprees in one firefight.

Jesus, that's not exactly easy all. I rarely get triples, and even on a good day 5 double kills in one game isn't something I can do on command. The only game I can imagine yielding that many multis is SWAT.

[The Final Dakar]

I Imagine if you get a triple, it counts as two multi kills, a double and a triple. In my best games I may get two doubles and a triple, which would theoretically count a three multi-kills.

Either way, its going to have to BTB, and a tank.

[The Final Dakar]

This is why I read the bungie forums (peters out near the end) :

Sprint: Just a click of button gives your Spartan a burst of speed and makes him wheeze and pant like a one lunged asthmatic. This is primarily used for beating people to the Scorpion and Target Locator, so you don't have to go through the hassle of trying to get them Betrayal booted if your too slow, or for crossing the map a little faster when you don't get a ride from that dick in the Warthog who thinks he is going to accomplish something without a gunner.

Its normally used by people who want to start with the DMR in invasion, people who didn't get back from taking a leak fast enough to pick a class, and males who play female Spartans.

Armour Lockup: You slam your fist into the ground to become totally invincible. You also become totally stationary and covered in a bright, highly visible blue white shield with ensures every sniper, tank and plasma grenade carrying player will take aim, timing a shot to hit you the second the shield pops and treating you to a view of the respawn screen. It also gives off an EMP when it pops, but most people don't know this, because they are too busy dying to take advantage of it.

Armour lock is mostly used for delaying your inevitable death, or making people RAGE in arena. Its also quite good for getting free kills on brain dead ghost drivers who think that that maybe there is a chance you switched to another armour ability since they last exploded off your shiny invincible hide.

Hologram: Aim and click to send a copy of yourself running it a strait line. Its best used for fooling new players who don't know that a name appears above real players when you aim at them, and people who don't think to question why that Spartan is running strait through the middle of Haemorrhage in BTB Snipers. And remember! If you're running out in the open without any cover, and a sniper starts firing at you, immediately spawn a hologram and then run in the opposite direction. It will totally fool him.

Its mostly used by people who want to check out how sweet their character looks in game, and males who play female Spartans.

Active Camouflage: Activating this makes you completely invisible, assuming you crouch walk or stay completely still. Even walking while standing instantly renders you so visible its like its you're not even cloaked. It also renders you stone deaf, because "invisible" is apparently hard to hear through. It also jams enemy radars, which in turn alerts them that there is someone invisible nearby, which really defeats the purpose of being invisible. It jams your own radar too, because the ONI scientists are dicks and like messing with you.

Active Camo is mostly used by people who don't move much, such as Snipers, Campers, and those guys who sit on the other side of door frames and spend the whole game going for nothing but assassinations.

Jet Pack: The Jetpack is a lot like sprint, it lets you move faster, and helps you beat people to things. However, it lets you move faster vertically, and the only thing it helps you beat people to is getting sniped. Remember! When you are in a 1 on 1 fight, jetpack into the air so the rest of the enemy team can see where you are in trouble!

The Jetpack is primarily used by 12 year olds who cant get past the fact of: "OMG, JETPACKZ IN HALOLZ!!1!"

Evade: Its like sprint, but more useless. For some reason, despite being highly advanced aliens who curb stomp Reach, the elites never figured out how to run. So they settled for rolling around. Oddly enough, they still need a piece of equipment to throw themselves at the ground.

Normally used by people who are swearing loudly at the matchmaking system for making them start as a Zombie for the 4th time this game.

Drop Shield: Like the Bubble Shield from Halo 3, but it can be destroyed by enemy fire, which makes it good for stopping the first scorpion shot, before the second one kills you a second later. Also doesn't always protect you when first expanding (Normally when you deploy it when you are right about to die) hilariously leaving your dead body safely protected. It heals people inside it as well, but most people don't know this, and if they do, don't expect a thank you when they use it to heal.

Normally used by people who corner camp in oddball, and people who injure themselves with grenades a lot.

[The Final Dakar]

After last night, there should be a medal for killing an enemy that has boarded a vehicle. You and your friends would have collected at least 3 or 4, fatty.

Oh, quick comment about the ranking:
Warrant Officer Grade 3 to Captain (1 Rank) – 66 000 cR
Captain to Captain Grade 3 (3 Ranks) – 69 000 cR

[Leonard]

Active Camo is mostly used by people who don't move much, such as Snipers, Campers, and those guys who sit on the other side of door frames and spend the whole game going for nothing but assassinations.

I guess I need to use Active Camo more. I think I have only 3 assinations in Competitive MP. I think I may have 2 in Firefight.

I still get a laugh out of the animation for a Spartan assassinating an Elite. Ride'em cowboy!

[Leonard]

In regards to CR and ranking, I noticed moving up a level in a commendation gives you quite a bit of CR.

[boy8cookie]

I've started work in the forge (that's all you get for now).

[The Final Dakar]

I look forward to a surfing level.

[KCrosbie]

Originally Posted by The Final Dakar 

Next Monday, at the latest.

Keep us posted. Definitely want in on that!

[The Final Dakar]

Originally Posted by KCrosbie 

Keep us posted. Definitely want in on that!

Done.

---

From the looks of things, Bogues, McBlobicus and I will be hitting the dreaded Grade 3 tonight. A couple of Firefight challenges to be had (though 400 enemies, which was too much for me to bother with... Monday night? probably isn't likely tonight, either).

Lastly, I crashed into the wall of the Forge budget pretty hard last night. Turns out some of the smaller more decorative items cost 5x more than all those walls and blocks I've been using to build the bases out of. So now I start to get compromising on stuff. Which is a shame, because I was planning on a really fancy looking armory for the Fortress.

[The Final Dakar]

Oh, I forgot to mention, I don't see anyway how my map will have significantly better spawns than the previous version. This is because of the nature of the map (wide ****ing open) and a decision by me to exclude spawns inside or on top of the fortress (though this may change).

[boy8cookie]

I would say I'm about 60% done with my level. I'll post some previews tonight.

[Leonard]

Originally Posted by The Final Dakar 

From the looks of things, Bogues, McBlobicus and I will be hitting the dreaded Grade 3 tonight.

I should hit Grade 3 tomorrow night. I don't think I'll be able to reach it tonight.

I can't check the challenges from work, so I won't know what they are until I get home.

I was planning on starting the campaign next long weekend (In Canada, our Thanksgiving is on Oct. 11 and I plan to add another day or two to that long weekend).

[Stogieman]

Today's Daily Challenges (for you Leonard):

One Spartan Army - 2000 cR
Kill 400 enemies in Firefight Matchmaking

Be Their Huckleberry - 900 cR
Kill 40 enemies in Firefight Matchmaking with the pistol.

Going Outpost-al - 800 cR
Kill 100 enemies on Outpost on Heroic in Firefight Matchmaking.

Bulletproof - 450 cR
Complete 1 Rounds in a Firefight Matchmaking game without dying.


Looks like I will be playing a lot of Firefight tonight.

[The Final Dakar]

I'm down with helping each other out on bulletproof. Also, Outpost never comes up.

[Leonard]

Damn, I probably won't be on long enough to get all of those. They should have had these last night, I was on for 2.5 hours.

Then I stopped off in Dakar-land for a few minutes before I shut down for the night.

[Stogieman]

I'm hoping that Bungie can tweak the map selection for today and have Outpost always show up as one of the first 3 options.

[The Final Dakar]

Originally Posted by Leonard 

Then I stopped off in Dakar-land for a few minutes before I shut down for the night.

What'd you think? I thoroughly enjoyed watching you try to re-enter the Fortress in the Scorpion.

Originally Posted by Stogieman 

I'm hoping that Bungie can tweak the map selection for today and have Outpost always show up as one of the first 3 options.

DOn't bet on it. They already had to do more work than intended today when a impossible challenge came up.

[boy8cookie]

How do you guys feel about dedicating a day to playing everyone's customs. Maybe next Saturday or something.

[Stogieman]

A Custom Map meet up sounds fun!

[KCrosbie]

Ugh... finally finished up legendary solo campaign today. Forgot how long that last level was which was a bitch. Have fun Bogues and Stogie!

[Leonard]

Originally Posted by The Final Dakar 

What'd you think? I thoroughly enjoyed watching you try to re-enter the Fortress in the Scorpion.

It looked good. The starting loadout could use a pistol or DMR (I'd hate to put a DMR on that map, though). I had Fatty shooting at me with the Sniper rifle and nothing except a rocket launcher to use against him.

Yeah, after getting a taxi ride with someone, I got the Scorpion, so I thought I'd take it for a testdrive. I had an inkling that like you mentioned, the barrier was one way, but why not try. At least there is enough space between the middle fortress and the walls to move a Scorpion through.

I thought my mic was working when I was on your map, but it turned out to be that I turned the volume down due to some loudmouth in a previous game.

[Stogieman]

Originally Posted by The Final Dakar 

I'm down with helping each other out on bulletproof. Also, Outpost never comes up.

I played 15 games of firefight tonight, Outpost came up 4 times. Got all four daily challenges.

My best firefight match of the night.
+62 spread

I finished off the evening with this lucky rocket shot.

[The Final Dakar]

Originally Posted by Leonard 

I had an inkling that like you mentioned, the barrier was one way, but why not try. At least there is enough space between the middle fortress and the walls to move a Scorpion through.

Yeah, that surprised me. I hadn't considered both that the Scorpion would be trapped on one side of the field (big deal, how often do you need to change sides), but if you decide to go under the wall you're going to be quite vulnerable to anyone lurking in that area.

Originally Posted by Leonard 

I thought my mic was working when I was on your map, but it turned out to be that I turned the volume down due to some loudmouth in a previous game.

Team Slayer. You could only talk to your team. That's why three of us were on Team Red.

Originally Posted by Stogieman 

I played 15 games of firefight tonight, Outpost came up 4 times.

Yeah it came up for me right off the bat on score attack. I then went on to polish off the 100 challenge when I ran out of time, threw a grenade and got a kill as the screen started to fade to black. (I didn't see it the rest of night with Bogues, though)

---

In other news, my penchant for squirreling away money applies both to real life and the Forge budget. I left enough extraneous pieces lying around (rather than deleting them) that left my budget crisis as overblown. I placed most of the weapons and vehicles on the map last night (Grenades are still missing, as are DMRs and Health Stations at the Home Bases).

I also took the time to place my Initial and regular respawns at each teams bases, along with some scattering some neutrals around the map. However I didn't use many spawn "zones" so I don't know how well all of this will work.

I'm happy to announce I'm pushing my map to beta. There will be changes between the current version and the final, but the map is now playable. If we get at least 4 people on tonight I'd like to do some testing.

Edit: Found this on the bungie forums

A "spawn area" is a short name for "respawn influence zone."

When you create a respawn influence zone and designate it to a team (such as "Attackers" or "Defenders"), players on that team will almost always spawn on particular spawn points that are within the respawn influence zone.

So you're right, players do not spawn inside respawn influence zones by themselves -- there must be spawn points placed within the zone. Set the spawn points to "neutral" and then designate a team for a particular "spawn area" and you'll have the most effective results.