[TrueDarkFusion]

A Forging Retrospective, Part I of III
Written by TrueDarkFusion

What are the "Musings?"

Part I: The Birth of Forge

A long time ago in the year 2007, Bungie Studios announced a feature called Forge for their up coming game, Halo 3. Originally Forge wasn't planned to be a map editor, instead, more of a map modifier where players could change around the weapons and vehicles on the map for competitive play. Bungie also thought that a RTS style of custom gaming would come out of Forge where two teams would be set up with a monitor on each side to provide weaponry, vehicles, and cover for his team. Upon release the community took Bungie's suggestions at first and used Forge for little more than an extended way to have fun, but soon some players would take this perspective many shared regarding Forge as a toy box and turn it upside down.

The first signs many of us saw that Forging would be so much more than reorienting weapons and vehicles was in the first week after launch. Infection maps were being pumped out at a chaotic rate. The first custom infection maps were crude by today's standards but were nonetheless fun at the time. The maps would often include some simple barriers for the infected to use as cover, a limited armory for the humans and perhaps a sole turret that the humans had to maintain control of to survive. Unfortunately, balancing issues with the turret were prevalent in many of the user maps. Most of the time one of two things happened - either the zombies would get constantly mowed down and the game would be incredibly boring, or someone would rip the turret off the tripod and the humans would get owned. Despite this development, Forge still had a long way to go to reach the complexity that it has arrived at today.

One could hardly talk about early Forging without bringing up Last Resort. I don't think Forging could have reached the point it is at now if it wasn't for the materials that were provided to users in the Last Resort sandbox. Last Resort provides players with large containers that have open and closed variants that can be placed on the map. These containers allowed players to create large structures and even block off portions of the map. While these early creations were also crude by today's standards they were sure nifty for forts at the time. Some of the most inspired creations of the time appeared on Last Resort and some claim that it is the site where some of the older Forge techniques were discovered.

Forge finally took off upon the discovery of several hugely influential Forging techniques. The two most important techniques were causing certain objects such as teleporters and weapon holders to float which could then be used to prop up other objects in the air such as containers - the other, using teleporters and weapon holders to immobilize objects to block off portions of a map. With techniques such as these users were able to make new and unique creations in Forge and this was the point when all those cursed sky castle maps started popping out of our ears.

After months of dedicated Forging, Bungie was taking notice that players were not using their editor for what they had originally created it for. Instead of slightly altering maps for competitive purposes players were attempting to create completely new maps using the objects that were provided by Forge. Not all the maps created were competitive. Many of the maps created were created on a smaller scale with the sole purposes of entertaining players with Mario Party-like minigames. Bungie came to the realization that they had provided a creative outlet for players. The Forging community didn't want to change the weapons on the map or place different vehicles than the default, they wanted to make their own maps. Many game developers are driven by their communities and Bungie is no different. They saw what their community was doing so they took the time to make an entire map for that community. The map they created was later dubbed Foundry and released as part of the Heroic Map Pack.

Be sure to watch out next week for “A Forging Retrospective, Part II: Foundry.

[bnasty574]

Very true post, one of the last Furious Reviews I can remember we just played old maps, and we all discussed how much forging has changed. Where we used to alter the play of maps, we now create new layouts for the entire map. Good job bungie (the first and last time you will hear me say that) and nice post TDF! Can't wait to see what comes next . . .

oh, btw. First post FTW!

[Nemihara]

Awesome Possum Post.

Yeah, I remember Bungie's interviews on magazines like EGM and stuff. They never really referred to Forge as a Map Maker, more of a Map Editor. Course, they didn't make Foundry either.

[Bl00D F1R3]

This looks pretty cool, ill be sure to check out all of the upcomming posts of this

[Pigglez]

Wow this is great. I love this. It's like a history of forge. This should be published as a book lol. Seriously though, looking forward to next week!

[Shanon]

Nice history. It relly does brink me back to the October and November days of Halo 3. Although upon arrival of Foundrys' landscape built maps like Gadient and such. Im expecting a landscape editor in the future. I know its a lot to ask, but its a possibilty. And I love the seeing the history of it. Cant wait for the next.

[LOCK.xcf]

I love the links to the pictures, great post, reminds me of the old days of forging

[Shatakai]

its sad i missed out on the old glory days, not having halo til christmas and not using forge til the end of january. o well, loved the story, cant wait for next week

[MealonX]

This is like looking through a window into the past of the last year. Very interesting...

[DARKLORD123456]

WOW TDF your a good writer. its like reading something u find in a college library lol. but seriously good post im looking forward to the next one.