Cool Certain Affinity's Ricochet Forge Contest Shortlist

A little over a month ago, Certain Affinity set the community a challenge to create some awesome Ricochet forge maps. The community cartographers have finally narrowed down the many submissions to just six, of which three will win their creators some awesome prizes.

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NOKYARD spoke to Bravo about the selection process he set out on;

Hey, NOKYARD here.
One of my favorite tasks as a Community Cartographer is to sift through contest submissions and assign them a preliminary pass/fail grade based on their adherence to the contest rules. You may think sorting maps would be mind numbingly boring but I take great delight in cracking open a freshly baked Forge creation to see how the builder interpreted the recipe.
In past contests, more builders got the recipe wrong than got it right so narrowing the field was a fairly straightforward process. That wasn't the case with this contest. Out of all of the maps that were submitted, only 30 were disqualified for being mini-games, disqualified for technical infractions like not supplying Ricochet Goals or not featuring basic necessities like Respawn Points, or were sent packing for other rules-related transgressions. This left many, many fully functioning Ricochet maps to test. Night after night, we played your creations, discovering some creative and impressive maps along the way.
The most difficult phase of any contest is narrowing the field down to the final handful, so we applied the original contest specifications to each entrant. Maps which best adhered to the guidelines were moved forward until only six remained.

The six maps that were decided on are as follows!

Parallax by thefro3po​

Butter by Purely Fat​

Hekau by MrGreenWithAGun​

Breezeway by GrenadeGorilla8​

Firestone by Boxing Beats​

Inheritor by Squally DaBeanz​

Well done everyone! There are a few familiar names there who I know thoroughly deserve their spot in the pack, I know that MrGreen's map, Hekau is currently in its 30th rendition! All of the final maps will be playable in the Community Forge playlist that will kick off on October 28th and of course you can download them to play in your custom game sessions.

However! No prizes will be handed out yet, not until Certain Affinity and 343's matchmaking systems team decide which are the best of the six. Who do you think will take home the incredible 1st place prize? We'll fill you in on the winners in due course!

 

Inheritor by Squally DaBeanz​

This was the only map I played before submission too the contest.

 

Can't wait to play them. Slightly off topic but Neutral Flag will be awesome!

 

They all look very impressive. I wish I could play them

 

I know squalls and mr greens. Never played them though so can't wait for the 28th!

 

I'm voting for Butter and Firestone. My favorites.

 

I'm SO JACKED for MONDAY!!!

 

Wow, some of these people should become professional level designers.

 

Butter, Inheritor and Hekau will be crowned I guess. The others are sweet, but breakable (Ridiculously breakable).

 

Bloody, Noky was explaining that the maps all went through some changes, and I can only guess that he meant to make them robust. Perhaps their fragile nature has been addressed. I think you might want to play each map and let us know if you still feel some of them are breakable. I for one intend to get on each map with my daughter this week to see how each handles split screen. Hekau is the only map not on Forge Island, and I went through GREAT pains to get it 2LP capable. I am really curious how it compares with the others myself.

 

Butter, Inheritor and Hekau will be crowned I guess. The others are sweet, but breakable (Ridiculously breakable).

You just can't help yourself buddy xD

 

Bloody, Noky was explaining that the maps all went through some changes, and I can only guess that he meant to make them robust. Perhaps their fragile nature has been addressed. I think you might want to play each map and let us know if you still feel some of them are breakable. I for one intend to get on each map with my daughter this week to see how each handles split screen. Hekau is the only map not on Forge Island, and I went through GREAT pains to get it 2LP capable. I am really curious how it compares with the others myself.

Well, I played the final versions of each of them and Parallax, Breathway and Firestone ARE breakable... Btw there are some issues: On Firestone there is a kill zone, which kills you if you jetpack at a, in my opinion, normal height; same on Breathway (But I can´t remember exactly).
On every of these three maps you can camp with the oddball, so even with a bazooka the other team couldn´t get you out...

Btw it´s Monday, who won? Today´s the release, right?

 

The six maps are finalists only. The forge playlist (as I was told) will not necessarily contribute to winner selection but will help decide which maps move to the regular ricochet playlist. Winners will be announced in a few weeks.

Also I am aware of the low ceiling on Firestone. Noky said that the ceilings were raised on all maps to avoid resetting the ball.

If you can still find problems with the maps in the playlist then take screen shots and report the problems on the war games feedback thread.

 

Well, I played the final versions of each of them and Parallax, Breathway and Firestone ARE breakable... Btw there are some issues: On Firestone there is a kill zone, which kills you if you jetpack at a, in my opinion, normal height; same on Breathway (But I can´t remember exactly).
On every of these three maps you can camp with the oddball, so even with a bazooka the other team couldn´t get you out...

Btw it´s Monday, who won? Today´s the release, right?

Here its tuesday

 

Here its tuesday

Whatever.

 

Congratulations, everyone! I actually know a lot of these names, so this is a really nice shot of nostalgia. Especially since I played on Gorilla's map months ago.

 

Here is a link to Hekau... you might to fix the link up above ...

http://www.halowaypoint.com/en-us/games/halo4/fileshare/details/2fa7a4ba-488b-46b9-bafc-6b0eb0410daf