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Q: Why can’t I throw
the flag through the gates old school style now?
LB: Ahem. Well, that
area doesn’t exist in the new version. We had it in
there for a long time, but since that old flag trick didn’t
work anymore that area became used less and less. Eventually
that whole section of the level became completely unused,
and not only that but a death trap for someone on foot. On
top of that, we kept coming back to this idea that if someone
was in there, by themselves, on foot… they weren’t
taking part in what makes this level unique, all the vehicles.
So, with much hand-wringing we axed that section. The map
plays better for it too, because the action is so much more
focused now.
NS: We wanted to more
focus the map around the vehicles and as a result we limited
a lot of the deep interior portions of the map. In addition,
the dead end flag exchange section from the original sidewinder
didn’t lend itself to a clear environment design. We
found that players who were unfamiliar with the layout would
often get lost trying to navigate some of the interior connections.
The redesigned infantry section in the middle is a lot more
fun (it’s downright insane at times) and a lot more
of the gameplay condenses there.
MB: Since I didn’t
work on the original Sidewinder map I can’t say for
certain but my guess is that the gates and back hallways were
put in to help with flag caps. The first half of Avalanche’s
rough out stage had a very similar feature but we started
to realize that those areas pulled a lot of the action away
from the heart of the map. We needed to hone the core gameplay
of the map down to its essentials and sidewinder is way more
about the vehicle combat than corridor shooting. I’m
sure most of the players will soon forget about the “old
school” and embrace the orgy of vehicle combat that
will ensue.
JS: Again this was
one of those things that had to go simply because it focused
all of the game play in back hallways and defeated the purpose
of the map – which was essentially to mount up and fight
around the main body of the map. Having all the firefights,
and focus of a huge map in a small hallway is definitely not
interesting. Directing folks out in the “horseshoe”
area of the map is much more fun .
Q: What’s different
about Avalanche in terms of sandbox elements?
MB: The number one difference would have
to be the amount of new infantry routes and large number of
vehicles in the mix all at once. We also have a really cool
Covenant vs. Human vehicle setup on objective games that I
think folks will enjoy.
LB: Well, we figured
that you can’t really have a huge new wintery map and
not make the vehicles snow covered! So, yeah, that was the
original idea, and it grew into making the UNSC vehicles all
wintery. Also the Hornet (in Avalanche only) has been tweaked
from the shipping version to make it better suited as an MP
vehicle, instead of a floating death platform. So, the Hornet
will finally see some action in Matchmaking. There are some
unique Forge objects as well that are unique to Avalanche.
NS: The map has a
lot more vehicle action now. We’ve included flying vehicle
and fast transport vehicles (Ghosts and Mongooses) to the
roster. The equipment plays a major role in objective games.
In fact, for CTF I would even say that equipment works better
in Avalanche than any other MP map.
The Spartan Laser also has a big impact
on gameplay. I remember a game where the assaulting team had
taken the flag, jumped into a mancannon and landed on a teammate’s
hornet in hopes of being flown back to their homebase. Just
as the flag carrier lands on the hornet, a Laser shot lances
the Hornet in a beautiful explosion of red and orange. The
flag carrier somehow lived through the explosion and against
all odds scored a flag cap a few minutes later… true
story.
Q: Why Avalanche instead of
[someone from the Internet’s favorite map, here]?
JS: Honestly there
are so many maps I would personally love to see placed within
Halo3’s DLC. And for me and others Sidewinder was one
of them. I think it’s just one of many we really wanted
to do. Not to mention I believe there were allot of folks
banging on the door requesting it.
LB: Since the Halo:
CE days, Sidewinder has been a fan favorite. Sure it might
not be on EVERYONE’S list, but it seemed to be on the
short list for a lot of incredibly vocal fans. And hell, it’s
HUGE! And we needed more BTB maps.
MB: It just made sense.
Looking back at the release maps and DLC1 maps, everyone could
see that we needed another Big Team Battle map along the lines
of Sandtrap, and with the Community's love of Sidewinder,
it was a great fit.
NS: Two reasons: Sidewinder
is one the most requested remakes and we also needed another
big vehicle map. And maybe this isn’t the only classic
we’re remaking. There’s always hope for said Internet
Halo fan.
Q: How will
objective gametypes play out?
NS:
We wanted to try something new with Avalanche. One idea
was to include the Scorpion tanks seeing as they are so
iconic in the original sidewinder, but in the past felt
as though it was too powerful to include it in our big maps.
We also wanted to solve the issue of flag capping, or more
precisely, the lack of flag capping in sidewinder, especially
on asymmetric gametypes like “One Flag CTF”.
As we were testing the early versions of the map, we found
that it was incredibly difficult for the assaulting team
to score flag caps in any reasonable amount of time. One
way we solved this problem was to give only the assaulting
team a Scorpion. So basically, in the case of an asymmetrical
gametype, the overpowered scorpion becomes an asset in solving,
for example, the lack of flag caps; and it’s just
plain cool to have the Scorpion in the Sidewinder remake.
We then took the Scorpion
addition one step further and decided to give the assaulting
team all UNSC (human) vehicles and the defending team all
Covenant vehicles. It ended up being very fun for asymmetric
gametypes (one flag, one bomb, territories) and it’s
something that I’ve wanted to see for a long time.
Humans vs. the Covenant in a giant vehicle -blam!--o-rama.
Q: What are
your favorite gametypes on Avalanche?
JS:
My personal favorite is neutral bomb with Multi Flag coming
right behind. But honestly having so many vehicles and man
cannons on this size of map is great for any game type.
MB:
Personally I think CTF (one flag and multi flag) is where
the most fun can be had but territories and king of the
hill really focus the vehicle mayhem into one big wet spot.
NS: One
Flag CTF.
LB:
Team Slayer, and Team King are good, but the favorite Friday
afternoon playtest has become Multi Flag on Avalanche. It’s
definitely brought back memories of Halo CE LAN parties.
The games are completely epic, and by adding vehicles into
that mix, crazy things are guaranteed to happen. Can you
say Capture the Flag with a Hornet?
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