User:JackVibe/Sandbox

• Sam Jones: This is the awesome DLC map called Tempest. Hey, I'm Sam Jones and I'm a lead environment artist.

• Rob Adams: I'm Rob Adams and I'm a lead environment artist.

• Mike Buelterman: Mike Buelterman, I am Bungie. (Laugh) Mike Buelterman. I'm a senior level artist.

• David Aldridge: David Aldridge, network engineer. I worked on performance analysis for Tempest.

• Rob Adams: So, you're a perf-god is what you're saying.

• David Aldridge: I'll take pretty much any kind of godhood, but...

• Sam Jones: Crowned king of Perf.

• David Aldridge: Perf if I have to, I suppose.

• Mike Buelterman: Perf and crannies.

• Rob Adams: Perf and crannies.

• David Aldridge: Crannies are great for Perf.

• Sam Jones: So, originally this map was called "DLC Medium" because it's the medium-sized map within a bucket of other three maps. It's not small, it's not big, it's just the right size, especially for killing red and blue dudes.

• Rob Adams: And we knew that if we called it DLC Medium that people wouldn't get attached to the name and we could change it later.

• Sam Jones: Although "Medium" is an awesome name, I really like it.

• Rob Adams: It is pretty cool.

• Mike Buelterman: I grew pretty attached to "Medium."

• Sam Jones: Dispassionate like me. The map is built to support optimally around eight to 12 players. It's a bit too big for say four players and it's a bit too small for 16. Tempest is a Forerunner weather HQ which, as you can see here, has these wonderful laser beams that are meant to be some part of the weather controlling system. And then out in the sea here have these wonderful huge shrines with little vortices atop them. So, in terms of the actual vegetative theme of the map, we have this kind of wonderful High Sierra rocky subalpine backdrop. We have these huge rocks with this kind of really visible diagonal strata that's meant to both lead the eye and also look pretty awesome.

• Rob Adams: We tried to really separate the terrain into parts that were really, really distinguishable from each other, so that anytime a player spawned or you're running around a corner, you could immediately tell where you are. I think it's more frustrating than spawning and having to whip the camera from left to right three or four times to figure out where you are. We really tried to focus on making one side dry and different, and one side wetter and greener. So yeah, all that stuff just makes the map feel really grounded. We borrowed heavily from real geographic regions from Earth. And the fiction behind the Forerunners is that they ran around and they collected samples from all over the universe and put these ecosystems together.

• Sam Jones: Actually based much of the palette on Yosemite national park in California.

• Rob Adams: Yeah, actually, the whole Sierra Nevada just gave us a lot of photo reference. The Tahoe area, Lake Tenaya in Yosemite, the Merced River. This river that you see down along the cliffs... I had 15 or 20 high-res photo references of the Merced River and I tried to hit the exact color and the little foamy bits that you see in the water and the way that the waterfalls go in and the types of grasses that you see growing along the side. If anyone notices rocks floating in the water, I'm officially apologizing right now.

• Sam Jones: But rocks do float, but they're full of air.

• Rob Adams: They're actually made of pumice.

• David Aldridge: Yeah, grenades float as we all know. So, didn't seem like that big of a leak.

• Sam Jones: So, we wanted to make this map play really well, and the best way to do that was to playtest the crap out of it. So, we playtested almost every single day for about five months. And when you play the map yourself, you will find that it really does play exceptionally well, 'cause we put all that effort into it.

• Mike Buelterman: One of the keys to playtesting—

• David Aldridge: Nice!

• Mike Buelterman: Oh, yes.

• David Aldridge: Stick it. Stick the landing.

• Mike Buelterman: We're going—we're going to die.

• David Aldridge: Why, Mike?

• Rob Adams: I think one of the keys to getting really, really, smooth, tight, focused and balanced maps is to have the actual development artists that are working on the map take part in the frequent playtests, so that they're not just reacting to—

• Sam Jones: Play, play again.

• Rob Adams: ...a bunch of bullet points from playtest sessions and lists of feedback, but they're the ones there that are actually feeling the grief from somebody up on a cliff. So, having an emotional investment in a map as an artist, I think makes you a better designer. Because we had our artists playtesting almost every single day, I think that really had an effect on how balanced and—and tight these maps are.

• Sam Jones: We playtested early on with a Banshee in the default palette, but it proved to be too overpowering. So now the Banshees are only really available in Forge palette setup.

• David Aldridge: It's too awesome actually. Sam Arguez made us cut it.

• Sam Jones: Yeah, it is a lot of fun, but it is quite overpowering.

• Rob Adams: So, I think what you're seeing in this map is reminiscent of Forge, but it has a lot of new stuff as well, especially when you consider all the brand new Forerunner buildings that Mike Buelterman made. I think they're the best looking Forerunner buildings we've ever made, which is stunning.

• David Aldridge: Yes, it has the most expansive palette we've shipped other than Forge World.

• Sam Jones: It has a lot of real estate to actually build upon, whereas the other two maps are a bit more constricted. Also with the laser beam, if you get a Banshee and you fly around and you stray too close to the laser beam, it'll actually EMP you and the Banshee will go in a downward spiral. It's quite a lot of fun.

• Rob Adams: Our producer Sam Arguez didn't want that to happen.

• Sam Jones: So we had to put it in there.

• Rob Adams: We had to put it in and then, you know, he was glad we did and we were glad he let us do it.

• Sam Jones: He's not always a killjoy.

• Rob Adams: Very untypical of him to try to talk us out of doing something fun.

• Mike Buelterman: He is the killer of fun.

• Sam Jones: Ooo. Captain Fun-killer.

• Mike Buelterman: "Sorry, we can't do that. That'd be too much fun. We don't have the time for that much fun in here."

• Rob Adams: Fun is not in the schedule." He's going to kill us for that one.

• Sam Jones: Is he here?

• Rob Adams: He's going to—I'm going to go upstairs. He'll be shaking his head.

• Sam Jones: We can't edit that out. That's got to go in. Thanks for watching us play Tempest. We loved making it as much as you'll love playing it. It's coming out November 30. Download it. It's well worth it. Armor lock for douches.

• Rob Adams: It is. We had to put it in there.