Forger Fridays: Ducain23

Forger Fridays are here once again. During these features, we feature some awesome Forgers in the Halo Community. This weeks feature will be a very well known forger, Ducain23.

Following the regular Q&A style format of Forger Friday, I asked Ducain23 a few questions regarding his forge creations and plans, so please enjoy his answers below.

Question: When did you first get into forging?

I got into forging back whenever it first released in Halo 3. I didn’t forge much because, well, Halo 3s forge is…..it was great back then for the time, but I hated doing the ghost merging to try and make objects float or merge together.

I made one tornado map which used ghost merging and I was like “I’m done” after that. I think I made one other map that didn’t use ghost merging that was just flat on the ground. After the ghost merging that tornado map I was like “I’m not doing this anymore.” It was just ridiculous.

I started getting more into Forging was with Reach, whenever that released, cause they added phasing and of course forge world and all the new objects and everything like that. That’s when I really started getting into it and I started forging a lot.

I came out with a new map every few weeks. At the beginning it was probably more like a map a week.

Question: What has been your favourite Halo game to forge on so far?

It has to be Halo 5, just cause of the sheer amount of stuff you can do in the game. For simplicity sake Reach is really simple. I know a lot of people really love Reach’s forge just because it’s a lot more simple.

Halo 5 forge, the controls are different but once you learn the controls that’s not an issue. It’s much more intuitive. I can forge through a map much quicker than I can on Reach with Halo 5s controls just because it feels better once you get used to it.

They do have tons of objects in the game (Halo 5). I can’t even remember the amount of objects that they have in the game but I know they have a ridiculous amount. Sometimes it can get a little bit overwhelming in Halo 5 cause you’re like “Where is this object?” When you’re looking for this specific object and you’re like “I’m looking for this specific object and I don’t know where to look for it.” because there’s so many different objects.

It does get a little bit overwhelming sometimes with Halo 5, but once you get used to it, the amount of things you can make in the game is just mind-blowing. That’s why I’m really excited about Infinite, because if all they do with Infinite is make a more stable version of Halo 5s forge, then I’ll still be happy.

Question: What game modes are your favourite to forge maps for?

Naturally I’m known as the race person. Race is something that I love making. I still make mini games and BTB maps periodically, so I still like making that stuff. One reason why I still like making race maps, and it’s a pretty big reason, is that people don’t need a fully lobby or anything like that to be able to play race maps.

If you do a BTB you need a full lobby to play it, at least properly. It’s the same things with mini games, you gotta have people to be able to play a mini game. The good thing about race is that you can have two people and the both of you can just go and race.

That’s one thing I actually talked about on my stream, I was just saying that this is one of the reasons I love making race gametypes, because at the beginning of the stream, we were only able to get like two other people in the game lobby.

Also, a great thing about race is that you don’t have to worry about frame rate. With competitive maps and BTB things, you gotta worry about frame rates if you have too many objects on the map and you gotta worry about spawns and weapons placements and everything like that. With race you can flood a map with aesthetics and make it look really beautiful.

Question: Are there any recent or current maps you’ve worked on that you’d like to talk about?

I think I have like 8 maps that are finished, they’re just waiting for me to make a video about it so I can release them.

I don’t know if you know, Alpine Rally in Halo 5 was made by 343. It’s a race map that was put into action sack and it’s not a good map. You can tell that whoever made it at 343. they’re a good forger but not a race forger. It had a lot of issues, so I kinda remade that map just to make a better version of it.

I have one called ‘The Darkness’ which is a completely pitch black map where you can’t see the track. All you can see are little lights at the side of the track, so you have to stay within the lights.

I have one that’s a community race track, where like 9 people worked on a race track. We all jumped in at different times and started messing with the track and built their own little section. It was pretty cool to have everyone’s style of race track kinda meshed into one with that.

I have an underwater race track that I haven’t finished. I remade my original Halo 5 race track, the first one I made, the ‘Cliff side mine’ one that I haven’t released yet.

I’m actually making the Halo Infinite demo before you go up on the elevator. Like the entire ground area, I’m making that and I’m probably gonna make it into a race map cause why not. I got a lot of stuff.

I’ve got one that isn’t a race map. It’s called ‘Atlantis’ and it’s an underwater BTB map. It’s personally one of my favourite BTB maps that I’ve ever made because it’s very vehicle focused.

A lot of people whenever they first played on it were like “This is like a BTB race map.” There’s jumps and things that warthogs can jump off of. Everything’s gotta land perfectly. There’s some nice technical areas that you can drift through, but there are some pillars, so you gotta be careful so you don’t clip the pillars.

It’s definitely a lot more of a vehicle driving BTB. I still gotta adjust it where the Warthogs spawn and add a few more weapons in there to combat the vehicles. I think the aesthetics of the map is pretty cool. It’s underwater naturally since it’s Atlantis.

Question: For those who want to check out maps you’ve made, where can they do so?

Naturally my entire map thing is on my file share. My gamertag is Ducain23 so any maps I do release will be on there, so be sure to follow me on Xbox I guess.

The videos and stuff will be on my YouTube channel which is again, Ducain23. Also I play a lot of my maps anytime I forge over on Twitch. My Twitter is Ducain23 also. Everything is Ducain23. Another place you can find updates is my Discord.

That concludes the Q&A with Ducain23. The full exchanges between myself and Ducain23 would fill a book, so it’s been shortened for the sake of the Q&A. A big thank you to him for taking the time to talk with me regarding his experiences and plans.

The next Forger Friday won’t be too far away, so be sure to stay tuned here at Podtacular for more community related content. If you’re a forger and think your work deserves a feature, or if you’d like to recommend a Halo forger to the team, feel free to send a message my way on Twitter.