A few days ago I was hanging out on XBOX Live with Nokyard and a couple members of Red Ray, the team he plays for. He asked me if I’d like to play in a game on Tuesday, May 26th with folks like Shishka from Bungie, bs angel (Hawty McBloggy), Bryan Simon, Burnie Burns of Red vs Blue and Louis Wu of HBO. Also joining us in the game would be PP Moocow PP, the commissioner for the U.S. grifball leagues. Moocow is not nearly as internet famous as the other four, but hey, he’s still a cool guy.

The first thought that popped into my head was, “hell yeah!” I certainly don’t have many opportunities to play with members of the gaming community whom are so well known and respected, so obviously I couldn’t refuse such an offer. The purpose of putting such a party together was to celebrate and play on Nokyard’s latest creation, the Grif Cave, which is in my opinion the best grifball map he’s created so far. It was also, in Nokyard’s words, “intended to be our way of thanking members of the community who have tirelessly supported Grifball in one way or another – nothing more, nothing less.” So in case you’re wondering, no, no one pestered Shishka about a ranked grifball playlist.

It should be no surprise to anyone when I say the games were a blast. Everyone really seemed to be enjoying themselves. I played on a team with bs angel, Louis Wu and Nokyard. Though we pretty much were pwned by Shishka, Bryan Simon, Burnie and Moocow, it didn’t matter.

Obviously the number one thing I planned to do during the evening was have fun, which I did, but I also used the opprtunity to collect some game footage to present here on the Hub, in order to formally welcome the Grif Cave to those who have not yet seen it. I thought it would also be a good chance to finally do something long overdue, ask a few questions of Nokyard.

Pup: Many, including myself consider you to be one of the top forgers in the Halo 3 forging community. When did you get started with forging and were there others along the way that helped you to achieve that status or are you mainly self taught?

Nokyard: We will see if the ‘top forger’ part holds true when i start to construct competitive maps. Forging Halo came naturally to me. I have always been interested in building things and coming up with new games for friends to play (mostly drinking games, though), being able to do that within the confines of my favourite game was a dream come true.

At first i avoided all contact with forging groups as i wanted to discover my own construction methods. I even built a map on Sandtrap that had dozens of objects floating in the sky, before i learned the Save’n Quit method of floating objects. The items were placed by stacking radio Towers on top of each other, 5 high. Once i figured out as much as i could on my own i finally joined Forgehub, but not until after i had built my first Grifball Courts for Rooster Teeth.

That’s not to say that i didn’t learn anything from others, my mind is in a continual state of ‘Observe & Absorb’ so a little piece of everything i see, and a little bit of every conversation i have, gets added to my personal knowledge base.

Pup: When you sit down to forge a new Halo 3 map, where does your process begin? Do you do anything as rough as beginning with a paper sketch?

Nokyard: The funny thing is that i don’t think about what i am going to do before i start. I don’t plan, i don’t sketch, i just fire up forge, start to place objects and let my instincts take over from there. If there ever was a paper sketch for Grifball Palace it would contain nothing but the following words scrawled on a napkin “build grifball court on sandbox”. The napkin for Grifball High would read “build grifball court in skybubble, I want to knock people off map – Burnie”.

The actual forging process begins with changing the game type to Assault (or VIP) and floating a Spawn Area in the center of the empty canvas map for measurement purposes, a step that all forgers would be wise to take. Then i save the map with the working title. While i am doing that i think about the direction i want to go, the objectives i want to accomplish, and the limitations which bound me. I wake up 3 weeks later to find a completed map on my hard drive. I must remember to call an exterminator to fix my Elf problem.

Pup: If you had to pick one aspect of forging you feel you could still improve upon, what might that be?

Nokyard: My designs are a bit too technical. I wish i had more of an artistic eye and could add some flair. I also wish i was more involved with Forgehub and Atlas. I believe i could contribute greatly to those groups if i could find more free time.

Pup: Finally, what’s more fun for you? Playing grifball or designing the maps to play grifball on?

Nokyard: Playing Grifball and getting so into the game that i forget i am playing on a map i built. I consider a good map as to be one where you don’t notice the map, but only remember the fun you had playing on it.

My impressions of the Grif Cave
Fantastic. Aesthetically it’s beautiful. It’s the Grifball Palace and then some. Having played literally thousands of games on the Foundry based court which Nokyard designed for league play, I can honestly say that this map feels much more comfortable for me to play on however than the Palace. I really think the Grif Cave will be a welcome addition by the majority of league players as the eventual replacement to our current league map.

The impressions of others
I decided this article wouldn’t be complete without getting a little feedback from a few of the folks I played with on Tuesday. Sadly I’m not quite sure how to go about contacting Burnie or Shishka by e-mail, but I’m very happy to report that I did receive feedback from bs angel, Bryan Simon and Louis Wu.

After an exhaustive and thorough playtesting of the new official Grifball court (and by exhaustive and thorough I mean one whole game), I dissected my game stats, analyzed my overall playing performance, and have come to the conclusion that the map is broken. How the hell else do you explain the fact that I killed more of my teammates than anybody else? ~ bs angel

I was very excited to get an invite to try out the new Grifball map. The Crypt was just a tad too big to play Grifball on and, although Foundry was fine, it would be nice to have a change of scenery. When we first started playing, I’ll admit I was focused on getting the bomb and scoring. We were a team of three facing a team of four and I wanted to win the game really bad. It was a trial run, but bragging rights were on the line. After we scored five goals and it was impossible for the other team to come back, I started paying attention to the map.

It felt like Foundry – the movement, the map’s size…it just fit perfectly. I was glad to see how each base now had red and blue lights all the way across. The noob Grifball players (like Nokyard, the map’s designer) will now have help realizing that they are carrying the bomb to the wrong base. The casual Grifball player will see no added value but to Grifball enthusiasts like myself, it’s just an appreciated visual enhancement for an awesome game. I am very excited to see this new map implemented in double exp and hopefuly one day, ranked/social matchmaking. ~ Bryan Simon

It seemed like a solid grifball court. I don’t play enough to really be able to discern the nuances. bs angel mentioned that the spawns minimized spawnkilling, and thinking back, it IS possible I got hammered less as I spawned than is normal… but after one game, I’m not sure I could say anything definitive.

The new arena is pretty, and the HBO-specific court is actually rather cool. My biggest regret is that I don’t gather enough custom games that we’ll be playing it a lot. ~ Louis Wu

While creating film clips of Tuesday’s event to capture for the video presentation of this article, I also decided to snap a few screenshots as well. You can check them out below. Clicking on each thumbnail will reveal a larger image.

As Louis Wu alluded to with the mention of an “HBO-specific” court, the evening came to a close with Nokyard presenting Louis, bs angel, Bryan Simon and Shishka with their very own custom Grif Cave maps. I didn’t think to ask Nokyard if he had already previously created one for Burnie, but if not, the poor guy must have been feeling awfully left out because the custom designs were really super. The map for HBO was especially impressive as it was an optical illusion. In order to view the design correctly you had to stand directly on the bomb spawn and look up at the wall to see it.

Apologies for the somewhat lousy camera work during the map flythrough in the video. I’m getting up there in age, so my hands aren’t near as steady as they ever used to be. Plus I’m just a nub with the Halo 3 camera system.