With Halo 3, forge was difficult enough that it was fairly easy to distinguish between the bad and the good, because frankly, there weren't a great deal too many of the latter. But now that Bungie made it incredibly easy to forge beautiful maps, there will be an enormous influx of maps, all of which look great. Thus the only way of being able to tell whether or not the map is good, is actually playing. I simply don't have the time to play every single map that looks good. Often times I don't have enough people playing on my friends list, either. But I don't want to miss any of the amazing maps that people produce. Obviously there is the featured maps, but I doubt ForgeHub will be featuring all of the maps worth downloading. So my question is, will and should ForgeHub be reorganizing their map posting criteria, in order to show off the better maps easily? It would be quite handy for there to be seperate forum areas, one for newer, unproved mapmakers, and another for the tried and true. That way people like me would be able to at least browse a section that will contain, more often than not, decent maps. Thoughts?
I could see something like a "Reach Forged Maps" section. Although to remain unbiased between the entire community, I will assume that the map section will stay much the same, and the best maps will float their way to the top. You'll still probably have to look for them, even more so when Reach comes around.
Wat? I don't want to judge Maps on the gameplay, I thought they were supposed to look good ... I won't buy Reach .. Read the comments in a Map Thread, I'm sure you'll have time for that. Otherwise look the the features (+the suggestion thread) and FHF (if it will return in Reach). You can't divide good from bad maps because that's always up to personal reference, also, new members don't have to post bad maps because they are new, if the forum would be seperated, they would get a lot less attention. Or just remember the names of forgers you like and look out for their maps. Edit: There is a fancy misterious 'Rate Thread' Button in every thread too, people should use it
So what you are saying is before you were assuming because maps looked either clean cut or slightly sloppy that they werent good? Doesn't that mean you were already doing things wrong? Even in Halo 3 you can't just tell if a map is good or not by looking at it. Some of my favorite maps don't have interlocking or look as sharp as others. You'll have to do things the same way in Reach as you should have in Halo 3. Download it and play it, simple I know.
But thats a single 5 star rating. I like the Map Database which was started but never used here on Forge Hub. Would it possible to have something similar but with more options for rating a map which could then be used to give the map an overall rating. For example, if we used Forgery, Gameplay and Aesthetics as 3 ratings for a competitive map which is very well forged, the gameplay is very good but the entire thing is made from grey blocks and it looks really boring. I could rate it 5/4/1. Then we use a formula to work out the overall rating. This is a competitive map so Aesthetics will be the least important and Gameplay the most important, so Aesthetics gets the lowest weighting, Gameplay the highest. So the Overall rating for each competitive map would be something like: (10xGameplay + 4xForging + 1xAesthetics)/15 = Overall Rating out of 5. My made up map, which I rated 5/4/1 would have an Overall Rating of 4.46 Change the weightings of each rating and you can use the formula for other map types. So this sort of solves the problem of people rating maps purely on screenshots. You'll be unable to review/rate just the aesthetics of the map, you'll need to submit a rating for all criteria, encouraging people to actually download and try the maps. Of course the forum could still be used for viewing recent maps.
thats a good idea but it still wont work because just like it happened with the map DB everyone will just focus on the forum instead
Pics of map nao. Like icons or previews to get a glimspe, a taste into what you're about to click on. It would show you a little image of the map(which would be taken and made by the author of said map) and people would click if intrigued. It would really help everyone distinguish the runts from the alphas.
Maybe there could be more specific sections than just competitive or casual, so you can find the kind of style of map you like and there wont be a million maps so yours wont go unnoticed
Or, we could do this crazy idea: Forge maps because we want to, not for recognition; and just leave the forums how they are now.
Competetive, Casual, MLG, Mini-Game, and Aesthetic. That's all it takes dude... This is going to be just like when Sandbox was released. A bunch of noobs posted a crap load of maps, and about a month later the flow of maps being released slowed down. Not every map will look beautiful. You seem to have forgotten that we already could phase objects... And even though we can already phase objects in Halo 3, maps still look bad, and play badly. Forge 2.0 doesn't account for people who suck at being creative and who suck at forge altogether. It's allowing those who didn't know all the techniques, but were still relatively creative to build something that was actually what they were thinking of the whole time. By the way, you practicaly just sounded like very person I hate on Forge Hub when you said we just now won't be able to determine if a map sucks just by looking at the pictures. Pictures are meant to show you what the map looks like, not how well it plays. Your plan is also to divide those who are good from those who are bad at forge. What if someone who was bad at forge posted a map in the section meant for those who are good at forge? If you were looking for a great map and had to choose between two sections that said "Good" and "Bad" on them, which one would you choose? That's right, now the "Bad" section doesn't get any attention, the forgers in this section realize that, then nobody posts maps in the "Bad" section and only in the "Good" section. The way we organize maps is fine the way it is right now. All we need is a map database people will actually use, and a Halo: Reach Maps section. Edit: Inb4lock, in the end this is for the administrators of Forge Hub to decide, and this thread isn't even about Halo: Reach's Forge, so why is it in the section where we discuss Halo: Reach's Forge you nub?
Also inb4lock, the current system actually works really well if you simply stop every once in a while to browse through maybe two pages of maps, select ten you like, queue them up and take a look for yourself. People say they don't have time to play every map: you don't have to, you should get a good idea of what's worth playing through a forgethrough. If it was up to me I would REQUIRE people at LEAST saw a map in forge before commenting. Judging a map via pictures, in my opinion, is **** and doesn't contribute anything.
I am not completely sure, but I think we are using a different viewing system than normal forums like we have now. I am almost positive that the staff mentioned the Map DB returning. Could any of the staff confirm this? IMO, the DB could be the sole option for map sharing. Mostlikely, the same categories will still be in place. There will definitely not be sections for certain forgers. That is incredibly elitist and flawwed.
I would have no problem posting my maps in the "Bad" section. My maps by my standards are horrible, but to my friends they are the greatest things ever. I see what you mean though. A rookie gets an account to forge hub and posts five maps where the spawns are not placed right, the objectives appearing off the map, easily getting out of the map etc. (BTW this was what happened on my first post.) But what might be easier would be to have a subforum in each subforum, in which only experience FH members could post maps. Just a suggestion
Obviously I didn't make myself clear. I did not mean that a map was good because it looked nice. I meant that, more often than not, a forger who didn't spend at least a decent amount of time making the map look nice, probably didn't spend a whole lot of time making the gameplay good either. I simply meant that a map looking good was a decent marker for whether or not it was a good map. There were plenty of good looking maps that were terrible, but I'm sure there were plenty more bad looking maps that were terrible. No need to jump down my throat. Yes, I'm sure the decorated forgers would get even more attention if map posting were to be done like that. But I'm sure there will be plenty of people looking through the other section too, and more good forgers will be graduated to the better posting section. I never said it would be two sections, one for bad maps and the other for good. Simply established members who are known for creating good maps, and everyone else. I get that my idea isn't a perfect solution. I never pretended it was. It was just an example, because I really think there will need to be more organization, unless we want to be missing out on some really cool maps. And also, I don't think its going to be anything like when Sandbox was released. EVERYONE who gets Reach will be trying to make legitimate maps in forge, and many will inevitably find their way to ForgeHub. Sure, you could 'phase' things in Halo 3, but only the most dedicated of people would sit for hours to do that. The incredible ease at which it can be done in Reach will be a huge difference. EDIT: The Map Database is exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about, I forgot it even existed.
The Map DB will indeed be returning and you will most likely see a thread in customer service on that soon. As for this thread I really don't see a need to continue this discussion. *Locked*