Well, good maps are still being made. Great maps are still being made. There are just less of them in Halo 4. Promoting and hyping the great maps, or rewarding them in some way could do a whole lot already.
Spoiler Halo 4 felt like a very rushed game to me. Online multiplayer was unbalanced, and while they are trying to make it better now they still don't seem to have a capable thought process for how to balance a map (for example, BTB pro doesn't have maps tailored for the lack of plasma pistol/grenades and as such vehicles become too powerful) and as such the online portion of the game continues to suffer. Forge is ok, but forge island's pallet needed an overhaul, not just a re-skinned pallet. The blocks still have holes in them which makes forging mildly more difficult and the pallet does not look good on its own. Believe me, I hate reach as a game, but its online multiplayer (specifically FFA) is far superior to Halo 4's. Halo 4 has potential to kick reach into the dirt but 343i won't let it for whatever reason. Reach also had superior forge pieces and pallet. I hated the grey as much as the next guy, but the pieces fit together very nicely and there were few unintentional gaps in the blocks, allowing for use of pieces like 2x2 talls, 1x4 talls and 4x4 talls without too much worry. It also gave the added benefit of having the ability to build forrunner structures that looked nice, and the only map in Halo 4 capable of doing so is Forge Island, which still has a far inferior pallet. I don't hate Halo 4, it's got potential to be amazing. However, I don't like it either. I don't agree with 343i's "We're making the game more accessible for everyone" idea, nor how they handled the situation afterwards. I also have a distaste for the lack of communication with their community, general only posting off topic responses on threads over at Waypoint, or the occasional "Helping" post. Bravo is doing good work, but even then he's not on often enough to be much of a help, and I doubt he has much say in 343i's doings. tl;dr: No you're not the only one, but I don't like it and frankly it could be 10x better at least.
They'll make you think that this is hard, but it absolutely isn't. Data? Easy. TZ can download all data. It's in the Admin CP, its RIGHT THERE. I know exactly how he would do it, and I know how easy it would be to port it all over to a new forum. Winning SEO isn't that hard -- yes, it takes time, but it's worth it. It's a choice between existing with good SEO and no development, or starting with fresh SEO and having your foot in the door before Halo 5 hits. Do you want to be here when Halo 5 comes out? Or would you rather a full-feature website, that's actually worth going to? By my estimate, it would take about 2-3 months until we saw a new ForgeHub (if done right) at the top of "halo forge" Google hits. It's not that hard, just google "halo customs", "halo customs app", etc... I haven't dropped a penny into SEO, and it just came. So, what does that tell you about how "great" the SEO is here? Also, trouble choosing a new name? Really? That's a concern? My mind is just... what. When I was around, both Shock and Kajin were relatively active (or earlier, Nitrous). So, it was never a concern, and at the time we were flourishing. We did have a downtime of a few days right when Reach came out, and we had decided to move and create a new site, but that got shot down (surprise, surprise...). If I had the experience I had now, I would have moved anyway; but being who I was then, I did not (and I regret doing it, because it just went downhill from there). The latter; pure complancency. Sorry to say, but their "efforts" were like going "Nothing is working! Guess we'll just write a thread and wait..." Like I mentioned regarding Halo 4, it's not the greatest one we've seen (though I prefer it over Reach, personally) -- but there's still a decent amount of people playing that game, and to say "the game is bad, so we can't get anybody" is ****ing ridiculous, lazy, and shows why this site has been falling apart for years. Are there any plans for Halo 5? How about the inevitable spur of members when the Halo TV series comes out? What about the weapon tweaks? You do realize that 60K+ players at a given time is still higher than 95% of games, right? Like... ugh the thin veil of faked effort here is awful. It's like we're forcing you to stay and talk, like a 9 to 5 job or something.
I highly highly doubt there is any plans at all, at least none that will come into effect. I always think this, no one realises. Halo 4 is still popular, it just isn't insanely popular like it was.
That's what I figure; to give you guys an idea of how things are supposed to be done, we started working on Halo 5 stuff as soon as the major site function were in place (so, January) on HaloCustoms. We've been actively planning and taking action on those plans for almost 5 months, and we are continuing to move forward on those plans. If the site is not VERY prepared for the changes Halo 5 brings as soon as it comes out, I'll see our development as a failure. Sticking to "just yet another forum" is to be sticking to mediocrity, and that's what's happening here.
Although it was rushed, I really like it too. Not necessarily better than Reach, but it's different. As you all know I'm a Flood guy and although I like Infection better altogether, I can still appreciate some of the Halo 4 specific features. I miss the great 16 player custom lobbies from Reach, though. It sucks that many maps - including my own - can't support large lobbies in Halo 4.
This is what I am excited about with Halo 5 on the Xbox One. Much better connections and even bigger lobbies. Its going to be incredible.
Don't be such a negative nancy, a sulking sally. These kind of blunt statements contribute greatly to ruining good sites like this. Negativity has a lot of power and people don't seem to get that.
And he responds with another blunt statement. Great. Forgehub used to have fun, upbeat members, guess that's dwindling.