Multi, Id Just wait for Halo 6. Especially if you've got some G's to drop on it. Get max hype on a new game with a fresh playerbase. I feel like criteria-based exercises would be cool though.
That's what I've been thinking. Forge is so small right now I feel like the turnout at the dawn of a new game will be worth waiting for.
“Were it so easy…” Contests are not educational. Or at least, if that is your idea of an education then I must say it is a barbaric and inefficient one. That would be as if someone were to come to you wanting to learn how to read, and you tell them, “There’s plenty of good quality books in the library. Go check them out.” What kind of a way is that to teach somebody something? Having a contest is the first idea every gaming community comes up with. Once that idea is out there it becomes almost impossible to get the leadership to consider anything else. Why do you think that is? Everybody wants to be a judge but no one wants to be a teacher. Judging people sounds like fun, teaching people sounds hard. Maybe that’s true, but it is also true that there can be no nobility without knowledge. There is so honor in judging the ignorant. Most important of all, it is the free exchange of information that is a gamer’s most precious and inviolable resource. Compared to that, a few quality maps is trivial. I urge anyone reading this thread to look inside themselves and ask this question before they decide to host a contest, or consider becoming a judge of a contest. Which is better for the Halo community, to have endless contests where a handful of Forgers, anointed as judges, become the fulcrum upon which all quality maps rest; or to educate a free-thinking community of Forgers, each one capable of creating a quality map on their own initiative?
Okay, bro. For the record I've been brainstorming ways for me to pour into the community for a while now but at the end of the day there's no way you "teach" level design and until you get this through your ignorant ass skull then you won't understand. It's literally one of those things you just need to spend time on and see things for yourself and learn what works and what doesn't. And what's the best way to drive quality level design for everyone to see and observe and grow? Mother ****ing prize pools baby.
I've spent an enormous amount of time teaching/educating. Based upon my experience, 98% of forgers aren't interested in learning. They're looking for validation. They're looking for recognition. They're not looking for someone to question them about why they've built a part of their map the way they did. They're not interested in considering alternative ways of doing things. What necessary isn't more information. What's necessary is a desire to know. There's plenty of information available already, in written form, in the brains of experienced forgers, and through personal experience and awareness. Nearly all of the experienced forgers I've known have been more than willing to share their knowledge, WHEN a person is genuinely interested in listening to it and considering it. There's always value in continuing to release informational and/or instructional content. It's always a two way street though, and from my perspective the area of shortage lies more on the side of interested students than it does on the side of lack of information. And this has virtually nothing to do with holding or judging contests, except in the regard that forgers are more interested in contests (hoping for that validation and recognition I mentioned earlier) than they are in learning, and THIS is why you see contests more frequently than you see educational material. Hold an educational forge series where you pay people who participate in every part of the series (you can set the maximum amount of people so that you can have some control over the expense). Then hold a contest with a prize pool equal to the maximum amount of money you would have paid out through the classes. One will offer a guaranteed pay day. The other won't. I'd be willing to bet that you'll get far more interest in the one that offers no guarantee.
I think perhaps you have misunderstood my postulate. I am not talking about replacing the structure of a contest with the structure of an educational forging series. And I am well aware that Forgers are much more interested in validation than education. But why does that validation have to come in the form of winning a contest? It should just be enough to know how to forge the maps you want to make. Knowledge should be the only validation one requires. Every time someone holds a contest they raise the bar for that validation. Also I would like to point out that I don't have a problem with competing for a prize pool. It is completely obvious that the technique is sound. It is even a method that is described in Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War”. Which is a book that only the truly ignorant can argue with. Instead of the traditional methods of rewarding prizes, I recommend an adaptation of the classic arcade method. Don't let people compete for money, let them compete for tickets. (Not physical ones, just points. Call them Forgehub Points or something.) Use the money that you would have used as the prize pool and just buy prizes. Make the prizes Halo related. Things that will encourage people to continue to play Halo. Books, games, req packs, Mega Construx, action figures, t-shirts. Even things like Halo edition controllers, head sets or consoles. Over time you will learn what prizes yield the greatest amount of activity. Offer points for all kinds of tasks. Offer a few points for small tasks and many points for large tasks. Making maps, making prefabs, writing reviews, play testing, making tutorial videos, participating in the forums, walkthroughs, blockouts, scripts; whatever it is you want people to do when they visit this site, find a way to offer points for it and the gamers will know what to do. Keep the prizes fresh, people will save up their points for when the prize they really want becomes available. Always offer prizes for every level of Halo player, from easy to legendary. I hope this post will better explain what I meant when I said that Forgehub should organize your resources towards the benefits of teaching people how to use the Forge tool.
Over the years, there was extensive discussion amongst staff on some aspects of that. The stars have just ever aligned to bring it into reality, for whatever reason.
Chess players shouldn't play against each other. Their knowledge should be the only form of validation they need.
With the way it's worded it is kind of confusing; it seems like contests=teaching but I get your point. There are already plenty of forging guides and resources out there for anyone dedicated enough to take advantage of them. HOWEVER, they are scattered throughout the site with no succinct trail that leads to them. I suggest a new tab on our pull down menu dubbed "Forge Resources" that would include but is not limited to: A glossary of forge and design terms (possible images or videos to reference) Haunteds forge guides compiled into an actual page A list of all available testing lobbies with a quick blurb explaining each and links to their designated thread A glossary of what all the interactions on the site mean (our bb code, how the like system and reviews work, etc) as well as a FAQ And there's plenty more to add (like our social media outlets) however I think y'all get the gist of it
I get your point, but this is a terrible comparison. Chess is intended to be a 1 on 1 game. Forge is a level editor. One has its foundation in competition. The other does not.
I'd really love to get a more in-depth sense of how the judging process goes. I know that some contests have taken forever to judge. How can that process be made more efficient? I think the biggest issue with contests is how judging can split the community--people play favorites or presume favoritism, and that is only made worse by how infrequent contests are, and how long they take to judge. People presume results--Get butthurt. I think more frequent--quickly judged contests with no reward but the pride of victory (and like a map feature) would be better received than infrequent contests with extensive judging and "big" prizes.
I’m not surprised. This community arcade (for lack of a better term) is an idea that I think a lot of gamers can imagine and want to be a part of. Unfortunately, the execution is more than a matter of waiting for the stars to align. There are many ways it can fail. Most gaming communities don’t even really consider it. The reason I bring it up is because it is something I've been working on for my own agenda for a while. When I saw this thread I thought maybe part of my idea could be useful to Forgehub. I'm curious about what aspects of a community arcade have been discussed among the staff. There is one aspect of a community arcade that I didn't mention in my last post because I didn't think it was relevant. Part of the classic arcade business model involves putting quarters into a machine in order to play video games. People didn't really go to an arcade for the prizes. The prizes always sucked, that's how the arcade made money. People went to an arcade because of the games. These days gamers have better games at home so we don't go to arcades anymore. So the problem is how do you reward people for playing the games they already paid for. And I think the answer comes back to the issue of validation. Yes, some people like to get validation by winning a contest. But not everyone. The thing to remember is that, when a person really wants validation and they don't have a way to get it from others, they tend to invent a way to validate themselves. Some people validate themselves by starting a Spartan company, or building a YouTube channel or Twitch stream. So imagine if a person like that was trying to build up their own game community and they had a reason to align their efforts with Forgehub somehow. If Forgehub happened to be offering points for something close to what they were already planning, they might adjust their own idea in order to score enough points to win a prize. Even if the prize is not something they want, it could be something their members/ viewers might want. Who knows, some people might even be willing to take it a step further and donate money into the prize pool. Just because i choose not to compete, that doesn’t mean i am against competition. A community arcade has just as much to offer competitive people as it does the rest of us. For example, let's explore the idea I just mentioned about the possibility of people donating money into the prize pool. Let's take MultiLockOn’s situation, he wants to be a judge for a Forgehub map contest and put up his own money as the prize. What if he could exchange his own money for a special kind of the points I discussed earlier. Not the “Forgehub Points” which would be exchanged for prizes, think of these for purchase points as “Forgehub Tokens”. The Tokens can't be exchanged for prizes, but rather they can be used to unlock new prizes which would be fair game to anyone with enough Points. So in other words, MultiLockOn could just buy Forgehub Tokens and put them up as the prize instead of using actual money. Since the Tokens can only be used on Forgehub, MultiLockOn automatically has Forgehub’s official support for his contest. At the same time he has Forgehub’s guarantee that his money will only be used for the overall prize pool. I'm not saying that's a perfect solution, I'm saying use your imagination. I think these all sound like good ideas. Just to clarify, I'm not saying contests=teaching so much as gaming=learning.
Just to be clear, the quote below is what I was mocking. sure, chess wasn't the perfect example, but I chose it because it requires a good deal of knowledge, rather than using something like gymnastics, or synchronized swimming where a winner is chosen by a panel of judges. I do believe most people got the point, however. Since you mentioned it though, I'll quickly address why this arcade thing is nonsense. "But why does that validation have to come in the form of winning a contest? It should just be enough to know how to forge the maps you want to make. Knowledge should be the only validation one requires. Every time someone holds a contest they raise the bar for that validation." Just because i choose not to compete, that doesn’t mean i am against competition. A community arcade has just as much to offer competitive people as it does the rest of us. For example, let's explore the idea I just mentioned about the possibility of people donating money into the prize pool. Let's take MultiLockOn’s situation, he wants to be a judge for a Forgehub map contest and put up his own money as the prize. What if he could exchange his own money for a special kind of the points I discussed earlier. Why would he do that if he could just offer cash? Not the “Forgehub Points” which would be exchanged for prizes, think of these for purchase points as “Forgehub Tokens”. The Tokens can't be exchanged for prizes, but rather they can be used to unlock new prizes which would be fair game to anyone with enough Points. So in other words, MultiLockOn could just buy Forgehub Tokens and put them up as the prize instead of using actual money. Since the Tokens can only be used on Forgehub, MultiLockOn automatically has Forgehub’s official support for his contest. At the same time he has Forgehub’s guarantee that his money will only be used for the overall prize pool. So Multi would have to buy Forgehub tokens with cash, so that the winner of the contest wins tokens which can only be used to purchase things on forgehub? Which will likely then be pawned/sold for cash... And If I buy tokens for a contest prize, I automatically have forgehub' support? At the same time, if he didn't buy tokens, he would have his own guarantee that he gives his money to whoever he wants. I'm not saying that's a perfect solution, I'm saying use your imagination. Instead of the traditional methods of rewarding prizes, I recommend an adaptation of the classic arcade method. Don't let people compete for money, let them compete for tickets. (Not physical ones, just points. Call them Forgehub Points or something.) Use the money that you would have used as the prize pool and just buy prizes. Make the prizes Halo related. Things that will encourage people to continue to play Halo. Books, games, req packs, Mega Construx, action figures, t-shirts. Even things like Halo edition controllers, head sets or consoles. Over time you will learn what prizes yield the greatest amount of activity. Here's the thing. Cash is king. Not everyone wants halo related books, req packs, or t-shirts, action figures, or trips to the halo world championships. Even if they did, if you gave them money, they can go and buy whatever they wanted anyway. Most of the time, the cash prizes are barely worth it. 200$ for the amount of time is takes to forge a map is probably less than minimum wage for most people. I can only speak for myself here but I don't enter contests for the money. I enter them to win. Offer points for all kinds of tasks. Offer a few points for small tasks and many points for large tasks. Making maps, making prefabs, writing reviews, play testing, making tutorial videos, participating in the forums, walkthroughs, blockouts, scripts; whatever it is you want people to do when they visit this site, find a way to offer points for it and the gamers will know what to do. How many points do you get for each task, does it vary by quality? who gets to determine the quality of the task? I hate this idea. Keep the prizes fresh, people will save up their points for when the prize they really want becomes available. Always offer prizes for every level of Halo player, from easy to legendary. People will figure out whatever way they want to get the most points in the easiest way possible, exploit it. Then purchase whatever has the best point to resale value and pawn it off on ebay or craigslist. I hope this post will better explain what I meant when I said that Forgehub should organize your resources towards the benefits of teaching people how to use the Forge tool. Totally responded to this out of order, but **** formatting.