Unrelated. The Results are in for the 2v2 contest and the article is being worked on. Dear Community. For those who don't like to read long post here is the simple version of this post. Excuse my horrible grammar. I'm going to be taking a break from forge and forgehub related content until Infinite comes out. I will reevaluate when the next forge comes out what I want to do in terms of content. I will also NEVER judge another contest again because to ME I'm clearly not fit to do it. For those who want to read more into my reasons why. Welcome to my book LOL. So the first thing. Taking a break from forge and forge related content. So at this moment in time, my drive to do anything related to Halo content is at a all time low. I like to give my 100 percent and I just cant do that at this time. I know some people might think I didn't make a lot of content but I did make 4 maps of my own, tons of colabs(to many to count), some matchmaking content w/343, a couple awesome streams with forgehub/my personal streams, 2 contest judging and providing feedback in 1 on 1 sessions. So I am kinda burned out at this moment. Now this might be a temporary thing. Maybe when Halo Infinite comes out I will fall in love again with making content in the form of maps and doing streams. Maybe I just need a small break like this where I turn it off. But who knows. I will still join party chats and hang around from time to time. So to some people it might seem like nothing changed at all LOL. Now onto the other thing. Contest FIRST. I am going to say something up front that a lot of people where saying about the other judges. Its a statement that wasn't ment for me as they kept saying to me BUT the more I heard it. The more it resonated with me. "That person should have had the foresight to know they wouldn't be a good judge and therefore should have stepped down for someone else to judge" SOOO. Where to begin. For the longest time people have asked me to judge or nominated me to judge contest. Personally I have never wanted to judge a contest. But, if enough people ask eventually you will give in to it. So when the 4v4 contest came around I decided this would be a good place to start. All my worst fears about contest judging where true. I DO NOT enjoy judging contest at ALL. I find them to be tedious, boring and no fun at all. Now there where fun MOMENTS in the judging process but the overall thing is just down right mentally draining for me personally. So after the 4v4 contest I told myself to never do that again......Fast-forward to the 2nd 2v2 contest discussion. During the first discussion about doing a 2v2 contest no staff member was wanting to step to the plate. I told them I wanted nothing to do with it and count me out.....Months pass by and it get brought up a second time. No one was wanting to do the contest again and for some reason I said, I will do this contest IF I can do it the way I want to. They pretty much they said yes no problem. My thought process was, if I had complete control over the contest maybe I would enjoy it then. Because I can run it the way I want to. Well that didn't go well also. I learned very fast through this second contest judging that the way I mentally handle contest is not heathly for me and here is why When I make my content(Maps/Games/Streams/Music/Etc) its a product. ITS MY PRODUCT. I trust myself when it comes to the design and feedback process that's required to make the best product that I can give(doesn't mean its good). Trying to make the best product I can or giving feedback on a product to help get it to be the best it can be is SUPER FUN to me. A contest does not work like that for me personally. When I judge a contest I find it to be Boring, Tedious and the most NON FUN a human can have. I also fold under the pressure of judging. Its just to much for me PERSONALLY to handle. To many variables and that really messes with me mentally and puts me in a depressed state due the all the details that are involved for ME TO JUDGE the way I want to. Judging a contest is not the same as trying to make a product as the best it can be or helping other make a awesome product. This contest put that in to perspective for me. Now I know a lot of people recommended me to judge the contest and trust me to do a good job and do it with the most integrity that I can. I tried to do my best in judging this contest despite all my hate for it and I really gave it my all. I tried my hardest to give a contest people would have been proud of. But TO ME I FAILED and I'm sorry. I was also more hostile to people then I ever have been in my life. Which I apologize for. I know some of you have said really nice things to me personally during this contest and nice things about the contest in general. You know who you are and I want to say thank you so much. It help me get out of my mental funk I was in. But it does not change the fact that I KNOW I shouldn't be a judge anymore. Simply for the reason stated above. I know that was a lot to read and if you made it this far, you are a trooper. I will still pop in from time to time. But for now I will talk to you all later So after this article for the contest goes out. I am leaving for a bit. I am sure there will be people who will want to chew me out for something after the contest(there always is). I hope those people can forgive me and use any anger they have to help the community out. Thank you for your time. Love <3
The feedback you gave when initially reviewing the submissions was really, really fantastic, and of great help to those that watched/listened to it. If you feel a desire to be of any help in future contests, I think offering impartial feedback to participants, either leading up to the submission deadline or after it, would be a great way to do that.
While this is a heartfelt and meaningful response, you seemed to miss the primary issue with the contest, and it's a quite easy issue to fix... Ready for it? PLAYTEST THE MAPS. The amount of time and effort put into playtesting was incredibly low considering the amount of time most forgers put into there maps. Cutting boderline maps after 1 proper gamechat playtest, is just unacceptable and insulting. The only somewhat viable excuse I can think of for lack of playtesting would be availablity and it's not really viable at all as its an easy issue to solve. Handle it BEFORE the contest. If you don't have the time to commit to playtesting, don't judge, period. Plain and simple. 3 hours of gameplay 1 day a week? I mean is that honestly a joke? 3 hours 3-5 nights a week would be my MINIMUM requirement for all judges if I ran a contest. You can't fairly judge a map if you don't spend the time to playtest it and learn/let it's meta develop. So while I do have other issues with the contest, lack of playtesting is easily the biggest issue and one of the easiest issues to address.
With how diverse, odd and just fun some of these reach mods are on PC it would be great to get a spotlight here on forgehub. Otherwise HiddenXperia is posting a number a videos on them which would be nice to highlight from time to time on Forgehub if no one's interested in doing the work. It also would be nice to have a mod section on the website to highlight them. With the Halo teams interest in bringing mods to Halo and the general popularity of mods I can't see it being a poor investment. HiddenXperia's views on the reach mods are hitting upwards of 200,000. It would be nice not to wait until November to see this site reinvigorated. Speaking of reinvigorated is anyone else getting far too excited about this year in gaming. Xbox seems to be just killing it with their plans for the new console and it makes me curious as hell what Sony has up their sleeve. I'm super psyched for the new Halo. I can't help but feel that Microsoft has at least a half a dozen AAA first-party titles coming out on or around launch and I'm dying for E3 to be here today. Every little piece of news that I hear on the hardware, the tech and the ecosystem moving forward just fans the flames for me. I don't think I've been this excited for a new console since 2005. I can't help but believe fall 2020 leading through 2021 will be some of the strongest game years we have seen in over a decade. I've really got to get off the internet and stop looking all this ****. lol
The only mods that have released so far are the Reach Evolved campaign and Gold Pro Mod Arena. Also why are we continuing to get excited about consoles? Is there a reason people are still buying those glorified toasters?
I found this guy annoying for the first while but by the time he got down to the level where you work your way down to the flood I really got into watching him focus more on the game and take in environmental cues. It was cool watching him realize something was different but he didn't know what. I enjoyed the hell out of watching him experience the frustrations of fighting the flood over and over and over and just after the 38th minute mark he says the best line after the doors open. It was pretty much exactly how I felt at that exact moment in the game. I really hope Halo infinite brings back the depth of emotion that I personally felt as I played the original Halo trilogy. The laughter, the frustration, the joy and the Wonder. Hmm, if they really want to sell it then they should probably announce that Marty O'Donnell is back in epic fashion as they show off the new trailer at E3.
Isn't it weird that not one staff member was excited or even considering being a judge? So people did it anyway even if they were reluctant to the whole process? That's just odd. I know the game and site are dead but starting a contest with judges who are unwilling or not even capable to judge is just wrong and not fair to all the contestants. I know it's hard and time consuming but do it right or don't do it at all. No offense guys, I know you all stepped up and did your best. Maybe volunteering for a judge position and have the community decide via poll is an option for the future? Just a thought.
We had nominated judges earlier on but it didn’t seem to have an impact Funny enough, me soul salty and purely have about 15+ games on more than half of the top 8 maps. We were playing consistently for a while. The top 4 I think had 5 tests total.
Don't tell anyone I said this, but we are working on a site update... a real one. This is the sort of stuff (mods and the like) I'd like to have in the new site. Unfortunately besides suggestions not really anyone (including staff and admins) has any direct influence on how long it'll take or what is going to be involved. If there isn't a change to incorporate this sort of stuff by november.... thats a problem. I really hope I can give more info out later on this. This will probably incite some comments because of course it will, but when you have the wrong idea about something and jump to conclusions without all the info it does nothing but hurt the community. So the active staff, much like the active community, has dwindled to a small few. Most of the staff either did not have the time or would have rather participated. Additionally Judging a contest can cause a lot of stress, as mentioned in Seth's post. A judging position isn't for everyone mentally. The entire community can't be satisfied with any result/approach/decision. Someone is always going to be unhappy. Those disgruntled community members often complain about people who actually stepped up to do the job for them. That sort of reaction from the community discourages others from wanting to step up and be berated or ridiculed, and honestly I think that's a valid decision to turn down the role. There are plenty of reasons to not want to participate than not being excited or not even giving it thought. You're really jumping to some conclusions here. For this contest and any contest run, no judge who actually steps up to do the contest is unwilling, hesitant or reluctant maybe but not unwilling. A truly unwilling person would not give it another thought.
STFU, get off leauges of legends, and play test the ****ing maps. PLAY THEM. Is that too much to ask?
Do the contest right and nobody will *****. 5 play tests come on man. Any map with any kind of depth or learning curve gets thrown out the window. If you seriously think after 5 tests you figured out the meta or nuance of a map then you are a fool. Want an example? Purely’s maps catharsis and lost growth. I’ve played both 15+ times at a higher level than all the judges. Your assumptions of those maps are laughable and show you truly aren’t capable of being a competent judge. Everyone knows you shouldn’t have been a judge and we nominated as a community a bunch of other potential candidates. Your name being orange doesn’t mean ****. Jump to conclusions? Gtfo. You gave us all the evidence we need
LOL <- that's red not orange. You get on to me like I dragged down the contest down lol. Please tell me more about what I did to ruin this contest. If you want better contests try to improve this community by helping it out rather than sitting over here complaining and trying to bring others down. I'm going to go play some league.
Red, orange whatever. The best candidates who suit the position of being a judge in this community aren’t staff. LOL. Answer me this. Do you actually think 5 tests is enough? Why do I hear judges complaining about not wanting to play mid game? Why instead of talk hypotheticals for maps you run them again to find out what’s actually happening? The thing is, I am trying to help the community because I guarantee you I am way more passionate about Halo and design than most of the judges. The number one thing you could have done to drastically improve the outcome of this contest was to play the maps more. I sound toxic but I actually just give a ****. Go play league where you belong
I'm in between games atm. Personally no 5 games is not enough. I'm always wanting to do more games. I have probably the most open schedule except for soul. And lets be real clear, I'm almost 100% positive I did not complain about not wanting to play the maps during gameplay. So please by all means show me that and I will personally apologize to the map maker(s). That is incredibly out of character for me. I did not set the play schedule for this contest, I played as often as the others and pushed to play more, but the majority wanted the single elimination. I do not have the resources to get full teams together outside of having the other judges, but I did spend time on each map between judging sessions looking through the maps trying to understand them to give them the best chance I could. I get you all hate the way the contest was done and tough. This isn't how I like to run a contest either, but I didn't run this one so why on earth you think I held it back and stopped other from playing more is beyond me.
My advice to everyone is to take design seriously, but not contests. Any serious designer shouldn't look to contest results as a bar for design quality, and shouldn't judge the quality of a map by it's placing in a contest. Do your own analysis rather than relying upon others to tell you how good a map is. Focus on the craft, not on the judging of the craft by others. I realize this may seem to be aimed at particular people that are upset, but it's honestly not. I'm just sharing the general opinion I've held of contests and their value for a very long time. Edit: and I forgot to add, it goes without saying that once a person has committed to being a judge for a contest, it's their responsibility to fulfill all of the duties that come with that role. What I wrote above is in no way meant to diminish that responsibility.