Are you ever in Forge, and then suddenly reality hits you? You realize that you are quite literally wasting your time. In all likelyhood, someone as already made your map, or your idea, but 10x better. Or even if it is original, since it isn't coated in gold-plated awesome, it won't get noticed. You'll probably get less downloads than hours it takes you make the map. Your friends won't even want to play it - they'll all have their own maps they want to play, or won't be interested. Odds are, your map isn't even that good. It'll probably get buried within the first day here on Forgehub. On ATLAS, Shiska will probably never look at it - he'd rather put in Bungie-made maps that break his own rules than look at player maps apparently. If he does put one in, it will be rare, and have to have overwhelming community support. Yet we continue to do it. Why? To play the extremely stacked odds? For some sort of self-satisifaction? Some sort of saidism?
I don't forge enough or spend enough time on my maps to really feel this, but this is unfortunately true. I forge because a good idea pops into mind, or I have nothing else to do. This reality can really be applied to a lot of things, though. Playing sports when you won't go pro or college, for instance. It's kinda just something to do or find community in, hence forgehub.
You know, I agree with you 100%. I mean, I spent days working on Manifest, and for what? Only 110,000 downloads? I mean, so many people have already done similar maps to Help's on the way, right? and they probably were all better. Which would explain why chrst and I only got, FH Feature, BoF 08, and Bungie favorites. Honestly, I should have just quit, because within a couple of days our map being released, it was buried in posts. Don't get me started on Atlas, I don't think Shishka ever thought about it going into matchmaking. Seriously, there is no way to be original or successful anymore. Why do I do it? Well, I am not sure.
While I can't find your "Manifest" map through name or by searching for it, your purple name suggests the other factor that I didn't want go into, but will now since I brought it up - and that your map will go unnoticed if you don't already have a reputation for insanely good maps, or some other kind of name recognition. As for Shiska, he probably didn't. Seeing as how three maps he's put into MM blatantly break one of his rules for submission. And the question still remains - why do we play the odds, which are so immensely stacked against us?
Manifest It's in his sig. I don't think you got his post, Whatever happened to fun? Why is fame the most important thing? Why can't we just make maps? I have made a map that did not get much publicity, but I enjoyed making and testing it. Some others told me they enjoyed it also. No, it doesn't even have 100 dl's. But I think my time was well spent. Ask yourself these. Why ever draw? You will most likely not become a famous artist. Why swim in a pool? You will most likely never go to the Olympics. Why play a sport? Why sing? Why dance? Why be in a play? Everyone dies, and there's no fighting it. Why live? Why not put a bullet in your brain because you'll die anyway. I hope you get my point. I make maps because I enjoy doing so. I make maps because it gives me something to work at and progress. I make maps because it is something I can learn about. I make maps to play with my friends. Publicity is a bonus. Get used to, because I am damn sure I am not gonna quit.
He's talking about the psychological effect it may have on some. A person making a map may as well have spent twenty-four hours working on it, and thinks it is really good in his/her eyes, but when he/she reveals it to the community, it is shot down and buried deep into the ground. The person then realizes that he wasted all that time and effort to make a map that only a few people downloaded and enjoyed, and decides either that he/she should just stick to playing maps and not making them. Some people are like this you know, not everyone is some jolly kid with a positive view on life, and if you are somewhere in between and have this situation, you are more likely to not care about it enough to let it bother you. Lesson is, don't let it bother you. Do what you enjoy and want to do.
You know what? I have never thought it was a waste of time, in fact, I thought it was the best possible thing I could be doing at that very second. I love forging, and if my life is going to revolve around video games in the future, what better thing could I be doing? I'm too young to get a job, and I don't give a **** about going outside because it's 100 degrees out there. By the way, going outside isn't going to further increase my chances at becoming a video game designer, so what the **** is the point? My family is boring, and they don't do **** with their lives. I am the most successful one in my family honestly. My brother spends all day outside being an idiot with his idiot friends on his stupid skateboard further increasing his chances of ending up in the hospital and bringing my parents further down the rabbit hole. Forging brings fame among the Halo 3 community, which is a lot of people! Sure, it doesn't bring the money and the women, but neither does anything else I can go out and do at the age of 14. Sure, some ideas I use might have already been done, but so what? Oh yeah, and then when that project I spent 50+ hours on gets buried alive in **** maps with no pictures or no interlox plox, sure, I'm pissed out of my mind. But that's what happens. Look at what's about to happend to my two month old maps; Affliction and Celestial. They're both about to get into Bungie Favorites. And sure, not even that matters. But what else is there to do? Play around in matchmaking all day pretending I'm a pro when I'm not. You see, some people are just meant to forge, and some are meant to play around in matchmaking. A forger makes a map, it gets shot down, and then the forger makes another map. If the forger feels like it's pointless if it's going to get shot down, then they will quit forging, and possibly forever.
Spoiler This. It's just for fun, just like for anyvideo game. You're probably not going to get famous for playing any video game
You were lucky. Also, people saw your name in the maps forums and clicked it over others. This is why we see more coloured features. Not saying it's your fault or anything, it can't be helped. It's just down to popularity; the same thing would happen if Nemi posted a map, for example.
There's a fine line between luck and finesse. You can't assume his map is successful on the basis of luck. I've played the map more than I can remember, and its bluntly obvious that he took immense time to skillfully construct the map. Trust me, you can't make a good map out of luck. The map looked and played great, period. A lot of maps without colored authors stand out because they're appealing. Sweeny's map was just as appealing, thus making it successful. No colored names involved.
Simple psychological game here - your name stands out more than mine does, thus people will notice first and will be more likely to click on it then mine.
Forge the map that you want to play on because you want to play it. If you make it well enough and its something that people genuinely enjoy fame and respect will follow. It's a fun hobby, and if you don't have fun doing it maybe you should find some other method of map making that fills your fancy.
This This This and This. Just a couple of examples from the many with great quality maps, unique posts, outstanding feedback, and non-colored (and in a lot of cases not well-known) authors. Forging success depends on its execution, not the creator's seniority.
All of those also share the fact that they're spiced up and far more interesting to even look at than other maps. Many of us don't have the ability to make our pictures fancy colors, or put text into them, or design heatmaps of our maps, or do anything besides put stock Theater Screenshots into the post. Whose maps are you going to pay attention to - the flashy, nice-to-look at, stands out from the crowd even though it might not be as good, or the not-flashy, looks-like-every-other-map-even-though-it-could-be-10x-better map? The fact of the matter simply is that the odds are extremely stacked against most of us to have anything come of what we do. And for those of us who are goal-oriented, Forge should present nothing but fustrations - so why do we keep trying?
I agree with you to a certain extent, and Sweeney Todd's post is actualy supporting you in the long run. Here on forgehub, unless you are a well known person, it is nearly impossible for your map to get noticed. My map Abacabb got 6 replies. Maps that do not have screenshots get more replies than that, want proof? Look here. Also, the "Wanna see a map featured?" thread is a complete joke. Almost none of the maps in there are ever featured, and there is a lot of wonderful submissions.
So, they got noticed because they were original? First of all, I believe every computer with Windows has an image editing tool known as Paint. There are plenty of editing sites. You can download Gimp. All of these are free. Again, originality should not be shunned. Also, aesthetics is not a bad thing. Gameplay is more important, but it is nice to have something that is attractive. [quoter]The fact of the matter simply is that the odds are extremely stacked against most of us to have anything come of what we do. And for those of us who are goal-oriented, Forge should present nothing but fustrations - so why do we keep trying?[/quote] Refer to my previous post. Remember, the "famous" forgers didn't become so overnight.
I'm not talking about map aesthetics - I'm talking presentation of the map when shown. And many people don't know how to work any of those programs, free or not, or well enough to be able to make anything look better, much less not make it look worse.
I can honestly say I COMPLETELY agree with you. I've started up forge sessions before and then halfway through deleted it because I saw someone had already posted the same exact thing only MUCH better before. I might just quit forging completely. And it angers me because it's usually the less known users that have the better maps.
Editing your screenshots so that they look really appealing doesn't require any knowledge in photo editing, so its pretty easy to do if you have the commitment. Websites like picnik.com are extremely simple online picture editors that get the job done without the hassle. Getting a map well known is about how much you put into it, and also its appearance and gameplay in its final stage. You can't assume that all maps that are successfull are due to members having a colored name. Every single premium member had a grey name at one point and still got their maps featured because they simply did a great job, two examples being Shaddoblade and Deathtoll77.