A little background (as if some things are not obvious to some). I'm a new Halo map editor, and 1st time posting in Forge Hub. From playing the good 'ol Halo 1 on the PC and kinda copping out after Halo 2. I merely poked around Halo 3 with friends who had it at their house and played it when we had nothing else to do (My friends play it more often then I did). I messed with the forge in Halo: Reach, and I've HEARD about it from Halo 3. To be honest I'm digging it. Now I've done custom maps in Starcraft 1 +Expansion, so I'm not new to the whole "Modding" community. However I have one burning question if I ever want to seriously get into modding with The Forge in Halo. The question is really simple, and I know I'll get a variety of answers. So here it is: How popular is the modding community for Halo? To elaborate, if someone were to make a map and publish it (for sake of argument, it's a cool map that catches a lot of attention) dose the population OUTSIDE of Forge Hub Download and play Custom maps? To further elaborate the question so that I can hopefully ease some confusion with it. Starcraft has a healthy community of modders, and players outside of the modding business play popular maps repeatedly. Dose Halo have this same sort of basis? Or is Halo more a competitive game than it is modding. (This is about halo, not SC or CoD) tl;dr: How popular is the modding community for Halo? Thanks in advanced for those who reply.
Are you talking about forging or modding because they are two completely different things yet you seem to be mixing them up? People frown on modding. Everyone loves forging and custom games.
Honestly to me it is the same idea forging and modding. However, I do mean forging. I could go on about my definitions upon words but that would go off topic.
Great! Not to sound selfish, but I've gone back and forth between the Bungie.net forums and this forums and was seeing a lot of negativity and positivity. So I was not quite sure if I should invest my time in building maps that would go unnoticed (unless its THAT BAD, which i plan to avoid)
If you make a good map and do a good job publicizing it (in acceptable ways - not spamming), you would do well to get a few hundred downloads. If you manage to get your map recommended by some people and it makes the Bungie top user files list, you may get into the thousands of downloads. That's pretty much the ceiling unless you really know some people in the right places (in addition to doing what I just said), and then you might eventually get a map in the community or MLG playlist. The percentage of the forge community that accomplishes that is tiny though, so I wouldn't bank on it.
That first bit warms my soul. PC communities show what modding should mean, just modifying the game for custom purposes. Console communities have this idea that mods = cheats just because that's, rather sadly, what most people use them for. But anyone who's even played something as simple as Octagon 1v1 in Halo 3 knows that even on a console modding can add to the experience of a game rather than detracting from it. I guess the major reservation is the closed nature of console games, a nature which rules out user modded content being permissable by Bungie and, as a result, here on FH. It'd be nice if one day console devs take the same attitude to really detailed modifications that PC devs do, though I guess even beyond that there's the ultimate hurdle of MS/Sony etc. themselves. Sorry, off topic, just saddens me what the word modding means on consoles considering all the great stuff that it brings on PC. EDIT: To answer your question, megapwn is pretty much right. If you make a really good competitive map then the MLG forging side of things can be a really solid and worthwhile route. However, it's tough to say the least and it's not simply a case of just making your map and letting it fly out in to the world, you'll have to make the effort integrate yourself with the somewhat tight knit MLG forge community as I understand it (there are more than a couple of people who also visit here regularly who will be much more informed on this issue) and make sure your projects are refined and, frankly, known about to certain people. In terms of wider community uptake, it's pretty lacking in terms of custom content. If you manage to get something noticed by the community cartographers and eventually put in to MM then you'll obviously get a lot of exposure for it, but that's not something you can even close to rely on or really 'try' to go about in terms of direct action. Sadly, the biggest voluntary community uptake Halo has seen for user created content has been things like Fat Kid (a very basic zombies gametype with equally simplistic maps as a general rule) which were incredibly popular in H3, not so sure about Reach but so far such customs seem a little less popular with the higher credit rewards given in matchmaking keeping people away. But, in short, casual and somewhat generic stuff was always what seemed to spread most rapidly by word of mouth etc. Which isn't a slight against those who make or enjoy such things, but if you're talking about strong emphases on things like design, balance etc. then community uptake outside of the dedicated custom community is, rather sadly, pretty slim. Hope this doesn't put you off, there's still a lot to be had here on FH and in the wider forging community, and don't let the above fool you in to thinking that good map designs and talented forgers go unnoticed or uncelebrated, just perhaps not in the way that other games have known.
I found it really disheartening when i uploaded my map but i did a poor job of publiscizing it and i think it got overlooked and not even one comment on the thread i posted where every other map around mine had a few comments about it :l plus i dont really know anyone on here yet so i think it helps to make freinds first before you just post your maps because your only allowed to post it once...
Hey, you can always make a better map, right? Thats how I like to think about it. Because, frankly, I've built some terrible things in Halo haha.
yeah thats true but i always take a long ass time on my maps i'm really picky lol because i hate overlapping things sometimes thats whats stopping me from makin something sometimes. and i've got lots of maps i started and failed to finish just ran out ideas for em.
I really appreciate the reply you put into answering my question. Off topic: As I am originally a PC map maker I know the differences and meaning behind words. No matter where you go you haft to learn what the community uses and their terminology that they have created for themselves. Such things I must learn here. As sated in the OP, I have made Maps in Starcraft 1. So to me, modding means taking what the game already has and given you, and puttin your own personal twist on things. (Starcraft 2's editor allows you to even change the game entirely). On topic: I know that outside the mapping community the average person won't nit-pick a map on a high level of detail. That's why you have a community of mappers that share their work to be previewed and critiqued, because we (meaning us mappers) WANT that. To help us improve, strengthen, and create better more playable maps that the outside players will enjoy. In my personal opinion, I don't make maps for myself, I make maps for the population that (hopefully) is going to play it. So whenever i venture into a new group, I usually lurk around to spot activity. However, something as popular as halo, I was really unsure if forging was played around and maps tossed in a small nitch, where the outside community only played on bungie made maps and not custom maps. Starcraft's custom map's are played by a massive amount of players that don't make maps themselves, Excuse my constant comparing, but I enjoy the popularity that Custom games get from players, and I wish to know if Halo has the same sort of mind set when it comes to custom mapping. I am well aware that if one who is new to the scene that already has a large foundation, they must sell themselves to the masses and gain his/her own popularity. It is the same with any sort of game that has customization features with it, and a community that follows it. I'm even considering building a "Team" of forger's to produce maps. Because many minds is better than a single mind. (I'm still plotting though >.>) As anyone would do when they first start mapping in halo. Currently I am making a race map to accomplish many things. But most importantly: To teach me how to forge and to introduce myself into the forging community. Two things I must research doing, and already have commenced doing.
I'd highly recommend getting into one of SargeantSarcasm's TGIF parties. He actually lets people playtest maps during the TGIF, and after every match, the party critiques it. It'll also help you introduce yourself to the community much more openly. ..... Hi