Hey everybody and welcome back to ForgeHub, today's newsfeed will be more brief than our latest newsfeeds as this news has come forward only recently after all the other news in the week, so this will be a recap of news this week, the recent HCS Orlando tournament that occurred, and some ForgeHub thoughts at the end as we usually do here, so without further ado let's jump right into the News!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Neon Heights
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Our headline piece today will be around the return of a Halo 3 classic, The Pit! The Pit was shown off as a world premiere trailer and showcase at the recent HCS Orlando Major for Halo 3's 15th anniversary (More about the tournament later in the article), during the showcase we got a rematch between Halo legends, team Instinct vs Triggers down! With this rematch, we also were shown changes to the map throughout the gameplay and some flythroughs of the map, some changes are quite minimal such as ramps being adjusted for Infinite's slide mechanics and some are more major like a new drop down to Overshield where the Sword typically spawns. These changes seem like they will liven The Pit up a little bit without making it unfaithful to its source material back in Halo 3. I and some other members of ForgeHub were there in the crowd and the reaction from the crowd not only to see a remake of the pit, but it being in Forge and looking as good as it did for a work in progress was insanely nice to hear and see. Even the Pros on stage seemed to be having a good time which was phenomenal to see as the relationship between the competitive community and Forgers should ultimately be a close knit one as we ultimately help and support each other.



With this reveal though, there has been some notable backlash from a certain section of the community, while it's understandable to compare it to other creations recently shown off from the leaked Co-Op flight, this map is multiple weeks out from being released to us and was even stated to be a work in progress during the broadcast and the trailer. I'm expecting all of this section of the community's quarrels to be ultimately satiated by the time the map fully releases to us.

With the Pit's resurgence, the next question we should be asking is, "What other maps may come our way down the line?". While we can only speculate on that matter I'd love to see the return of some Halo 2 classics as a lot of those haven't been remade but are timeless, but time will ultimately tell on that though. Let us know down in the comments what maps you'd like to see come back from Halo's history!




-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Anniversaries a-plenty!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Championship Sunday of the Orlando Major (September 25th) also marked the 15th anniversary of Halo 3, the game a lot of people started their Halo Journey with, the game a lot of people would consider their favorite, the game that started this site and this community. With the 15th anniversary of Halo 3 it isn't just that, it's the 15th anniversary of us, the Forge community, whether you've been around for that long or you're just beginning we all have each other to thank for the absolute monumentous occasion this brings, 15 years is quite a long time. With that long period of time has also come with a lot of memories, maps, forgers, and creations as a whole that we've all been able to experience. We'll have another article soon going into all the nostalgia from the past of Forge that will hopefully tickle everyone's fancy, but for now, I just wanted to mention how awesome it has been to build alongside each and every one of you, and I can't wait for the future and to experience all of your creations with all of you!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fight till the last breath
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------



With everything that has happened this weekend, there's one more major thing that happened, and while it may not directly affect us I still wanted to touch on it here, that's the HCS Orlando Major! I had the privilege to go to this event with some other members of ForgeHub and meet other members of the community. This was my first event since I fully retired from competing in 4v4 and FFA bracket tournaments for personal reasons, it was one of the best times of my life, the Halo community has always felt like a family to me and these events always feel like when we're at our closest to each other. I can not state this enough, if you have the opportunity to go to one of these events and spectate, please go, they are truly great experiences even if it's just to talk to fellow Halo fans in person, and if you're a fan of eSports then that's a bonus as well!



The outcome of the Orlando Major was Optic Gaming's first LAN Event win, something they've been working at every single day since the game's launch! Congratulations to Optic Gaming/The Green Wall for their commitment to the game and their achievement of this win, now off to HCS World Championship here in a few weeks!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rep-re-sent
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thank you guys so much for joining into this ForgeHub Newsfeed, I just wanted to elaborate more on what was said above about the Orlando Major here and give some extra details here and there. For those of you who follow me on Twitter (@ICrushAll) you may have seen this posted.



That's right, I won the last spartan standing tournament at the event, I wanted to have a small brief talk with you guys today on something I don't typically talk about, and that's the importance of branching out of your comfort zone. Back in 2015 with Halo 5's Forge I fully started getting into this more and more, while I still forged all the way back in Halo 3 and definitely would say I started taking Forge seriously in Halo 4/Reach, I still think I didn't fully grasp the knowledge I needed to properly create maps at a high quality on the layout side. So after I worked alongside the infection community cartographers and got the original Power Installation 484 into matchmaking I decided to step out of my comfort zone. I really wanted to better myself as a level designer. We all have our favorite maps throughout our gaming lifespan (I'd say my top 5 for Halo would be: Waterworks, Terminal, Headlong, Plaza, and Lockout), but whether you play casually or competitively there's always a part of your gaming career I feel like gets lost in your designs if you don't keep it in check. That's one of the reasons I started to compete back in 2017, UMG Daytona was my first event, never competed online, never competed in person, I just wanted to go and experience the FFA and go from there. I think over the course of my competitive career, up to my retirement from the official scene I learned a lot, mainly I feel like I finally understand what more competitive folks like in maps, which has started to translate to a lot of my designs and I feel like it's only bettered my standing as a level designer. I know not everybody can compete, it's not for everyone, but if you have the ability to try and get into the scene, even if you don't go that far, I think it will truly help you understand a new section of level design that sometimes gets lost on both sides.

Now, this isn't me saying everyone should make their maps hyper-competitive or something, we've all seen how that can turn out from time to time in other games, but I do think there is something to learn that can only be taught through the experience in the field that will allow you to elevate not only the designs of your maps but the engagements on them as well. Hopefully I can show you all what I mean in the coming weeks with the release of the Forge (Beta) in Infinite!



As a final part to the article and to close out I wanted to talk about ForgeHub's time at the Major, in the picture above from left to right we have Infinite Forges (Not FH), Foge (who you may have realized recently started working at 343i as a Forge Content designer), Michael Schorr (Forge Lead), Brian (Lead), JoValliant, and Myself. We all had a great time at the event and got to meet some fantastic people from other community members to people on the team at 343, to event organizers/exhibitors. Talking about Forge and its possibilities just from what's been seen from the Co-Op Flight build and from what's been shown with the recent Forge Fundamental videos with the team and other community members really puts into perspective how much of a jump this will be for us as a community, the next 15 years are going to be a wild ride and I hope to join you guys through it all! Thank you all again for joining me on this ForgeHub newsfeed, be prepared for that nostalgia article to come out soon, as we ramp up to Forge's release there will be a lot more content being pushed out so be ready for that! I'll also be at the HCS World Championship in Seattle, Washington here in a few weeks so if anyone sees me be sure to say hi!​

See y'all star side!
-Crush
​