This seems like an issue of semantics, pride, and politics. Fun! Firstly, views and clicks and and original content are all important things, not just for those who directly benefit but for the community at large. Forgehub doing well as a brand has an impact on the size of our specific community and the number of forgers we as a community influence. Secondly, if we want our influence to reflect certain standards we have to project those standards. But what it really comes down to is what the word "feature" means to forgehub and to the community. In order for a forge centered YouTube channel (or website) to be successful it needs to regular feature community maps. As in make a single piece of content with a focus on a single map. Frequency is important and so is being first to the punch. This is good for everyone involved or even just a forum member like me. Now what about standards? I have no doubt that War and Duck and everyone else involved here at the site have standards. So the question is: how do we balance these standards with the undertandable need to produce regular content? I think it's hard to call a regular map feature anything else than what it is. It is content featuring a specific topic (in our case a map). To limit it to a certain week or to what's new, puts a strange burden on the team to over consider how long ago the previous feature was or how recent the map what released. I think rather than trying to call regular content something other than what it is, exceptional maps should be highlighted in some way. This might be lame, but I think something like a forgehub stamp of approval would be cool. Something that says "this map is the best our community has to offer." I don't think content should ever be produced just for its own sake. That would definitely show a lack of standards. But if War sees potential in a map, he shouldn't be scolded for bringing attention to it either. That can be a feature. A map a staff member plays and enjoys can be a feature. If someone feels that a map warrants content I'm not going to argue with them. I don't believe anything featured so far has been an evil plan for page views, and I don't think clicks being a partial motivator is inherently wrong. What we need is a way of saying "this isn't just our regular content--this is actual **** on a stick." I'd suggest "forgehub approved," but I think there is probably a better way of saying it. Something that says "elite." Maybe some alliteration..."Forgehub Approved: Matchless Map Feature"... I don't know. I think I've made my point though.
The way I see it, there should be 5 tiers of content being showcased by Forgehub: Daily Trending: This relies on an automatic system to show what map is the flavor of the day, either by pageviews, "downloads" or thread posts.These maps may not be the bee's knees, but they'll be what is popular. Trending maps do not get video or article features, but may be tweeted out. Weekly Community Favorites: Top 3 maps voted on by the community every week to show until the next week. Any map would be eligible regardless of what day they were submitted. Weekly Community Favorites may have an article, video feature and a tweet. Forgehub Favorites: Staff picked maps. Anyone from the Forgehub team can pick a map to showcase for whatever reason, and at any point in the week. Staff members wont be allowed to pick their own maps, but staff can pick maps from another staff member. Forgehub Favorites also have an article written by the staff and/or video accompaniment as well as a tweet. This section is inherently biased, but will be focused on hand-picking unique maps to showcase. Featured "Map of the Month": Community voted maps on a monthly cycle, where the winning map gets an interview article with the author, a video showcase and a month-long feature until the next map. And of course, it's tweeted. Hall of Fame: These would be reserved for the best maps - significant accomplishments. The ones that raised the bar, were instrumental in shaping the future of Forge, and would ultimately stand the test of time. Of course, they'd need a permanent fixture somewhere on the site, along with a special tag for the author and all the bells and whistles of the others. This way we have Daily, Weekly, and Monthly content, and then a wildcard for whenever necessary. So while there is a steady stream of content, most of it is community driven and the more prestigious titles are distributed less often. This system could be as flexible as necessary and even specialized. For example, maybe one month will be BTB focused features while the next month is 4v4 focused. With this system, Goldleaf and Deadline would have fallen under Forgehub Favorites and Sandtrap would have been January's Featured map. Even though it was staff picked, it still received an article.
@Goat: Forgehub Feature wasn't about time elapsed, it was about being a map worthy of the Forgehub hall of fame, so to speak. The idea of having a deadline for a Feature will surely diminish the value of the title (which is why this thread was started).
Why not change the title then If there is an interest in a "Hall of Fame" category, we can make a new one. Everything else ought to be time based, especially while the community is pumping out hundreds of maps. And that's important because there have been a bunch of Featured maps that i'd imagine could be argued out of that exclusive club. It'd be easier to "demote" the title and introduce a new one than to suddenly make it more important. I'm not sure though how we'd induct maps into the Hall of Fame. We'll have to talk it over.
A 'Featured Map' should always be the highest achievement possible on ForgeHub. This acts as our hall of fame, a permanent database displaying the best content from the community. There are multiple ways for maps to be given this title such as winning 1st place in the monthly 'Community Favorites'. That public voting system democratizes the feature process, so I really like it as an anti-bias mechanism. Contests, such as our currently hosted 2v2 Throwdown, will grant the top 3 winning maps 'Featured' status as well. Regarding our channel, YouTube pretty much requires a steady stream of content so they use a different criteria for featuring maps. I'm trying to find a way to connect both our site and channel together to synchronize our efforts and generate a greater area of effect. Unless both our values happen to line up on a particular map, following the channel with their map features will no longer happen. There is a lot of great content coming from the community that we would still love to share on a more regular basis. While these may not be prestigious 'Features', you guys are doing fantastic work and we want to support that progress and growth. We will brand these more regular map showcases as just that: "Map Showcase" from here on out.
On the topic of Deadline vs Station 7, I feel like if both authors collaborated on bringing the best that their respective versions have to offer together, we would have a literally perfect remake. The visuals (and the colors, especially) on Deadline are so much more vibrant and lively, due in part to the choice in canvas, but the accuracy to the original map on Station 7 is unparalleled. I would love to see FoxyPapaSmurf and LookMumNoScope work together to build the "definitive" Terminal remake.
Thanks for the feedback and discussion, everyone. The partnership between the video team and the internal staff team is a new and experimental one and is definitely one which can be improved upon in the future. With the new ForgeHub channel, I have carried over the values which I began to instill into THFE under my leadership of having the highest standards for map features on YouTube. We do not operate on knee-jerk reactions and rather focus on analyzing maps at length before deeming them worth a feature. This process is significantly complicated during the initial rush of forge content after the release of a new forge, however. This should be clear with the maps we showcased in H2A and with today's feature of Twice Forsaken. I first played the latter a few weeks ago and have tested it on numerous occasions since. I've communicated with the map's author to ensure that the map is polished to a high standard before featuring. This process is tantamount to viewership suicide given the competition from other forge channels who feature maps based more on initial reaction, but my policy has always been that I would rather be the best at something than be the first. I would agree that our recent feature of Goldleaf does not adhere to this policy, however. I have not played the map and cannot personally speak to its quality. I did caution Paints on choosing to feature it so early. Ultimately, I respected his judgement on the matter, however. Simulation, however, I will defend to a point. The adaptation of The Pit is, in my opinion, a solid fit for the Breakout mode. In an environment where attempts at direct remakes of maps which have no business in Halo 5's sandbox are all the rage, it was refreshing to see an adaptation of a classic map with adjustments made specifically to serve a new mode. Another noteworthy aspect of Simulation is that is to date the only forge map in Halo 5 which I have seen the author fully finish in terms of player containment, lighting, named locations, and cinematics. Every other map I have yet seen demonstrates a lack of polish in one or more of the areas mentioned. Agree with the first two video features or not, I hope you'll agree that the maps we spotlight in the future adhere to a high standard. Yes, spotlights will surely be more common than they were in the old days, but the standards will not be lowered to make this happen. I look forward to continuing to improve the partnership between the ForgeHub website and channel in the future.
To follow up, we the video team have had some discussion regarding this feedback already and are taking it to heart. We are a new team running a new channel with a new partnership in a new game. We make mistakes like this so we can learn and be better at what we do in the future. Ultimately, we need to find a happy medium between quality and quantity. As a community, we must also be mindful that that medium may differ slightly from a YouTube platform to a website platform and also that the precedent set by this site's policy on features in the past isn't necessarily something to live by (I could go on and on about how flawed that system was during Reach in particular). But, we are finding that balance as we speak. Thanks again for holding us accountable and being open with feedback.
Thanks for the feedback Apk. I'm looking forward to working on improving my standard of quality in the videos I produce. I also plan to work on my clambering too new abilities still haven't quite worked their way into my playstyle. I'm going to do my best to look for these things when analyzing a map. Thanks again man.
Thank you for the feedback APK and I think I'll take the time to clear the air on some things with the featuring process. I think the issue you see here with the channel's features mainly in the observed timing of us featuring a map. On the surface it may look like someone had just posted a map and the feature immediately came out. A logical response to this like yours is that we saw something that looked cool and immediately featured it, (and this is due to lack of information given to you and other viewers). Alot of the time we are shown maps way before the author has ever posted it on a forum, whether it be Forgehub or Halocustoms or whatever. So for the most part we have seen these maps weeks before the map has ever been posted to a forum. For instance we played twice forsaken and simulation through various playtests for weeks before their own Features. And I had personally played Goldleaf myself plenty of times and was able to make an educated opinion over the map. Also many times we are able to communicate with the author and give feedback, and ask about design intent etc... All the maps we featured were certainly worth a feature and time was taken to confirm that.