Scripting Team (Official Thread)

Honestly, I don't feel that a team devoted particularly to scripting will find enough content or have enough need to survive as an entity in and of itself. I believe that the scripting team not only needs skilled scripters, but also needs team members that come up with a flood of ideas/problems/systems/mechanics that give the scripters something to accomplish. While scripting is complicated right now and a team would be helpful, I just think that the team will be quick to fall apart without latching onto another entity for a source of "food" to stay alive essentially.

What a scripting team would enable though is for a designer to be a real designer without having to know the ins and outs of the system. In the same way that a designer that makes a blockout takes away the need for an artist to understand gameplay. For example, if I have an idea for how I want a game mechanic to work it would be easy for me to drop the idea and have the scripting experts try to come up with ways to make that mechanic workable, efficient, and also modular and extendable (like turning it into a prefab in the future to be replicated on multiple maps with key parameters being customizable).

If you can pull it off I'm in full support, I just wanted to add my own opinion and perspective at this point. Good luck man!

 

"Live Assistance" in the poll means forums or basically any place where you can ask for help and others volunteer answers, right?

Seems like the main options out there are

• YouTube
• Forge forums
• Ask a friend or acquaintance

I'd like to think that script documentation is out there and used (advertisement: check my sig!), but I haven't seen signs. Would definitely like to see a place set up to house scripting docs, useful recipes, and links to content that's already out there.

Ray, I was thinking the same thing about growing a scripting team in conjunction with another existing outfit. It seems like Creative Force and Forge Factory already have scripting talent. Those are the ones I know of since I'm no networker. Can you think of any places where this would be a good fit? Or a place that has space that would be helpful to a new team without getting in each other's way? Or does this seem like the kind of thing where the best bet is first proving that the concept will work?

I was also thinking ahead to the prefab sharing stuff. That might lessen the need for tutorials and documentation and become the preferred method to handle complicated scripting. I'm not sure how this stuff will be shared, maybe the same as the maps. Or maybe there will be more to it like sorting options and number of downloads. If someone can get ahead of the curve and create a website and/or an XBL account similar to The343Favorites that hosts a ton of useful scripting prefabs, then it can become a de facto standard. Which would be great since there's little centralization for any Forge stuff.

@Egggnog, how are some of these things gonna work? How will people request help or find the content? Where will the team have a presence? What tasks will team members need to do and what skills will be the most useful for doing them? You gotta bait the hook with something more plump so we'll bite!

I might be up for helping with basic documentation, brainstorming ideas, maybe video script writing, and sometimes answering questions. But I'm often brain fogged and feeling like crap for days and can't be very active or responsive. I'm slowed down so much I'm much better at producing ideas than results, which sucks since there's stuff I'd like to get done. I actually work best reacting to other people as long as the objective is clear and path forward isn't so wide open that I get bogged down with too many possibilities. I would need to know generally how things will work to even know if I can be of help.

The fog has rolled in so I'm not sure if I'm making any sense. I like the objectives of making documents, video tutorials, and answering questions people have. So, how and where can we do those things?

 

I've seen more threads than usual lately requesting help with scripting. I think it's gonna be tough without a constant flow of maps that use scripting which excludes a lot of competitive maps which seems to be what most people are making around here. A YouTube showcase accompanied by music could help with a simple promo and then have this thread here dedicated to members who need. I'm not gonna discourage this idea as long as you guys have the scripting expertise you say. If that's there then people can always those in need to this thread. Live Assistance might also be your best option unless no one can make it on-site.

 

Well one way this thing can stay relevant is if a forger has a certain mechanic in mind about a map but can't figure out how to get that to work. Then the script group could come in and assess the situation and come up with scripts to make the forger's idea come to life.

Not every script situation is cut and dry "How do I make this block wiggle?"

This group could help make the most insane ideas possible and at the same time discover completely new uses for scripts.

 

That's a start. Does weebly have a wiki page option? That'd be a great option for letting anyone share info, including documentation.

It's starting to sound like putting together a bunch of useful and reusable mechanisms with tutorials might actually push the community forward with scripting. Prove it and share it.

I wish my motion scripting efforts paid off more and I had my merry-go-rounds, roller coasters, xXBarthXx's Zanzibar wheel functional, and all kinds of stuff ready to go, but that crap is really really really really annoying. Prolly could pull it all together with a good day or two. Or pass on enough info and ideas for others to complete it. Ah crap, I need to get a scrolling ground (train) or building (elevator) system working.

 

The website idea is cool - I have a potential alternative though. What about a stickied" scripting problems here" where we ask folks to post their issues. We could ask some mods for the sticky portion. Then, whoever makes the post can update an index of solutions -" oh, elevators? Page 3, here's a link"

Benefits: centralized, still on FH, easy to contribute, less overhead

Cons: not really the "team" you're looking for, what if OP wants to take a break?

 

The thread makes sense and being a team that is hosted here on ForgeHub makes sense but becoming a forum based on scripting in Forge is going to be a difficult task. I think having that help website is a good start but Sn1p3r's got a good suggestion.

 

It doesn't have to be one or the other, could be both. One stickied thread here could be monitored by a team account or all members. The thread could also point people toward the website. And more could be setup on other sites like halowaypoint. I wish people used multiple UI paths more often so that users can do tasks the way they're comfortable with.

A pro for this is that other forum users can still jump in and help out & that can help with workload and recruiting. A con might be that members have to deal with multiple accounts, websites, and notifications, along with coordinating who's handling the response. Multiple accounts doesn't bother me and coordination has to be handled anyways. Maybe some web/email automation that logs requests to the team site could be set up if it's needed.

I'm also thinking that the site would be great for listing current requests (if not confidential) and wish items, along with the status (not handled, accepted, in progress, completed). Also a list of solutions. Forgers could search thru both and add requests to either list if something isn't there, or tack on a +1 for an existing request. A central repository for scripting solutions would help forgers and team members since that makes it easy to point forgers to existing solutions.

 

If anything use the website ONLY for information display, NOT for building a community. Use Forgehub as your home to help build up the forge community, not splinter it again. It has been extremely successful for us as CF and it is the best way to avoid getting called out for advertising and trying to pull members away from the community. Over the past decade I've watch the community splinter into multiple forums, it doesn't help us. It hurts us. Back in Halo 3 there was a switch based community that is basically this scripting team. It didn't bode well for them to be a different community all together.

 

I don't think you're going to sell this without a scheduled weekly lobby for people to attend. You should market this as a group forge where we help each other on maps and we give feedback, on top of the fact that we are all "Scripting Certified". This way, people can come to us and we can meet them in person and not have to worry about who helped x and who helped y.

 

This is just great! ^^ I literally was an expert at scripting in H2A, however I haven't had the time or the effort to get more into Halo 5 scripting, since it is very different from H2A and at some points pretty lacking.

I wonder, could someone send in a request and the group would adjust the map by themselves, then save it and basically "give it back" completed in terms of scripting? Like a hybrid of live assistance and individual work?

Great respect to you guys, if you want to make an actual service out of this.

EDIT: This thread could be used for the requests, too. Just a thought. Like a WAYWO thread for scripting. I'd have a full explained request ready, but don't know where to post it. ^^

 

I think, I may have asked two questions above. ^^

 

Sooo, where should I go with my request? The website or one of you guys directly or this thread?