Greetings forge-tards! I'm here to talk to you all about a problem that has been bothering this community since the 14th. I am, of course, talking about new forgers. Our problem doesn't stem from the idea that they're bad because they're new. It's because of an imbalance between practical and theoretical forging skills. What this means is, that the skill required to make a map IN forge has drastically decreased. This means that anyone can make A map. Unfortunately, many don't have any understanding of things like spawn mechanics, weapon placement, or how the flow of a map is defined. As such, it is imperative as a community for us to crack down on this and make sure that new members learn at least introductory map making concepts. My plan is to use criticisms and must read guides similar to the text block below as a mandatory pre submission questionnaire, to sum up what to do during the pre-forge, forge, and pre-post portions of working on a new map: Have I Read? Silence's guide to weapon placement (old, but still somewhat relavent) Jex yoyo's guide (a great alternative to the above mentioned article) Forging 201 map design (most important guide) advanced guide to respawns (newbies should read about 1/3 of this AT LEAST. Other than that, not much else is really needed) Do I Have A Plan? This one's kind of self explanatory. Failing to plan is planning to fail, and we here at Forgehub don't take too kindly to fail-maps. __________________________________________________________________________ Have I forged? Simply put: Forge until you can forge anymore, than forge it some more. What I'm really trying to get at here, is that as a forger, you must re-analize your work to make sure everything's flawless. It's the little imperfections that separate the good maps from the great maps. With such an easy editor, you should make damn sure there aren't any slip-ups on this end of your masterpiece. Everything should be as cleanly made as possible with no cracks, bumps, or gaps whatsoever (unless they're intentional of course). On the other end of the spectrum, make sure to regularly sketch out your design from scratch and to try out the small differences in your sketched design. The last point I'd like to touch on is to constantly revise your ideas in your head, but at the same time let these new ideas simmer. When your excited about a map, it should be on your mind almost al the time. At the same time, leaving your ideas alone will leave only the best ideas. Have I submitted my work to the tester's guild? Quite possibly the most defining characteristic of any great map is it's admission through the tester's guild. There is not a single featured, competitive map that hasn't followed this step. Do it. Preferably more than once. __________________________________________________________________________ Have I Previewed? Previewing your map is a good way to test the waters, build hype, and snuff out any glaring issues before going public. As such, It is always a good Idea to give your map a preview. Have I posted to the best of my ability? Your post is divided into 3 sections (4 with a video): 1) Text- I've said it before and I'll say it again. Any map that you spent 8+ hours on should be worth the thirty minutes it takes to write three decent paragraphs. In these paragraphs you should outline the layout of your map and convince the reader to download the map. along with the paragraphs should be a weapons/vehicles/powerups list and a the other tidbits found on bungie.net (recommended players, gametypes, etc.) 2) Pictures- Pictures are the real sellers of your map. For pictures you should have 2 parts: Informational pictures which show overviews of the map, bases, and key points. Eye candy photos of your map along with some action shots. 3) Download links- Make `em really big and stick them at the top and bottom of your map post. That's it. Will I update my map until it's the best it can be? One oft overlooked part of the forge is the updates. Most people neglect this part due to the thought that they've completed their work. This is a very bad idea. A map should be updated at least once throughout its life cycle using the criticism of your reviewers. Although once is enough, I'd recommend updating it twice to kill every bug possible. Did I pat myself on the back? Congradulations! You just made your first map. Now that your map's done, uploaded and updated, you should take the time to appriciate your work. Kick back, relax, and make sure your friends and viewers give you the recommendations you so rightfully deserve. You've earned it. This might not be the best guide in existence. In fact I'm pretty positive there's someone who's made something light-years ahead of this. My guide is just to Show my point. My point is, we need to give a more centralized and mandatory amount of information to our newest posters. I've seen it done on many other sites as well. Forums have Implemented time or post restrictions on new members. In my opinion, we need to establish a way to make the newbies' first posts and threads limited to Q/A forums or forge 101/201. This would allow them at least a remedial knowledge of map mechanics so that we don't have any fatally flawed posts entering the databases. That being said, I'm not the perfect poster boy for veterancy and skill. I have very few post due to the fact that many of my old maps were messy at best. I'd tried forging in halo 3, but the forge system and the use of glitching was much too difficult for me. It ended up with my maps looking rigid and blocky. I couldn't manipulate the game well enough for me to use the game mechanics I learned. This led to a not-so-impressive 2.5 maps being made by myself. Due to my general inaptitude at forging, I spent my time on the theoretical side of map making. I've probably read every guide on this site save for a few. In conclusion, our noob problem is due to an imbalance in forging skills, and should be solved by the implementations of more Must Read guides in the forging section. Along with this, we as a community need to step up to educate the masses using criticism, guides, and general help. The reason I'm not putting this in the guides section is because the main reason I have for posting this isn't the guide, it's the points I've made about the state of our community right now. Thank you for listening, Atrain