Let me start this very simply - this is not a rant, this is just a concerned member of the gaming community. I know many of you are too young or ignorant to read all of this so I will provide a summary at the end, but if you don't want to look like the arrogant 12 year old that odds say you probably are, read the whole thing.
Most of you probably don't remember this, considering that the majority of the users I see post lately have joined in the last two months, but imagine you were on forge hub last year this time. I started browsing this site in December - a couple of months after its creation as a wordpress blog. I didn't join until it was a forum however. The users were all friendly, we rarely if ever had these flame wars that are now so frequent on this site. No one cared about how much rep you had, or how many times you posted. You were only given respect if you said something intelligent. No one kissed your ass just because you were a Guilder or Mason (for you real new kids, the old equivalent of a Premium). Basically the site was filled with people that just wanted to get some fun maps and games. Games that were creative and just cool to play with friends. TGIF's were actually fun - no whining, just lol's and fun games.
I miss those days. Now let me tell you about what changed, because as I said, many of you were never here for those times. Forgehub got massive recognition from Bungie in January I believe, the site gained thousands of users. This was pretty much the beginning of the downfall. Kids came onto the forums and started posting maps that had no pictures or text, kids started stealing maps, people started flaming each other, and TGIF's started getting filled with no shows, or kids that complained the entire time. Forgehub was forced to switch to a different server because of all the views the site was getting.
Again in February - Forgehub got front page on Bungie when now retired Forgehub member Mallet had his map
Gradient featured on the homepage. Gradient was apparently the first time people on Bungie had seen interlocking, and everyone wanted to know how he did this, so Forgehub once again was subjected to countless number of new members. Forgehub in my opinion had already peaked its greatness and was somewhat steadily falling. At first the effects were purely within the community, but then it started to eat away what truly made this site what it was. The maps.
Instead of seeing creative mini-games from the likes of TrueDarkFusion and AZN FTW, we began seeing maps that focused more on aesthetics than gameplay. Instead of all these creative maps that had crazy ideas like Cat 'N Mouse, we started seeing maps that were perfectly interlocked and merged, but played awful. To be totally honest with you, I don't think there has been more than ten maps on this site that played remotely well or competitive in the last 8 months.
Sure, interlocking and geo-glitching have allowed unlimited possibilities for the forgers with the time and patience to do such effectively, but more than less all I see anymore are maps that look great, play bad. I go into the competitive maps section and I see NOTHING that is competitive. Competitive doesn't mean looks pretty. Dictionary.com defines competition as "rivalry for supremacy" or in the case of video games, seeing who's the better player. Nothing about pretty looking structures would help show this. Take a look at some of the last maps posted and featured.
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Space Age" by GD27BlueDevil
The major feature of this map is a space shuttle in the middle of the map. The rest of the map is crazy geo'ed and interlocked ramps around the edges. The spaces in between is seemingly random cover. When I clicked on the map and saw some of the pictures, I had to click back and make sure I was in competitive maps. I thought I was in aesthetic maps for a second. One picture shows a player getting hit with a flame grenade, and the caption says "this map can get competitive". Although I'm not going to argue the skill level and or competitiveness of flame grenades, I think just quoting that again is enough.
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Anilec" by Picceta
Probably the best example of aesthetics > gameplay. Some could debate, but I'd say THE most interlocked and geod map to ever be created. You could also debate that it is one of the worst playing maps ever. Call me douche, but what does having an unnecessary floor that ADDS bumps, and nothing but bumps do to help gameplay? Why does wasting 100 budget on scenery that doesn't effect the play besides add clutter and useless aesthetics. I don't understand how you can spend all the time on those geos and interlocks and not make it play good.
This goes to all of you - if you're going to spend all those countless hours doing these ridiculous geos, how about you spend half that time thinking about gameplay and what you could do to make it competitive and play well. You don't need to add all these barrels and barriers because it looks pretty. Maps that look good are fun for about the two minutes you enjoy looking around it. For example, Call of Duty 4.
I'm not saying don't use these glitches - I'm saying do it in a way that helps the gameplay.
So by this point I'm pretty sure you understand my thoughts on what you should do about the maps, but here's another thing that's eating this community alive.
Stop being douche bags. Here's a couple of things that are filling your bag of douche to the brim. Stop with the rep shit, I'd plus rep you to turn off rep. Seriously, first of all it's on the internet, which for those that don't understand means it's not important. I know the majority if not all of you whored your rep, so if you want your "reputation" to be as a whore, go ahead, keep it.
Secondly, stop caring about post count. All that shows is either how long you've been at the site, how many unintelligent posts you make, or how little time you spend outside with like actual people. When you post it should be logical, helpful, contain semi proper grammar, and more than 5 syllables. It is acceptable to correct someone's improper post, but either report the thread or make sure you're the only person to have done so. Don't post when it's not necessary or well formed.
The last thing I'll leave you with is a very simple concept that all of us at one point or another should know. Be respectful. PM me if I need to elaborate. Don't be a dick, and be helpful. I don't understand how in six months this site went from so dank to so hostile.
Summary, I lied, read the whole thing.
<3 Bnasty.