August 30th
Promotions and Retirements
OK, bust out your reading glasses guys cause this is gonna be a long one. Some of you may have noticed and some of you may have not noticed, but Forge Hub is proud to announce the promotion of another super Administrator extraordinaire! Who is it you ask? None other than our very own "could-actually-be-a-robot-but-we-have-no-proof" former juggernaut Moderator Shadow Viper. Congrats dood, much deserved and long overdue.
Bip. Bap. Bam. No, Sargent Johnson didn't just headshot 3 more grunts, instead we just promoted 3 new Guardians! For those that don't know Guardians are like the bicycle cops of Forge Hub. They have some power, but who is really scared of a cop on a bicycle?? Just kidding of course. The truth is you should be scared of these guys if you plan on spamming up the Maps section or Off Topic because they can dole out super painful infractions with extreme prejudice. So big ups to Adelyss, AGamer93, and What's a Scope?. Go get em guys.
And for our final promotion we would like to introduce iRaynne. He seized the opportunity to impress us with his advanced writing prowess and was rewarded with a spot on the Journalist team. Good job bud and do the red proud.
Now for the sad news. Part of the reason we needed to promote a new Journalist is because we are losing a few good friends. Rusty Eagle and Vicious Vice have done so much for this site, far more than most people know, but sadly they have to move on. Rusty will be returning to his prestigious rank of Architect, and Vice shall return to Loyal status. You guys will be missed and best of luck with all of your real life endeavors.
Also having to bow out of the responsibilities of being Staff members are our good friends Tecks and Vorpal Saint. These two former Moderators have held their banhammer's high for a long time and for that we are eternally grateful. They did us proud and will continue to do so as Loyal members.
Round 2 of Forge Hub's 1v1 Conflict tournament was underway this week and if you didn't get your match in on either Crown of Flies or Nostromo then you better get to it ASAP. Tomorrow will be the beginning of Round 3 featuring Impound and Pascagoula and it will also signify the release of the Round 4 maps so you can start exploring them and getting some advance practice in for next week.
If you remember way back when we announced this tournament you will probably recall all of the sweet prizes we were offering up to the winners of the contest. Chances are you signed up solely based on the fact that you wanted to get your greasy little fingers on these awesome prizes. Well, I am here to inform you that you should have read the fine print, and in this case the fine print read "Prizes are subject to change". That's right, not everything in life is guaranteed and sometimes changes need to be made. But before you go nuts and start screaming "Teh Staff iz Corruptzorz!!", said changes are actually going to benefit you!
Big ups to:
www.thecontrollershop.com
marissasbunny.com
youtube.com/brysi
With their sponsorships we are now able to offer up prizes that are even more beast than they used to be. Here's the new prize list:
First Prize
3200 Xbox 360 Live Points (4 Arcade Games; 6 HD movies; 10 SD movies)
Xbox 360 Game (Halo 3: ODST; CoD: MW 2; Forza 3; Assassin's Creed 2; Left4Dead 2; Dragon Age: Origins; Fifa 10)
Halo Wars w/ Flaming Warthog and Honor Guard Wraith code
Gunnar Optiks Product
thecontrollershop Custom controller
Bryan Simon CD
thecontrollershop Controller Grips
thecontrollershop Window sticker
Second Prize
Xbox 360 Game (Halo 3: ODST; CoD: MW 2; Forza 3; Assassin's Creed 2; Left4Dead 2; Dragon Age: Origins; Fifa 10)
Bryan Simon CD
thecontrollershop Controller Grips
thecontrollershop Window sticker
Third Prize
1600 Xbox 360 Live Points (2 Arcade Games; 3 HD movies; 5 SD movies)
Bryan Simon CD
thecontrollershop Controller Grips
thecontrollershop Window sticker
Fourth Prize
Bryan Simon CD
thecontrollershop Controller Grips
thecontrollershop Window sticker
Loser Bracket First Prize
Bryan Simon CD
thecontrollershop Controller Grips
thecontrollershop Window sticker
Pretty sick. And of course the prizes are still subject to change, but don't expect them to get any better than that!
Necroposting/Bumping
Yep, it is now legal. But before you say "But Creep, that is a dumb move! Now all the nubs who want their maps bumped to the top will flood the place and ruin our forums!", we have some rules you'll have to follow when doing so. First, you must have a legitimate reason for bumping it back to the top. This means you have to have at least done a Forge through and come up with some useful, constructive criticism. What we prefer is that you have actually played the map and have some suggestions for improvements. This includes things such as weapon placement, spawns, layout, lines of sight and so on.
What you absolutely cannot do is bump a thread with things such as "Cool map will DL 4/5" or "Hey how did you merge that bridge there". Things like that should happen in PM's and if they do occur they will be treated as spam, and treated harshly. We will allow authors to bump maps back up if they have a new version to release to the community, rather than creating a new thread. By 'new version', we mean significant changes - you can't swap a weapon or two around and call it a v2 just so you can get it back to the top. Also, as the author you are not allowed to answer some question or comment from 3 weeks ago just to bump. Not only will you get an infraction but Sarge will come to your house and slap you in the face with a fish. Not kidding.
Best of Forge Spring/Summer '09
In case you missed it the maps for each category have been revealed, so now it's up to you guys to vote. If you vote you get an automatic pass into Heaven. If you don't then you will suffer the same fate those map bumpers will. Some people may enjoy getting slapped with a fish, but trust me when I say you don't want Sarge coming to your house. He'll eat you out of house and home, borrow your underwear all the time, and flush BEFORE he wipes. Gross man, just gross.
Insane's 1v1 preview
Tonight at 9PM est our very own Insane54 will be partaking in our weekly Sunday Night Fight against our good friends TheRunningRiot.com. Some of you may have come across this thread a few days ago where Insane announced that he was going to allow a select group of FH members to join in the festivities. The real kicker was that they were going to play their matches on 3 yet to be released 1v1 Tournament maps. Understandably the excitement level was over 9000!! So to make things fair Insane used a randomizer to select which members were going to be allowed to play. Congrats to pinohkio, mikelp, and AmercanPsycho, because they have been randomly chosen to partake in this super l337 affair. Roche178, Xanon, and Dow will serve as backups if any of those three are unable to make it. Have fun guys and if you want to watch from Insane's perspective as it happens feel free to do so here:
Insane's Live Feed
Behind The Corruption
Behind the Corruption is an interview of sorts of the good hard working staff members here at Forge Hub. Each new site update will bring in a new staff member. This week it's Journalistic heavyweight LIGHTSOUT225.
Q. Who the eff are you and what do you do at Forge Hub?
A. I'm Aaron, but you can call me LIGHTS. I scout maps, write articles, and provide general awesomeness to the staff here.
Q. Pssh, we're awesome enough already. Good looks though. So how is it you got to your spot?
A. Moved up to loyal back in the stone age of FH, then up to Moderator a couple months later. I made the move from Mod to Journalist at some time a while back.. i have no clue when specifically to be honest, but long story short Ive been part of the staff for a long time.
Q. Mmm hmm, so a graybeard of sorts. So which part of community do you like the most?
A. The forgers? I spend the majority of my FH time doin official site stuff, but when I'm not I'm browsing the map forums looking for something to catch my eye.
Q. Yeah, that official site stuff really bogs down your ability to interact with the community sometimes. Anyways, got any tips for people new to Forge?
A. Plan your maps. Download Google Sketchup, WhybutterflyLiz's Sandbox components, and Fritzster's Foundry components and get familiar with them. Its a very rare occurrence that a map built to spec in sketchup prior to actual forging will turn out to be a failure.
Q. Yeah, unless Sarge designed it. Would you be willing to share some info on any new maps or gametypes you're working on?
A. I have several forge projects underway. There's a few mini-games I got cookin', and nearly finalized small competitive map that you'll get to see sometime next month. I also have some big plans for a remake of one of my older maps thats much more suited for Sandbox than it ever was on Foundry. As for which map that is, I won't say at this time.. but you can probably figure it out if you tried hard enough :)
Q. Oooh ooh I know what it is!!! So for one final question, if you could play Halo 3: ODST early with three other members of forgehub, who would they be?
A. Wait, you mean play ODST early AGAIN? Cause ya know Ive already played it twice...
Just had to rub that lil bit in there, sorry about that. I promise its well worth the wait :)
Anyway, it'd likely be Creep1ng De4th, Vicious Vice, and then Id like to see a deathmatch between a few specific people for the final spot, cause thats how I roll.
Pssh, you're damn right I better be on that team. Unless you wanna lose cause my Halo skills are boss. Well, thanks Lights much appreciated and that was....enLIGHTening :)
Quite a dank update, wouldn't you say?
I know I would cause I wrote it! Tune in two weeks from now for the next update that will probably spew just as much awesome sauce all over your face as this one did. Until then be on your best behavior or you'll be searching for a way to get that fish smell off your face. Lord knows I haven't found a way yet.