Has the Halo 2 Downloads section gone back in time?

x088x · Post by **x088x** » Sun Jun 17, 2007 11:17 pm

Take a look at the Halo 2 Downloads section.. and look very carefully. Look familiar? Sans a few topics, that's what the Halo 2 Downloads section looked like about two years ago.

It's depressing, really. What happened to all of the good mods? What happened to our community? The Downloads section front page is cluttered with 5 minute mods, unfinished projects, and simple projectile swaps. I miss the days when the Downloads page was full of creative, intuitive, and brilliant mods.

Your thoughts?

And mods, I sincerely apoligize if this is in the wrong forum, but I figured this would be the best place to post it, since it is the 'Halo 2 Modding Discussion' forum.

JacksonCougAr · Post by **JacksonCougAr** » Sun Jun 17, 2007 11:49 pm

The problem is that we have many new modders coming in who don;t have the skills to do awesome mods yet, old time modders seem to be in a state of semi-retirement, and halo 3 on the horizon is making many people want to wait for it before they mod again. Also the fact that halo 2 IS a fairly old game now doesn't help matters all that much.

ScottyGEE · Post by **ScottyGEE** » Sun Jun 17, 2007 11:52 pm

I'll allow this thread...It is modding discussion and in all honesty, I expect it to be swamped by people wanting to know how to shader swap...

It is unfortunatley the reality here...But don't distress, there are always those key mods that keep us going...Like nightwinder and night ops. One wuld say last year was the golden age, with biohazard and faisal and Jesse, conversions by shade SwampFox and the like.

And plus...Good things come to those who wait

Codename: Epic will be revealed (not released) soon

JacksonCougAr · Post by **JacksonCougAr** » Sun Jun 17, 2007 11:55 pm

Hummm; lol; 'Epic' is my running code name for a mod I have in mind >_>

Sad though; we have so many tools at our disposal and so little being done to take advantage of them.

DemonicSandwich · Post by **DemonicSandwich** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 12:09 am

I find it strange as well.
I recall that all the Halo 2 sub forums having many more pages than they do now.

GametagAeonFlux · Post by **GametagAeonFlux** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 12:11 am

Eh, it's happened with Halo PC/CE and every other game too. People plan epic mods, make them, decide that they're done...and we're left with what we have here.

Plus, people may have changes in their life such as being employed in a new job or the like.

JacksonCougAr · Post by **JacksonCougAr** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 12:16 am

I got a job, I bought a 360, now I'm leaving my job >_> I still love my xbox, and halo 2.
Classics FTW!

shade45 · Post by **shade45** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 4:24 am

ScottyGEE wrote:Codename: Epic will be revealed (not released) soon

Epic eh?

I'm probably thinking of something totally different lol.

xzodia · Post by **xzodia** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 6:06 am

JacksonCougAr wrote:Sad though; we have so many tools at our disposal and so little being done to take advantage of them.

thats only a half truth since a lot of them seem to break all the time >_>
so maybe when a fully working program comes along it will relight the fire...mbmb...

Ultamis · Post by **Ultamis** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 2:05 pm

Theres only so many things that you can do to maps.I think we have pretty much hit the limit,that is until converting big bsps becomes a 3 step process that dosent take FIVE hours to do,and only works 1/3 of the time.Even then,you still have to waste countless hours trying to set spawns in ways that make the map balanced and fun to play,just to be called a "n00b" for "stealing my bsp" or "stealing my idea to use that bsp",and then of course finding out that your map freezes when you do something completly outside of the playing area,at which point you can either:

A:Start the whole thing over
B:Quit work on the mod and stop modding

The latter being the one ALOT of people are choosing,myself included.Not that I dont mod for my own amusement,cause we all know how fun it is to get something cool working.The h2 modding community is slowly dieing,at least until the next cool program is realesed.Then we'll have an upsurge of the same mod on every map.[/rant]

btw look for my "cool weapons on headlong" mod coming sometime within the next 7 years...

xzodia · Post by **xzodia** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 2:15 pm

i can convert a bsp in under 10mins (for the whole thing) >_> get a better pc

bibbit · Post by **bibbit** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 2:17 pm

I'm not very experienced. I might release a random fun mod I play with friends and family just for the heck of it. Every time I start a project, priorities take over, and it ends up getting deleted. I'll try to release something worth your time some time soon. it'll probably be a piece of crap though
Oh and btw, how do I do a shader swap for...oh, sorry. jk.

Ultamis · Post by **Ultamis** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 2:33 pm

xzodia wrote:i can convert a bsp in under 10mins (for the whole thing) >_> get a better pc

Not everone has the budget to buy a high end pc,and even if it only took 10 minutes,you STILL have to move spawns and everything.

xzodia · Post by **xzodia** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 2:43 pm

Ultamis wrote:
xzodia wrote:i can convert a bsp in under 10mins (for the whole thing) >_> get a better pc
Not everone has the budget to buy a high end pc,and even if it only took 10 minutes,you STILL have to move spawns and everything.

so? you'd have to do that if you made a custom bsp

and thats all thats left not done really

newbymodder · Post by **newbymodder** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 2:47 pm

yes new modders are coming here i was new to the fourm when we were i guess you could say in the golden age of birlliant mappacks ect ect. i admit i havn't released but 3 mods tops haha mostly noobish but still stuff that took me about a week like biped swaps new scenery new enviroment i was just working on my skinning when i stopped modding. But with the ability to make new larger BSP's the modding possiblities for new skins and enviroments in a new setting are endless but yes alot of the most 1337 modders of the fourms contribuite only 1 or 2 mods but every time they are "epic" mods that make us go wow you guys did it agian mabey my 3 mods im working on will make people go wow thats pretty good for a noob

im still working on a name for 1 but there mostly i guess you can say swamp/forest themed maps with active scenery balanced weapons and some cool effects. "skinning takes the the longest"

and well i don't want to mess with any AI for the time being i need to read up on the scripting stuff since i havn't done any thing with my xbox or this site for about a year

Prey · Post by **Prey** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 3:00 pm

I think its more of the fact that most newcomers don't bother learning the map file format anymore. Instead they just follow shit tutorials that tell them that 'by swapping this dependency in dothalo your pistol will now shoot wraith bullets!!!shift+1!!!!' ..and whilst i do not exactly have any qualms about what is being taught in that particular tut, the fact that they do not tell you why it will now shoot wraith bullets just makes it an utterly pointless piece of crap.

As time goes on, 'better' programs come out that do more things with lesser button clicks, and whilst again i do not have any qualms with that, again the fact that they do not tell you what is actually going on just makes it not worthwhile. I mean how many of you could actually explain the process behind 'converting' a bsp?

This brings me on to my next point; communication. Those who are actually good at finding things out about the map file (the minority), normally tend to keep it a fucking secret!

One great example, is the Prometheus team. I remember back when scripts were finally found by Brok3n Halo/SoL, and shortly following, a post from the Prometheus team stating that they'd found all that out months ago. It just slows down the whole community by being so 'separated'

As for newcomers posting mods that are just proj swaps; who can blame them? Theres no where on this forum that states how far we've got modding wise, how high the bar is now for mods.

Plus the fact that most newcomers seem to absolute fucking idiots anyway..

ScottyGEE · Post by **ScottyGEE** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 4:08 pm

It is true prey. Not only do the users just post for answers instead of learning, the application ease we now see makes most of that pointless...

This thread has unfortunatley made me realise how much of a decline we are in. Sure there are a few of us old memebers left and a few new ones too that always pull through, but so many have gone and left. With them gone, it seems to take a lot longer for a good mod to pull through since there are less of us. I miss Faisal's and JC's mods, not only because they were so plentiful and good, because of the competitive edge it gave out to other modders.

This decline will probably not ever balance out or turn the other way unless something crazy like custom bsp's happen because everything else is, for some strange reason, considered "standard".

Its also very wierd having been around for the whole run of Halo 2 modding, from the beginning to the end. Not as if I learned heaps, but its been fun seeing all the modding trends occur...and ones I expected to not occur.

But hopefully some of us can push halo 2 modding a bit further still, or at least come out with some good mods to last us until Halo 3.

Majku · Post by **Majku** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 4:12 pm

okay so when you said on my mod "Is this forum going back in time?" meant I hate this mod.

And yes there are new people such as me coming and posting our mods. it doesn't mean everyone sucks at modding now.

ScottyGEE · Post by **ScottyGEE** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 4:17 pm

Not at all. However one thing I always note is the amount of time some people put in. Some mods can't even compete with the mods done over 2 years ago.
For example, Undeadlong and Moon stronghold, they are really really old mods, over two years old. Back then, we didn't have fully fledged applications that can do everything. We had XML plugins that could only edit 3 values, yet we were still dedicated enough to make these large scale mods...So why can't people do this now?Sure one could argue one doesn't have any time. But the people who did it that long ago had the same. I've always stressed things like a good theme, no lag, balance and originality. Most os those things are sadly gone. Instead its snowagulation with wraiths shooting scarab beams.

As I said though, a lot of new users do pull through from the bad place I described above which is excellent, however, more often than not, I notice it doesn't happen either because they modder is put down for making a poor mod, they were looking for attention or that they can't be bothered learning.

Majku · Post by **Majku** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 4:21 pm

also alot of the mods I see in the downloads section are V1 or something like that. (even mine

)