Update 9.8
A Lil' Hype Here, a Lil' Hype There, a Lil' Hype Everywhere
Barely two weeks remain until Halo 5 is here. It's so close that I even added a countdown timer to the site. We all got a taste of what Halo 5 is bringing back during the multiplayer beta, and since then massive amounts of gameplay footage and cinematic trailers have been released. The hype is building quickly. It's been 3 years since Halo 4 released, and it doesn't look like 343's been sitting on their asses. I for one am eagerly waiting to see the culmination of whatever Blue Team is trying to accomplish, how Locke will play into it, and of course I can't wait for the amazing performance of Nathan Fillion as Buck.
Unfortunately, I can't sit in a cryo-tube and have Windows 10's Cortana wake me in 2 weeks. In fact I'm keeping quite busy and will remain so well after Halo 5's launch, working on stuff to help make the future of FC just as awesome as Halo 5 is going to be. This update is a collection of things that'll be coming to keep our war simulations awesome.
Community Name
This is the first order of business to discuss, and you'll see a poll directly above where you can vote on the issue. As we've been doing since Halo 3, with the release of a new game comes a new face for the community. We are still Forerunner Conflict and have no plans to change that, but the subtitle is up for discussion, and we want the community to be helping us decide what we will be for the next two years.
First, a look back at our history:
- Red vs Blue: Retaliation (Halo 2)
- Forerunner Conflict (Halo 3)
- FC: Origins (Halo 3)
- FC: Reborn (Halo 3)
- FC: Revolutions (Halo: Reach)
- FC: Reclamation (Halo 4)
- FC: Legends (MCC)
Us in War Council have compiled a list of numerous options that we want you all to vote on. We went over nearly 50 possibilities, however we needed a shorter list than that. To narrow it, the options below were each supported by multiple WC members. Here are your choices (in alphabetical order):
- FC: Escalation
- FC: Redemption
- FC: Resurgence
- FC: Retaliation
- FC: Salvation
Cast your vote in the poll above this thread. The poll will remain open for at least a week, until a clear victor is had. As time passes, we'll slowly be removing the least-popular options until we're down to only 2-3. If the option you vote for gets removed, it will let you vote again for any of the remaining options, and I'll be sending messages out to those that this affects.
Spread the word to everyone who doesn't visit the site frequently. This is a community decision, and we want as many people as possible to weigh in their opinions.
Website Renovations
Those who have been here for awhile will remember that we've gone through numerous iterations of skins, website themes, and dozens of small adjustments to help keep the website working well and looking good. Metkil, our head Admin (and current BLUE army's Field Marshal), will be gracing us yet again as we head into Halo 5. A new game, and we'll be getting a new look for the website.
Not only a new look, but also some all-new features and functionality. Here's what Metkil had to say:
Post a reply below to answer Metkil's question on vCash.Quote:
Global Moderator Policy Changes
The Army Global Moderator positions are being removed. You may be asking why such a thing is happening. 'We need those positions!' some of you might say. Well, there is a simple reasoning to this.
Global Moderators no longer need to be neutral to hold the position.
Going into Halo 5, no one is going to want to remain neutral just so they can moderate a website. The actual thought of how the usergroups are going to be managed is still to be determined. In the mean time, the GMs who are neutral will remain in the Global Moderator usergroup and those who are enlisted will be sporting the Moderator Bar usergroup (the quarter sized usergroup image). Those who are enlisted will still be restricted to access to the opposing Army's forum.
Website Renovations
Changes be happening, yo. First big thing I have to announce is that we will be getting a fresh coat of paint for the website. We've used and abused the Socialze theme from PureVB.com for so long, it's starting to get very stagnant. After a few hours of researching and being super cynical, we have come up with something new for the website. We are working on in the background and have a lot of work ahead of us still. Here's a little preview (do remember this is a work in progress)
http://puu.sh/kGnWP/8f920c93dc.png
The next thing on our list is something people always like. To go alongside the new theme for the website, we will be implementing new usergroup images. We've had the same ones for a long time and they have served their purpose well, however it's time for something new. Guzzie has been hard at work trying to get these done for the website and here is a working prototype:
http://puu.sh/kGFBi/464ed4a4b1.png
Finally, it's the little things. These are so numerous that I will be posting another website specific update at a little date (most likely post-Halo 5 launch).
Before I wrap things up, I need opinions on a matter.
vBookie and vCash, should we keep them? If yes, please tell me what you think we can do to make them interesting to you. If no, please tell me why it should be removed, or what can be changed to make them more appealing to you.
In addition to all of that, Metkil is also going through and updating/removing some of the mods added to the website. The Gamercard mod, for instance, hasn't been updated since 2012, so we're removing it. The vBShop is also being removed. The Twitch mod and the Awards mod are being updated to newer versions as I type this. If something breaks because of these changes, let us know and we'll get things back up-and-running.
Another Reminder about Spoilers
Not everyone is going to be like me and starting a Legendary playthrough of the story right at midnight, so we need to be considerate of everyone else. As KazuhLLL posted a few weeks ago, please be mindful of this and include story spoilers within spoiler tags when posting them on the forum. You can view the original post here.
Failure to do so may result in your post or thread being removed and a warning. Repeatedly doing this may warrant an infraction for your account. For those unaware of how to use spoilers, you just need the below bbcode:
Quote:
[SPOILER]
Your message here.
[/SPOILER]
Or, you can add a title for the spoiler like this:
Quote:
[SPOILER=Spoiler Title]
Your message here.
[/SPOILER]
If you have any questions about using spoiler tags, just message me or any of the other moderators on the site.
War... War Never Changes Is Actually Changing
Back in Halo: Reach, we completely changed how we did our war simulations. Before Reach, it was simple and straight-forward, all we did was choose maps to play and play them to decide who won. For several of the wars on Reach, though, we expanded greatly from that, bringing in other rules and bits of complexity. "What if the war wasn't just Spartans fighting each other? What if we add some strategy to it? Make it more realistic!"
At some points, we took that too far. It got too complex and hard to understand. People didn't know what was actually happening, and only a handful of people in the entire community actually understood the rules and knew how the strategies were working out. We recognized the issue, and tried scaling back in dozens of ways, but never enough. Throughout Halo 4, this continued. For MCC, though, we decided to forego this entirely, and scrapped it, going back to something similar to what we had in Halo 3.
Now, strategy-oriented Rules of Engagement are making a comeback of sorts. Refined, fixed, and now as easy to understand as a boardgame. Played Settlers of Catan or Titan? Played RISK? Our new Rules of Engagement draws direct influence from the simplicity, flexibility, and strategic aspects of such boardgames.
It's too soon to release them in full, as parts of the RoE are still under construction and being finalized, but I look forward to the first major war of Halo 5. It's going to be awesome.
The Halo 5 Beta War
Halo 5's multiplayer brings a lot of changes to the table. Lower aim assist than previous games, improved mobility through thruster pack and clamber, ways to attack your opponent with ground pound and spartan charge, etc., etc. We want to take some time before the first major war to do some testing to see how FC is going to deal with maps, with gametype settings, and with player counts. Additionally, this will give us official events hosted every week to help keep people interested and show a taste of things to come for the main war.
Here's a tentative schedule for events for the Beta War
- 27 Oct - H5 releases. The hype.
- 8 Nov - Basic list of gametypes and maps for the Beta War are finalized. (exact settings will vary in each battle based on community feedback)
- 11 Nov - Details for the first battle of the Beta War are posted, including things we'll be testing the first week.
- 15 Nov - First battle of the Beta War.
- 18 Nov - Details of second battle are posted, including any changes from previous battle's feedback.
- 22 Nov - Second battle of the Beta War.
- 25 Nov - Details of third battle are posted.
- 29 Nov - Third battle of the Beta War.
- 2 Dec - Details of fourth battle are posted.
- 6 Dec - Fourth battle of the Beta War.
- 9 Dec - Details of fifth battle are posted.
- 13 Dec - Fifth battle of the Beta War.
- 20 Dec - Optional sixth week if people want it or we need to do it for some reason.
The optional sixth week will largely depend on when the exact release of Forge is for Halo 5. They said it will release in December, and we'd like to spend a week testing it and trying it out at the end of the Beta War. Hopefully it releases at the start of the month, but if not we may need the sixth week to do this portion of the testing.
After every battle, we'll be spreading around surveys where everyone can give us feedback. What worked and what didn't, if the map is good as-is or should be forged for the main war, if any of the gametype settings need to be adjusted, and anything else you can think of. We'll be taking the feedback and using it for the following weeks to try to find settings and maps that everyone likes using.
Then, for the main war (which will start in January, exact date to be announced later), we'll be using what we learned from the Beta War to kick the main war off with a bang.
From the Edge to the Center of Attention
Earlier in this update, N.O.D.E. was teased in Metkil's image. So... WTF is it? This is something Metkil and I have been talking about, for a LONG time. I believe it was first touched on about 2-3 years ago when I first got FTP access. However, it was always a "wouldn't it be nice..." type of thing. We really wanted to do it for Halo 5, and now it's finally becoming a reality. Five months ago, Metkil gave the first teaser mention of it:
While a cute teaser, it doesn't explain much, so I'll expand on it a bit: NODE, or the Naval Operations Deployment Engine, is a large project that I've been spending the last few weeks laying the groundwork for. Setting up tables in a database, writing thousands of lines of HTML, CSS, PHP, and SQL code, and spending hours troubleshooting problems. It was enough to pull me away from Destiny so much that I literally did not turn on my Xbox for 5 days in a row.Quote:
Originally Posted by Metkil5685
Yet I'd estimate that I'm only about 7-10% done with NODE right now. Maybe I was biting off more than I could chew, but with parts of the groundwork now laid I'll be getting a handful of other individuals to help make this project a reality. The plan is to get it done by the middle of December, in time for the main war to eat of the fruits of our labor.
I look forward to getting work done on this and being able to share more with you. Unfortunately, only the groundwork exists right now, and I can't even show a teaser image or something. However, if anyone is familiar with PHP and SQL and is interested in getting involved, contact me on Skype and we'll talk.
That's all for today. Halo 5 is approaching. The hype is real.
~Mythonian :cyborg:
