Site Complaints and Future of HM

[xbox7887]

Before anyone bitches or moans, this isn't anything to do with SourceGuy trying to create more revenue, or anything like that. It's not even anything to do with HaloMods, it's a personal project, that is hosted on the same server. Nothing less, nothing more.

http://gta.halomods.com

Just thought I'd mention that, seeing as Scotty brought it up. I literally have told like 3 people from here about it, and it's still got well over 100 members in a short space of time. It's because there is an active modding community in this particular game.

I'm not saying I'm not happy about the people still modding Halo here, but let's face it... there aren't many of you.

Gren's leaving didn't kill HaloMods,
SourceGuy taking over didn't kill HaloMods,
The forum being upgraded didn't kill HaloMods,
Halo 3 killed HaloMods.

Now that you mention it...I wouldn't mind renting some webspace under the halomods domain and I'm sure others probably would as well, just a thought

[-DeToX-]

Again with this modding on retail trulife? Last time you guys tried telling me you guys could bruteforce the RSA which resulted in me providing an integer that would do more than give you too many useless pages to print that represents how many combinations there are. Unless there's something I missed in regards to a hacked hypervisor/kernal then I doubt it. Unless it's a method of going through the exploitable kernel and etc, I doubt it. And if it's one of your personal projects I doubt it more than anything because out I the what? Thousands of projects you've tried they all failed miserably. Or ended up in you lieing to everybody.

Regardless running a hacked halo 3 would not let you on live.. There's kernal checks and there's disc checks..

[Trulife8342]

Dave stop causing problems ok? It is possible, It hasn't been released due to vulnerabilities to xbox live. Geez.

[-DeToX-]

Anyways back on topic, ads bug me aswell. The one's within post text atleast.. Others are fine.

[JacksonCougAr]

I think what might be a valid approach at helping solve the failing finances of Halomods is not to inundate the users with obnoxious and unnecessary advertisements everywhere in the forums, but instead go the route that many private torrent tracking websites have gone. By relying on user donations and giving the user who donate some image or badge of recognition which sets them apart from other users, or some privileges above that of a normal user, and visually shows their support of the site. One method which me and a friend have briefly discussed would be to assign an emblem to each user who donates for that month, when the month has gone by the emblem can go away as both a visual reminder to donate again, if that is what the user wants, or as a sign to show that they are no longer donating. An emblem is a nice way of showing the donations being made without being intrusive to other users, and provides a sense of reward to those who donate.

One idea that I came up with was that for the month that people donate more than X dollars to the website (I suggest $5-10) all the ads (both the banners and the in-line ads) go away for that user. And for those smart-ass's out there I know I could use ad-block to block the banner ads, but i am suggesting an alternative to being forced, or choosing, to block the advertisements that Halomods needs to pay for its server fees. I am suggesting a plan that would work for both sides, those who are not willing, or are unable to donate, and those who would perhaps be willing to donate, but only if certain things changed, or they received some perks for donating.

I am not suggesting that this would be the only perk for this system mind you, it would simply be one of perhaps a few. Between not showing ads and receiving an emblem for the month of donating I would more than willing to donate 10$ a month.

[Aumaan Anubis]

Your post was entirely non-constructive, despite you having looked up the meaning. It was just a personal attack on me and your defending your useless attitude.

If you feel that my post was not made in an attempt to "better" HaloMods, then you failed to read it.

Start thinking outside the box. What can we do to draw more visitors? This whole debate isn't getting us anywhere. Get creative.

What Geo did. Separating Touch Modding, GTA modding, and Source modding from the main board.

[grimdoomer]

Start thinking outside the box. What can we do to draw more visitors? This whole debate isn't getting us anywhere. Get creative.

What Geo did. Separating Touch Modding, GTA modding, and Source modding from the main board.

We need new places to explore. What do I mean? Simple. The reason this site prospered in the past is because at the time the doors for modding Halo 1, and Halo 2 where opening. Lots of people where conduction research, making apps, and breaking boundaries that had once stopped us. Now, these developers and researchers have moved on. Modding has slowed down to a very small, little, group. With Halo 3 getting everyone’s hopes up, then crushing then instantaneously, people have resorted to finding new hobbies. Although this was inevitable, and there is not much any of us can do at this point. Even though I can't offer any creative suggestions on how to restore the image that HaloMods once was, I can tell you this. All good things must come to an end. And although HaloMods is not ending, Halo Modding is. Even if tomorrow Prometheus was released, or Bungie released the source to Halo 2, it would still not attract the amount of people that there once where. The modding community is only a fraction of what it once was.

The point is no matter what changes the modding community will never be close to what it was. A few suggestions I have.

- Have weekly gaming nights for each Halo game HaloMods supports.
- In order to research and create apps people need basic skills, a couple more experienced members should create a tutorial series that teach these basic skills, ex Manipulating Hex, Mapping Plugins, etc.
- Information is hard to find without looking through the source of many apps. I'm working on a new White Paper for Halo 2, along with XZodia to try and complete or fix every plugin for halo 2. I think it would be beneficial to set up some sort of wiki (wiki.halomods.com maybe), or a dedicated topic for each Halo game, on the map format, and discussion about it.
- We should have contest to encourage people to be active in the community.

A couple of these things HaloMods currently does, but I think we should encourage them more.

[WaeV]

How does one whitelist a site with Adblock plus? i would unblock the ads here, but I can't figure it out. Maybe others can't figure it out as well?

Edit: Figured it out, just add a new filter for "@@http://www.halomods.com/". Others may not know this, however.

[Tural]

Also.

[WaeV]

Huh. I don't have an ABP icon with a menu like that.

[kibito87]

I just read the subdomain thread and I think that if we made a wiki for halomods for the things that grim suggested would be quite beneficial to members. I wouldn't mind reading up a bit on how to map plugins or even a in-depth tutorial on hex editing. My knowledge of these things is minimal and it would be a great addition. So I think making a wiki subdomain for halomods would be great! /my suggestions so far.

[Eaton]

I just read the subdomain thread and I think that if we made a wiki for halomods for the things that grim suggested would be quite beneficial to members. I wouldn't mind reading up a bit on how to map plugins or even a in-depth tutorial on hex editing. My knowledge of these things is minimal and it would be a great addition. So I think making a wiki subdomain for halomods would be great! /my suggestions so far.

I agree. I too would like to help with research, but I too have a limited knowledge on the subject.

[grimdoomer]

I wouldn't mind making a bunch of tutorials and filling in the halo 2 xbox and vista part of the wiki.

[WaeV]

Ooh, a wiki would be awesome!

[Yodel]

That's actually the best idea I've heard so far. I don't know of any existing Halo Modding Wiki as of yet, so someone go out there and make it! This could be just what we need to rejuvenate the least-active branches of HM, namely Mac Modding.

[SourceGuy]

I'll take the Wiki idea in consideration and see what can be done there. It sounds good: The information on halomods is not very well structured, although it is still the question how many people care for that information.

I will also consider the suggestion of creating new subsites for for example iPhone modding. Geo already did this for GTA.

How would you guys feel about splitting off the off-topic'boards, such as the cafe and hardware&software, to a seperate phpBB install on say cafe.halomods.com? Some people care more about the halomods community than halo modding itself now, and perhaps this is a way to expand in that area. There could be movie boards, music boards, anything people want to talk about. The downside, ofcourse is that for those interested in both, things would be split up over two phpBB sites, and it remains the question how many new people would be drawn to those boards.

[JacksonCougAr]

You split the cafe away and you kill the modding boards, its pretty simple. I would strongly suggest against such a rash move. Splitting the non-Halo modding boards makes sense in a way, but at the same time not really. It's better to keep everything in one forum; splitting between subdomains just segregates the community and is not going to result in growth, but instead a death of modding.

[grimdoomer]

Yes, I think we should keep all the HaloModding boards with the Cafe, and seperate the new stuff.

[SourceGuy]

Hmm, I disagree JacksonCougar. Take for example the GTA subforum on HaloMods. It would never be able to grow well as a subforum of HaloMods, because GTA fans don't care about Halo modding. As a seperate site, GTA fans would be more inclined to sign up there.
The same goes for off-topic boards: People with no interest in Halo Modding are not going to come here and sign up to talk about their favorite movies. However, they would sign up for a general discussion board site. Growth is actually an argument in favor of doing this. There are disadvantages though, like I described in my previous post. Doing this might keep the community alive, but it would be in a different form. One thing is certain: If we don't do anything, the halomods community will slowly shrink and eventually be gone.

[Tural]

If the cafe was split, you'd have a lot of people simply stop posting in other boards. I read other boards, and I post occasionally. If the two entities were separate, I would simply stop going to the other boards out of inconvenience.