Goodbye, friends and others.

[teh lag]

It's now been roughly 3 weeks since I said to myself - and 2 since I said to the site staff - that I was going to leave, and not much has happened to change my mind. I'm tired of seeing a site I have spent the last 4 years of my life on stagnate due to its joke of a user-base and staff which falls somewhere between "apathetic" and "morbidly incompetent" (pardon me if I find it ridiculous that freelancer.modacity.net is still operational). And so, rather than continuing to force my beliefs with respect to how the site should function onto people who don't seem to care for them, I'm deciding I'll just leave.

I asked the other staff members what they wanted the site to be. Are we a modding site, as the description in the source code of the front page explicitly states (I mean it, see for yourself), or are we just a hangout? The only definitive answer I got was from Timo, who isn't even a staff member anymore, who argued that we are just a hangout. I find myself having to reluctantly accept this disappointing reality. It's obvious to me now that I have been taking this place too seriously, and that, by extension, it's not the kind of place I want to hang around anymore. There's not much going on in the "Mod" part of the site to keep me interested, and as I'm sure people have been able to deduce I'm no fan of the "city", which we seem permanently tied down to.

I joined the staff team to try and make Modacity more than it is and turn it into what it could and should be - a modding website I'd be proud to say I was a part of. However, the site is frankly a mess and that's not something I can do. All I feel is shame and resentment that the site hasn't improved, and I certainly wouldn't recommend it to someone looking for a modding site. We could be one. I tried to give pushes in that direction in every way I could: from the community side, from the administrative side, and combinations of the two. In the back of my head I'm hearing "you just didn't try hard enough, how can you put down the site without having given it time!?" I am tired of trying. I am tired of saying to myself and others, "just give the site more time and it will improve". It is evident to me that people here fall into 3 categories...

1) They don't want to improve
2) They want to improve but don't know how
3) They want to improve but are held back by the previous 2 groups

...and that a site with such an arrangement will never be able to evolve into what I think it could be.

We have 3 administrators, only one of whom has convinced me that he genuinely cares about the website and only two of whom are on the site with any sort of regularity. You can count the number of staff members with moderation powers on two hands but I can count the number who I regularly see responding to site issues on one. We have at least three gargantuan administrative projects going on at the moment: the Downloads Manager, upgrades to VB4's CMS system, and a hypothetical forum viewer that would allow customization and automatic categorization of thread displays. These all sound like wonderful ideas, with the sole exception that we have one person who can work part-time to implement them. We started looking at the download manager in April. I don't know how far it's come since then – since progress updates are not very common in the world of Modacity site administration – but I can think of several things we could have used the past 3 months for.

Rather than working on small features that would allow fairly large changes to the site, our administration decides to take on projects which it cannot complete in a reasonable timeframe. The end result is that progress is hard to come by, while the site falls into greater and greater disorganization as these ideas lay around half-implemented. Why do we have setup where hiding Off-Topic will also hide The Studio? Why were "Valve Games" and "Orange Box" separate sections for at least a year? Why is the "Community Projects" section under the same category as site feedback and The News? Why is it that, 2 weeks after its inception, it doesn't even have the right goddamn color for its description text? Obviously the people in charge do think we're more than just a hangout - only an idiot would think of putting an elaborate download manager into a place where ex-modders and gamers chat it up - but I just don't see how what they're doing will improve the site at all.

The userbase is also an issue – perhaps not in and of itself, but certainly to my desire to continue working to maintain it. You could say that my feelings when I venture out of the "content" areas of the forum are a mixture of alientation and disgust. Moreover, as some of you may have garnered from my recent blog posts, I don't hold some of you in the highest regard. The culture of Modacity seems to have split from what I feel comfortable in (or maybe I from it) – but in either case it is frequently an irritating experience to browse the site. When Flibitijibibo left, he said (in a letter visible only to staff and Podacity members) that he was ashamed to say he had been a part of the site's community. All too often, for the past few months, I have felt the same way (but, as with so many other things, been reluctant to admit it). I'm particularly fond of a phrase I wrote in my first blog post, so I will use it again here.

I'm tired of wandering out of the modding sections here and finding myself in a horribly aggravating hodgepodge of /b/, /v/, /a/ and Something Awful.

I may be being completely unreasonable here. It may be an unfair thing to leave just because the way people act offends my obviously superior and advanced sense of humor and style. My feelings, though, are that I cannot adequately function as a staff member volunteering to take care of a community if that community aggravates me on a daily basis. It's not you, it's me (though many people tell me that it is, in fact you ["you" being people who anyone with some common sense should be able to identify]). So, rather than attempt to enforce my standards onto a community that doesn't seem to care for them, I just won't bother. Why should I place myself in the conceited position of a "last bastion of sanity" trying to hold back a flood of inferior behavior? I shouldn't. If the community is fine with itself then is not my place to criticize people for making lists with '???' and 'PROFIT!!!' added to the end for "comedic" effect.

And the problem with all of these problems is that we show no sign of changing. A year and a half ago I wrote my first rant on how annoying some peoples' sense of "Internet humor" is. A year and a half ago the same problem of us doing a lackluster job of fulfilling our title of "Modacity" was pointed out in detail by p0lar bear to the staff team. In early April, Kornman was calling out the flaws to the staff team in our organization and presentation, in our content and management. In May, Flibitijibibo wrote the aforementioned letter to us and pointed out all these flaws yet again – and it took quite a lot of begging and pleading to even get an official initiative set up to help improve the site. And what has changed? Not enough. Maybe it doesn't need to change - I'm sure that plenty of people here are fine with Modacity being just a site set up for the convenience of a dead modding community. It's not my place to criticize you all for that. As I've said repeatedly, I'm leaving because I'm tired of fighting a battle which, it seems, many people don't think is even worth fighting.

I wish that the site was more than it is. I wish that it was a place I could encourage people to join. I liked when I could talk about of pleasant, laid-back atmosphere - when it wasn't a stifling, overwhelming presence that pervaded the entire site. I liked when I could think of plans I had for the future and not have to deal with the reality that they'd never get implemented without effort that I'm not willing to give.

There is no doubt it my mind that I will be mocked for this, just as others have been ( http://www.modacity.net/forums/showthread.php?17729-A-Neat-Little-Surprise.&p=452262&viewfull=1#post452262). I am certain that I will be dismissed as some brand of idiot or other. Maybe someone will even try to refute my points, just as I did to Flibit's not long ago. Maybe I am sorely mistaken, and in half a year I will wander back in and humbly request to be re-accepted into a community I abandoned in my self-satisfied arrogance. Until then, thanks for nearly 3 years of good memories, and nearly 4 of so-so memories.

(For those who want to stay in touch - my Youtube channel (http://www.youtube.com/user/t3hlag) is going to become a whole lot more active soon, and you can always prowl Halomaps if you're interested in my last HCE project[s])

[SnaFuBAR]

Sadly enough, I wholeheartedly agree with you. As of late (or perhaps I'm just noticing) the site has become overrun by a flurry of internet comedian tryhards. Guess what? Internet humor isn't humorous. It's as dry as parched bones in the desert. If the overwhelming majority of your posts are internet humor, why are you posting? It wasn't funny the last 50 times, it isn't going to be funny this time. Keep your 4chan behavior off of this site, because it has obviously caused a regression of intellect. That's the whole reason the debate section was set up, so that people who actually want to have intelligent conversation wouldn't have to deal with inane posts.

[Timo]

This forum's potential to be a modding website died with Halo 2 Vista. You can't shift an entire community that was hell bent on modding a game to another just by creating new forums. It's unfortunate, but that's the way it is. Maybe when gearbox ports halo reach this site might flicker into life again. Not to say that it's dead.

[Lateksi]

For real, you're about the best admin and your retirement will be a loss, but why can't you just become a normal member and check out the bs modding section occasionally? Like, post some of those youtube videos, there are still people who care.

[ODX]

There is no doubt it my mind that I will be mocked for this...Anyone who does, would have to be a complete, insensitive fucktard.

You have done a huge amount of work on this site Lag, and for the game most of us were brought together with due to our common love for modding it.

As you've said though, that 'modding' part is unfortunately dead. No one cares anymore, which is a real shame because that CMT Elite you're working your damn ass over will be a really really amazing contribution to the community. Hopefully you're still working on it, but if you are losing motivation due to the fact that rarely anyone would actually use it (though I'd beg to differ), but still want to get some things done such as reanimating the CMT weapons with the elite, I'd be happy to help and give my full-blown attention to it.

[teh lag]

This forum's potential to be a modding website died with Halo 2 Vista. You can't shift an entire community that was hell bent on modding a game to another just by creating new forums. It's unfortunate, but that's the way it is. Maybe when gearbox ports halo reach this site might flicker into life again.

Yeah. So I'm not going to try anymore. If that day comes when we have a second chance, I'll definitely think about coming back.

For those who don't quite get what this is about (seeing as how I referenced it a few times): this (http://tehlag.modacity.net/one/notpix/modacity/) was my "vision" for the site's future. I operated on the belief that if we could just make the forums more content-oriented and better organized, it'd be an important first step towards recovery. Evidently that's not going to happen.


For real, you're about the best admin and your retirement will be a loss, but why can't you just become a normal member and check out the bs modding section occasionally? Like, post some of those youtube videos, there are still people who care.

The thing is, I just feel like there's nothing here for me. I don't have any reason to stick around other than for the 10 or 15 people who are actually still serious modders, and anyone who wants to can keep up with my work through other channels.


As you've said though, that 'modding' part is unfortunately dead. No one cares anymore, which is a real shame because that CMT Elite you're working your damn ass over will be a really really amazing contribution to the community. Hopefully you're still working on it, but if you are losing motivation due to the fact that rarely anyone would actually use it (though I'd beg to differ), but still want to get some things done such as reanimating the CMT weapons with the elite, I'd be happy to help and give my full-blown attention to it.

I'm not done with my projects. Just this site.

[Shock120]

1) They don't want to improve
2) They want to improve but don't know how
3) They want to improve but are held back by the previous 2 groups

...and that a site with such an arrangement will never be able to evolve into what I think it could be.I understand this situation very well, and it saddens me.
I never knew you very well teh lag, but I'll always remember how positive you are.
You even went that extra length to be positive, in +rep and user's profiles.

[InnerGoat]

Farewell friend you will be missed. It was great having you around to help keep this place running, regardless of the outcome :)

[jcap]

You still have a massive understanding on any of the site matters. The reason the suggested forum layout never happened is because it was a step backwards. When Modacity first launched, do you remember how many forums we had? Every game and engine had a separate forum, and there were multiple discussion forums. Then we all agreed that it was too messy and forums weren't getting the posts they were intended for, so we condensed them all. What did we learn? Changing forums won't bring new users. What brings new users is content, and with few members actually interested in making content, there is no need for reorganization until there's enough content to actually shift focus. Otherwise, we're just hurting ourselves more by disassociating ourselves from the only thing keeping us alive.

The site administration is lacking, but what can we do? This site has major problems with its software, and only extremely experienced coder and webdesigners can even get a grasp of the technical challenges. The site can pretty much run itself in its current state, which is why we don't have a huge staff of admins. The reason we haven't added more is because no one has come forward with the technical skills to actually make progress (well, we haven't asked either). Much like adding forums won't bring new users, adding more admins won't speed up redesign progress. Unfortunately, "I designed my own website once" and "I made a php script once" are not the credentials needed to undertake such a project. While p0lar and I do have good experience, redoing this site would be like trying to move a 1000 ton boulder with two people.

I don't know why you insist on abandoning this site altogether, and going to Halomaps. Talk about a site with minimal administration and limited focus...

My posts from the other forum:

Frankly, if we want to gain ground, we need to convert members here from the other halo sites, since that is already an area of strong interest and knowledge. If all of the sites came together, we'd have probably 300 online.

Then, those interested in Halo would probably end up overflowing into the other sections.

I did have good intentions for this site too. Remember Cerebrum? Remember how much I was pushing for Modacity to be the central hub of all Halo servers and stats...TWICE? (First time would have been nice if H2V wasn't shit.) That certainly would have brought a boatload of attention, even if it was a simple thing for just recording games. But that didn't happen, and I had no control over it. That was the first major step forward in doing anything, because I even had template drafts completed and ready for populating with PHP.

You also misunderstood what I meant by "cool" when referring to the template system. I didn't mean "cool" as in "for the hell of it." What I meant was "vital to any further changes." No one except for me and p0lar has an understanding of how impossible it is to actually proceed with what we have now. Even if we can accomplish the impossible, by the time it's finished vB 4.0.5 will be out containing another 100 bug fixes and template changes which would take until 4.0.6 to correct. I AM PISSED OFF at MY inability to actually move forward. I really fucking wish it was more simple. I wouldn't have even started a template or made any sketches had I not really wanted to do it.

If you leave, I'll really miss you though. You were definitely one of the most active members and moderators. You always seemed to get to posts before me or other mods. And although I do disagree with certain things, such as the suggested layout and lack of work, I really do have to say thank you for your concern. You put a lot of time and effort into the site, for which I never seemed to be thankful for. I just hope you don't see me as a lazy ass who doesn't want to do anything, for the reasons above.

[ICEE]

Jcap, our current layout is messy as hell. It's like a fucking hamster maze. It may seem obvious to the member whose been here for a while, and has seen the changes, but a new member coming here would never guess that we discuss non-halo/source games in tech talk.

in other news, sorry to see you go lag. You've no idea how much I've learned from you.

[English Mobster]

It's sad to see you go, Lag.
I know I may have been one of the ones you were referencing in your blog posts. Especially a couple of years ago, I was one of those spouting out old, overused memes. I still slip and throw one out there at times.
If I may offer my opinion on what happened to us, what really did this community in was that last Halo patch, rendering Open Sauce and all of the work this site had been putting in to 1.08 (or was it 1.07? It's been so long, I can't remember) useless. I'm not going to blame Sawnose for caring about our community all these years, but I feel if that had been an optional hotfix akin to the one for Vista, I (and many others, I'm sure) would still be modding today. Pardon my ignorance if a hotfix was not possible in that situation; I've never claimed to know any of the technical side of Halo.
After that, I saw a significant drop in people who played Halo. For me, it wasn't worth putting the time and the effort into developing a map that few would download and play. I left my projects to rot and only kept Halo installed to aid Inferno in beta testing the Infernal Map Pack and Yoyorast Island V2.

Now, I would love to get into another modding scene. If I didn't hate the Source editor so much (due to my being tainted by 3DS Max), I would be one of those openly developing maps for TF2 here.
However, I don't like using the Hammer editor, and my 2006 computer can't run Unreal, let alone Crysis. I don't want to/can't mod the games this forum is based around, and so my contributions to this community are slim to none, with the exception of keeping a HCE Tutorial Index running.

But that's just the reasons why I'm not a modder anymore.

I don't stay here for the community aspect, God knows how many people here aren't still bitter towards my occasional bouts of immaturity.
I stay here because I have it bookmarked and because it's a good place to talk about gaming news.
I stay here because this is where my (admittedly few) e-friends hang out, although none of them are as active as they used to be.
I stay here because if I do make something, I have a place to post it and have people tell me how horrible it is and what I can do to fix it.
However, with each passing day, my will to stay here grows weaker. I'm actively seeking another modding community for another game. I don't know which game, hence why I continue to seek.
One day, perhaps I'll find a good community for a good game my old hunk of junk can run. Until then, I'm here for Halo: Reach and the gaming threads on Tech Talk.

Which leads me to my next point:
This site is not altogether BAD; it's mediocre at worst.
The reason for this site's decline is that game that serves as a base for this community is aging, and the Admins are struggling to convert this site into something it's not. This site will never appeal to Unreal or Source fans for the very reason that it was based around Halo. Why would new members migrate to a site that was founded on a game they don't particularly care for?
Granted, there have been a few exceptions, but since the site isn't FOCUSED around any particular (relevant) game, it won't gain any new members from any particular (relevant) game.

And that leads me to my next point:
As a whole, our members are assholes. Not to name names, but a few members here have always discouraged newbies, even when this site was in its prime. There was no "encouraging help" here, it was straight into the fire.
Anyone remember when I posted my first project here, Last Resort? It was, essentially, a collection of chamfered boxes. It was ridiculed. No one told me where to go to make my modeling better, they just told me it sucked and to GTFO the forum. The first person to tell me how to actually FIX things was Snaf, who linked me to the Berretta tutorial and I could never thank him enough for it.
On the whole, we are not a very nice community, especially when it comes to new members. Why would anyone join a community that has large groups of people starting petitions to ban a member because he can be an idiot at times? What does that reflect about our community? What if they're going to be the next target?
Someone has (or had, I'm not sure if it's still there) a quote from someone in their sig reflecting that we are not a community, we are an online gang. Sadly, that's all too true, and that's the reason why our membership will never grow any higher than it already is.
The nicer people of our community, as a whole, are teeming with infractions that never expire. As they slip up for one reason or another, those fractions hit that magic number and those members are permabanned.
Buckshot is an example. Sure, at times he could be a fuckwit, but most of the time he was a mellow member of the community, active in threads, and generally softening up the atmosphere of our community as a whole.
As his infractions accumulated and he got banned, we lost someone who was nice to the newbies. There was one less reason to join this community.

Unless, by some sort of magic, we get the people who act like dicks towards newbies to leave and convince a group of people soft on the newbies to sign up, this community's not going anywhere.
You were one of those soft on the newbies, Lag. You were one of our better members. This place is only going to get worse without you.

People will notice this thread, and everything will calm down for a while. As this thread fades to page 5, then 10, then 25, it'll act back up again. There is no way to get the majority of our active members to change their ways. Unless something major changes, this site's days are, sadly, numbered.

I have to go; I'll express more of my feelings on the matter later.

[Angelus]

Lag is spot on with his assessment. Everyone should be involved in this discussion, and if you're to cowardly to voice your opinion or to try once again to push this community in the direction which made you fall in love with it, you have no business being here. Lag is one of the smartest, talented, and level headed people I know, and the fact he's leaving means you guys have lost one of your most important people in this community, and I hope this is a shocking awakening to how far south this place has gone.

Things on these forums have been wrong for a long long time, and there's no single party to blame. There's been failures on all sides which have led to this degraded embarrassment of what was once a thriving community at the GBX forums. You're the leader here Jcap, and making excuses isn't going to solve the problem. I consider you a friend, despite the blow out knock out fights we've had on this forum, so what I'm about to say isn't about me having an issue with you. Truth of the matter is that ever since the community left GBX and was left to govern it's self, we've gone all Lord of the Flies on each other. We were all young and stupider when this all started, and we weren't ready to make our own community. Ever since we were left to govern ourselves things have only gotten worse. This isn't all your fault, members here haven't done their part to make this a healthy community, and I'll be the first to single myself out as an example.

If you want to fix this place, you need to look back at the golden days and learn from what made GBX a successful community, because Modacity has been dragging it's feet for a long time. This place doesn't need to be anything more than a message board as long as it has a healthy, friendly, productive community. Of those 3 things, Halomaps is contains only one trait, which is it's productive, which is why I always preferred it to here and I'm guessing is why Lag is going to be floating around there. Even CAD lurkers there more than here. If you can make this a healthy and friendly community, and draw users over here from Halomaps as well as find a way to make lurkers register, you can make things better.

If you care enough about my opinion, I'm happy to share it, but I'm not going to do it if my post is just going to get deleted :p.

-Masterz1337

[Sel]

Proud to be one of the only people actually doin shit here~

[Cojafoji]

Hey Lag,
As a person who came over after HIV closed down, I'm sorry that I helped to facilitate the obvious cause of your leaving. That's a genuine apology. I never got into the modding scene for Halo, but I have no doubt that if I had, you would have been an immeasurable resource, as I'm sure you have been to many others on this site. Best of luck in your future endeavors.

[DarkHalo003]

The people on this site have a lot of wisdom. I'm always sad to see y'all leave, especially when I'm about to really get to the most challenging parts of the CE engine. But y'all do good and I'm glad at least those who decide to leave don't leave out of anguish, but out of maturity.

[INSANEdrive]

Did I just leave one place just to watch what occurred All over again? O_o

I have just read all the comments here...and been slapped in face with a cold splash of DéjÃ* Vu.
Now I just joined here 'bout 5 days ago, and each one of my posts has been about "the old days" and where I as a Halo Modder originate from. I've been trying to move on from that but I keep getting pulled back in. By golly I'm starting to sound like an old goat yelping about the old times, trying to warn ya'll about dem flying machines. Or something.
My thoughts are...scattered. Please understand that I try my best to explain.

Any who...I read this and see some of what happened to Halomods. (GaAAA!!!!! Get.Out.Of.My.Head!!!!)
*Sigh*
Here's the Beginning of the end all Halo modding sites right here:

This forum's potential to be a modding website died with Halo 2 Vista. You can't shift an entire community that was hell bent on modding a game to another just by creating new forums.
Why did I stop modding Halo 1 Pc? For Halo 2 Vista. Crap.
And as time went on...people got bored. Isn't that absurd!?! Modders bored?!? (than again...that may be why some of you mod)
After seeing what other games could do, being all newer and shinier and what not, People moved on. If not from that, it was because life demanded it. Grenadiac, the founder of Halomods, "Left" because of a new child (as I recall).

This ...is step 2 on the Death of the site. The people who Coded the apps that made the modding possible...left. Halomodding would have NEVER HAPPEND, if it wasn't for some Homegrown apps and Relentless Research. HMT,HHT,(I think)Sparkedit (its getting fuzzy...shessh). Homegrown. And people for a time came.
Our last salvation, Prometheus, is more of a legend than fact now. Again... Life intervenes.

Once the talent leaves...then there is no one to teach the newer modders.
The site made for mods...becomes a club house.

This right here , I think, is what you are annoyed about. You want to mod...but there "is nothing to mod" in a matter of speaking. And a cycle happens. One person Leaves... another... another.Talent...the life blood of a Modding site....washes away into the net.
The only ones left try to savor the warmth of a corpse.

If you want to do something, find a way to attract talent or write a letter (in something called paper with something called ink) to 343.
Welcome to the city.

Had to get the thoughts out. Did my best to show the pertinence of what I'm trying to say.
Take it as you will.

Best of luck in whatever you wish to do.

[Shock120]

This forum's potential to be a modding website died with Halo 2 Vista. You can't shift an entire community that was hell bent on modding a game to another just by creating new forums.:maddowns:

Also hi INSANEdrive (http://www.modacity.net/forums/member.php?4135-INSANEdrive), Halomods.com had no chance of surviving because it had no admin or any programmers and user count was dropping rapidly.

rework3d.com is just a dead clone of a dead site.

Modacity, isn't like those sites, it still has a chance of coming out on top.
The admins are here, and there are modders, there's just one piece missing...

Prometheus was vapourware as told by jcap. ='(

[INSANEdrive]

Meh. I have spoken. Anything else on the matter would be a Hijack.

[Timo]

Hey don't get mad, i've been around longer than most people (May '04), and i'd hate to see this place die as well. There is still some modding going on here, Project Lumoria, Ifafudafi's particle effects, Sel's trains, etc. Once jcap gets off his arse the DH UI might see a bit of a revival too (hah).

My view is that you can't (easily) give individual members initiative to mod, nor can you coax them into doing it. But hey, I might be eating my own words in a few months.

[rossmum]

Laters, bro. Hit me up on Steam if you want to play games or just talk shit or whatever.

[kid908]

Orry to here that you're leaving. I've seen you around since you were L337 at halotrialmods.org (my memory might be mistaken. Sorry if that wasn't you, after all it's been nearly 8 years). I'm pretty sure I joined around the beginning of the shit storm, actually let me rephrase that. I became active around the beginning of the shit storm here so I can't see it in your perspective. This site is dieing.

I can sympathize with you on the face that there simply is not much quality content release on this site. I honestly stopped modding once I tried to find a game server in halo. It seems all that gets played are maps that offer the "big guns" no matter how no gameplay value the map offer and just poorly done (yes, I'm refering to hugeass and similar maps). Ofcourse, I haven't played in a while so I can't say if the community as a whole standards for a good map has changed or not, if so I might get back to it with new skills I've picked up since I stopped.

As for modacity, I've seen myself increasingly leaving the modding subforums and increasingly more (if I call it that. I rarely find the need to login anymore) active in the crit area. Work there show more quality seeing how people in there give good advice the majority of the time on how to improve. I think the problem with this site is it's on the Internet. Maybe some of these people, including me, would act better if it was a face to face community. Again, that is from my perspective and mine is quiet diff from prob most here. I'm the only one I know of in my area that is registered to this site and haven't made a personal connection to anyone here, depending if pissing a few of the members on occassion a personal connection. Modicon (modacon?) might be a good idea. Some community event to bring members together might improve the site experience.

I'm going to stop rambling. I don't know if any of that makes sense since I type how my brain organize stuff and the organization is all fucked up up there.

[Donut]

well shit, this is a wake up call if iv ever seen one.
ill start posting my limited amount of work if it helps...

[ODX]

You've no idea how much we've all learned from you..

Not just animation-wise have I been hugely inspired by Lag, but his posting and massively positive/humorous attitude as well. Truly a man and modder everyone should look up to and aspire to be like.

[Dwood]

Sadly, I feel like crap because I can't help but think that I'm probably one of those who put Teh_Lag off. :(

[flibitijibibo]

Guess it was good to do my big ol’ 90-day checkup a bit early, hm?

I can say that after a good 90 days, I really have improved in more ways than I had with the 3+ years of sitting around here waiting for a project to join (though, admittedly, I’m still currently working on one “Modacity” project and am on-call for another). To those curious about the letter lag mentioned, I must confess that I spent the whole letter throwing shit at you, the members, because you don’t want to mod. You know what? I know why now. Modding is fucking pointless now. There’s no need for it, period. Mapping (Sel’s project) and the occasional graphical improvement (Ifafudafi’s project) are as far as it needs to go anymore. To anyone I insulted over my (as Llama Juice referred to it) vendetta, I apologize.

With the availability of engines and their great flexibility, especially when compared to SDKs/editing kits, it would be beyond idiotic for someone to have a new idea and say “let’s put this in Source SDK,” or UT3, or even your beloved Halo CE. After dropping a TF2 mod and the UDK (fucking XAudio 2), I started looking at OpenAL and Torque, and now I feel like the work I put into my next major project will actually be worth something. Of course, creating something totally new takes a lot of knowledge and even more work, so it’s understandable when this isn’t taken up as easily as modding originally was. I’m still not sure why it took so damn long to realize all of this, but then again, I let Podacity go for 15+ episodes (I apologize for that too). Even retards can pretend to be competent, I guess.

Which leaves me to my last point. Chant this in any key you like (preferably a minor one): Staff sucks, staff sucks, staff sucks, staff sucks, staff sucks. This is not just because of laughable incompetence, but because what little they give is only done every 30 months because none of them care, period. In my time as a “staff” member, I saw 1 admin and 1 mod that EVER gave the slightest shred of effort towards the actual site. That mod has just left the site. If this were an office, these fuckers would have been fired ages ago. Here’s a tip on being a staff member: If you can’t dedicate a part-time job’s worth of time into it, YOU. ARE. NOT. A. GOOD. CANDIDATE. THE FUCKING END. I don’t care how fucking super “pro” you are, because with how little you produce (both game/site work), all that’s left is the snobbery. During my last few months here, p0lar was the only admin that people could even recognize without the help of a red name. He was carrying the site’s entire weight while BOTH going to school AND working. If you are on the staff reading this and you know in your heart that you cannot contribute the appropriate amount, do the right thing and step down. You’re filling up a space that someone else deserves. It’s not as hard as it sounds. As soon as Podacity started producing more pain than pleasure, I dropped it. That was it. I lost my seekrit klub access, but it’s not like that was a real loss. Your club in the Conspiracy is the only thing that you have to speak for, and it means nothing. It, means, NOTHING, and clearly contributes nothing. I’d be willing to bet anything that there is someone stuck in the bottom ranks that could do the admin’s job, but isn’t because someone else won’t come down from their pedestal. It has elevated to where it doesn’t matter how long they’ve even been here. If they’ve been here for 2 weeks, doesn’t matter. At least they know what the hell they’re doing.

Until then, I’m encouraging any aspiring modder/developer here to jump ship. It sucks that no other general modding/development site exists (not that you can call Modacity one of those), but that's no reason to just keep sticking around. Besides, the staff doesn’t give a FUCK about you. Actually, with that in mind, fuck the staff rant earlier. You know what guys? Keep your damn club. There’s nothing left of it, anyway. Just throw out the modders and rename it the gaming news and debate forum like I mentioned in May. There’s no saving this site. If you have to reverse the infractions on the biggest troll just to keep content “regular” and still fail to surpass that of a godawful community like Halomaps, you’re FUCKED.

If you want something to work on, shoot me a Steam message (Shdwsnipa). I’m sure a group of us could get something out into the world if we spend some time with it, even if we have to start up using UDK. To do anything through this site is, without a doubt, unnecessary.

[Siliconmaster]

Hey man, sorry to see you go. You have been a huge resource to this community and CE in general for the past half decade, and it's a pity the community can't be all it should be to support those efforts. Those of us who are still modding see old CE vets like yourself moving on, and it's a little disheartening. But if Reach ever gets ported, we'll be here ready to take up the cause once more. I hope your last CE projects turn out well, and that your next endeavors, whatever those may be, are just as successful as your past accomplishments. Take care.

[ejburke]

Have you ever seen those documentaries with the dead whale falling to the sea floor and a whole ecosystem forms around its carcass? And as the carcass is consumed, the first wave of scavengers move out and the next wave moves in, until there is nothing but bones left. That's kind of how this forum works. Four years ago, we were setting up on the sea floor, seeing a massive shadow of a fresh whale carcass looming -- gently descending toward us. Except it didn't turn out to be a whale. It was the Titanic (Halo 2's Vista release)

All things considered, this forum isn't doing that badly. For an ecosystem that hasn't had a meal in several years, this place is pretty lively. Unless someone has a plan for getting another whale to drop in our lap, there's really not much more this place can do besides survive. Deny it all you want, but the common denominator of most everyone here is Halo and it's going to take nothing less than a new mod-friendly Halo PC game to get this place's mojo going.

[TeeKup]

Well, I hope you'll visit from time to time. I'm sure I can bug you on AIM too. lol

[=sw=warlord]

I've read through your entire post and can somewhat relate, As much as I know we haven't exactly seen eye to eye I do hope you saw what I said in our previous conversations.
I agree with the notion about certain staff members who seem to be very complacent, as you know in previous private conversations, I'd like to add I've somewhat got a bit of respect for you in that you're taking the more decent approach to this than simply breaking down.
There are many ways you could have taken this action but you chose the most decent and modest choice possible and for that I commend you.

[cheezdue]

Sad to see you go. Even though I really don't know you well, it was great having a person like you around. Maybe some day I'll go to you for help whenever I get back to making maps. :D

[Arteen]

I don't know why you insist on abandoning this site altogether, and going to Halomaps. Talk about a site with minimal administration and limited focus...
The HaloMaps users actually care about maps and mods. Also they don't make angered, arrogant, selfish demands of your mod team even after you've explained that you aren't going to implement what they want.

[Limited]

Truth be told, I don't come here for the modding/map making. When anyone does post something Halo mod related, to me its like a high school reunion, everyone pops back and we have a look bad at the good old times, a trip down memory lane. Once the thread dies down, so do the memories.

I'm here for the people, I probably come off on some people a bit harsh, but I do really see us as a community, I've know a lot of you for a long time, its that connection that brings me back. Its not necessarily about Halo, its about talking to people who enjoy games, and who did/do enjoy messing around with the games.

The whole 1.09 fix really nailed Halo in the coffin for me, map makers have it slightly easier, because their research, their hard work in the map making, can still work on a new version. However for us coders, pretty much we lose everything and have to start from scratch. Which sucks.

I've moved away from Halo, the problem is theres probably only one or two people in the community that would be interested and knowledgeable about what I do now. Perhaps even do a collab project with. So me posting the stuff I do, probably wouldnt benefit any one here, which is why I don't post the work.

Sad to see you go lag, now I have no one to mix Wave of Lag up with...

[SnaFuBAR]

Bye.

Your posting sucks. Straighten the fuck up.

[EX12693]

Sad to see ya go. Though I'm not the best poster, you still were a good mod. That's all I have to say..

[Siliconmaster]

Truth be told, I don't come here for the modding/map making. When anyone does post something Halo mod related, to me its like a high school reunion, everyone pops back and we have a look bad at the good old times, a trip down memory lane. Once the thread dies down, so do the memories.

I'm here for the people, I probably come off on some people a bit harsh, but I do really see us as a community, I've know a lot of you for a long time, its that connection that brings me back. Its not necessarily about Halo, its about talking to people who enjoy games, and who did/do enjoy messing around with the games.

Yeah, basically this- Halo is cool and stuff, but I really go here to have fun and get critiques on my work. It may not focus around modding, but we all have had experience in that area, so it's easy to relate to everyone. Plus, the few really bad ones excluded, most people on Modacity are fun to talk to.

[t3h m00kz]

didn't know you very well but you seemed a pretty cool dude. sorry to see you go.

[Crackers]

I hate to be one of the many cynical ones here, but unfourtnately I do not believe this site will ever amount to more then what it is now. In every way possible I do not find the community focused enough to pull together and make this site a respectable one.
Harsh as this is, it is the truth based on our past history.

- Respected member leaves, giving us a huge kick in the ass.

- Everyone discusses what is wrong and argues

-When the smoke settles everyone has a newfound hope to clean this site up

-Next day everyone wakes up at noon and does their daily business completely forgetting about their ideas from yesterday

-Everything continues on as normal.

I think the only reason any of us stay here anymore is simply because we have no where else to go being secluded in this community so long or we have a certain gang of members we have grown attached to. I think a good example of this would be a hang out that was fun as a bunch of kids but as you grow up it simply becomes a habit or a ritual to report to that spot daily.

Here is my wisdom on the matter, and I doubt many of you will agree to it....
Close the site.
I believe the site has been shoved so deep in a rut that it has no hope of clawing its way out. What I call for is to start from scratch, EVERYTHING restarted, from the staff to the requirements users must have to join the site. This site was built for H2vista, and while it did get an overhaul, it grew out of already rotted roots. I say everyone holds a final council and we try to make a new direction for a new site.
Why this new site would be beneficial.
-A new site allows for you to cut out the off topic section and the other goof off areas to kill laziness before it starts.
- A new site will require a somewhat new staff, which i recommend to have qaulifications instead of it being a popularity contest.
With these new mods comes the elimination of the small gang of members who are on good terms with previous mods that could pull bullshit and get away with it.
- Elimination of the rep system. If the man has a good reputation then it should not be seen via bars but by the way he behaves on the site.
- A new set of rules. Halomaps is correct in some ways towards it's focus on modding only topics. While this new site could be somewhat more relaxed, having the topics geared towards modding only will give the mods the ability to get rid of the shit piling up in the gutters.
- A new punishment system. Generally I will see mods try to argue with a person before dishing out punishment. This gives an opening to cause more disruption. I suggest a "gag" feature that when a member starts to become too rowdy, the mod can simply gag him for a day. He may view the forum and pm but he can not post for that day. I also believe in a redemption system, where a banned person may come back if they can prove themselves to have straightened out.
- Elimination of special spots. Special spots can be a double edged sword and can cause groups of "alpha wolfs" to pop up and cause shit without any reprecussions. Getting rid of special priviledges such as these will even the playing field for all.
- the site offers another, important thing... A POSSIBLE CHANGE OF ATTITUDE.
The harshness of this site is astounding, and this new site with its revised set of rules could easily have mods enforce more civil displays of interaction. Freedom of speech is fine, being an overall douche towards a newbie isnt.
- Mod cycling. Having mods switch out every couple of months keeps them fresh and sharp to do their job to the best of their ability. I am sure every mod on this site at the start of their term enforced with strict adherence to the rules. As time goes on however one becomes more and more relaxed. Having this cycle would keep fresh mods in and would make everyone feel responsible for the community.

This was hastily wrriten and not very well organised. So if this idea is by some amazing miracle attempted, the final council for everyone would be responsible for setting up proper organization.

My 2 cents.

[Rook]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwkJ2sRrvt0

[CabooseJr]

It's sad to see you go Lag,

[SiriusTexra]

This place is like a once beautiful, now scarred and disfigured lonely chef, sipping his "amazing family recipe" no one cares about anymore, alone in the kitchen after hours, while his ugly wife is being banged by a much more successful and handsome chef and his stupid futureless kids hate him. However, he won't hang himself because he's still trying to hold on, and hes afraid and scared.

He thinks people still need him, that he has a job to do, but he hasn't had any customers in years. He's just living off his dead fathers inheritance.

Still, he pushes everyone away, and keeps the ones near who tell him hes the best, who tell him hes the man, the ones who use his him and abuse him and he has no way of understanding why this is all happening to him because the change is so slow and incremental.

All of this building up until one day, the last faithful friend leaves, and the abusive people using him send him over the edge. He tries to go out in a blaze of glory, but prematurely slips on the mess he never cleaned up, ironically sealing his doom. A quiet thud in an abandoned building no one hears, and a fat ugly rotted corpse that no one cares to identify.

The end.

Another faithful customer, another loving friend leaves the building, with holes in their feet and a crown of weeds in their hands, because there aren't any roses left anymore.

[sevlag]

cya lag, you will be missed man

and as for halomaps really now, the site has no additional moderation and its easy to get off topic

but yeah wish ya luck and i'll pay attention to you're youtube man

stay golden

[INSANEdrive]

stay golden
Bang.

[CrAsHOvErRide]

The whole 1.09 fix really nailed Halo in the coffin for me, map makers have it slightly easier, because their research, their hard work in the map making, can still work on a new version. However for us coders, pretty much we lose everything and have to start from scratch. Which sucks.

Not if you do it properly ^___________________________^

[Dwood]

Not if you do it properly ^___________________________^

Too bad too few people know how.

[Aerowyn]

I can say that after a good 90 days, I really have improved in more ways than I had with the 3+ years of sitting around here waiting for a project to join (though, admittedly, I’m still currently working on one “Modacity” project and am on-call for another). To those curious about the letter lag mentioned, I must confess that I spent the whole letter throwing shit at you, the members, because you don’t want to mod. You know what? I know why now. Modding is fucking pointless now. There’s no need for it, period. Mapping (Sel’s project) and the occasional graphical improvement (Ifafudafi’s project) are as far as it needs to go anymore. To anyone I insulted over my (as Llama Juice referred to it) vendetta, I apologize.


I said it once and I will say it again. The reason you never did anything during your stay at this community is YOUR OWN FAULT. You weren't motivated, or creative enough to come up with your OWN ideas, and instead you sat on your ass and you waited around for someone to HAND a project to you.

If it had meant so much to you, you could've taken matters into your own hands and STARTED A PROJECT YOURSELF. Oh, wait, that would've taken some :effort: on your part.

You say members "don't want to mod," but apparently neither did you if you never did a thing during your stay at this community. You were just a PART OF THE PROBLEM. So don't act all "high and mighty" because you say no one ever contributes because YOU DIDN'T EITHER. Unless you can say you actively tried to get the community involved in something, you can just :gtfo:.



Until then, I’m encouraging any aspiring modder/developer here to jump ship. It sucks that no other general modding/development site exists (not that you can call Modacity one of those), but that's no reason to just keep sticking around.


Again, why is it that you talk so passionately about how no one around here does anything, and yet you seem to be allergic to taking matters into your own hands if it bothers you that terribly? If you're wishing there was a modding site other than Modacity, go ahead and make one. If you think the admins here are shit, and you think you could do better, I'd very much like to see you try, instead of whining about how terrible they are.

[Limited]

Wow aero, what a cow.

I remember flibit begging people to let him do sound things for their project. What he fuck do you want him to do? Paint a fucking pretty picture? Flibit loves doing sound work, he isnt an artist. You complain he hasnt done anything for this community, what have you done? All I know you for is rambling on about Valve stuff, TF2 and L4D, and being a self righteous cow.

[ICEE]

Hold the fuck up modacity. This is not an issue in which we should point fingers at each other. Everyone whose an artist stopped doing what they were doing for the obvious reason that H2V failed hard, and CE is outdated in many ways. This is a good reason to stop working with that engine. That is entirely understandable. However, the community never moved on to source/unreal/unity/anything. Maybe because halo is what we're comfortable with, maybe because life likes to take all your precious learning time away when your past the highschool age, but regardless, we never moved on. Certain members did, but the bulk of the community stopped working. It is not a MORTAL SIN to quit modding, however it is entirely false to call ourselves a modding community when we don't do that anymore.

When I first joined H2V, I wasn't even a modder. I was a CMT fagboy who wanted to post in the spv2 threads. However, so many other cool projects were in the mix here that I was inspired to learn. I owe all of the (however miniscule) knowledge of game design and 3d art to this community, and primarily to teh lag and m6dEEp. Donut and I led sigma modding team to get our creative juices out. But it takes more than two artists to make a project, and without a skinner we never finished. Thats how my modding enterprise ended up. I would positively love to hop on a team for another engine, a team that PRODUCES. Lately all modacity does is sit around and stroke their cocks to other projects. We criticize halomaps for the childish nature of their userbase, but what do we do thats better? Our offtopic section is our busiest section. How the fuck many posts do we have in the collective "pictures funny random" threads? remember when our studio quick crit was a significant thread?

The way I see it modacity has two options

A)Humble the fuck up, stop calling ourselves a modding community.

B) Expand. Appeal to a greater field of modders for all the applicable engines. H2V is dead, stop living in its shadow.

[=sw=warlord]

I kind of agree with Ironclad, There's a very large problem, There's a few people who want to move to other engines but keep being told they should go back to the CE engine, which in my opinion stagnates the community even further.
There's plenty of people who want to get somewhere but there's only a few people who are willing the travel the distance to get there.

[Ifafudafi]

This site, for the most part, has some intelligent members. I have the benefit (or curse) of being older than most people here, and I've seen quite a few internet forums in my time; relatively speaking, as far as gaming sites go, this was one of the more sophisticated (this is the part where you laugh) communities out there. It's why I started posting here instead of Halomaps or some shit. The irony is that Halomaps is kept alive by a flood of idiots who like modding Halo but aren't any good at it, while this site is kept alive by a close circle of decent guys who can mod the pants off Halo but just don't care anymore. I'm still trying to figure out which of the two is better.

And while filibt didn't need to RAEG like that, there's only so much a sound designer can do in the grand scheme of things. It's the same for me; I've got tons of ideas for huge projects but I can only work within the small niche of particle effects. He jumped at the bit when I asked him to do a couple of sounds for my mod (hey supermods: Check the HCE Release section already) and has put out some quality work imho. He's more fed up with the lack of initiative in general, and while that probably does reflect on him to an extent, I'd much rather he sit on the sidelines than start posting those wild, useless idea threads I ranted about elsewhere.

Personally, after my mod's done, I'll likely hang around the OT sections briefly, but I'll be seeing what I can do with Unreal, and if that works, I'll probably find a new home at one of those forums. While I can see the site lasting for some time, I can't quite see the community holding together. It was founded by HCE members on the promise of H2V, and with the former game dying and the latter dead, there's just not much left.

[Aerowyn]

Wow aero, what a cow.

I remember flibit begging people to let him do sound things for their project. What he fuck do you want him to do? Paint a fucking pretty picture? Flibit loves doing sound work, he isnt an artist. You complain he hasnt done anything for this community, what have you done? All I know you for is rambling on about Valve stuff, TF2 and L4D, and being a self righteous cow.

I'll be the first one to fess up and say that I am not a modder. I came to H2V/Modacity because I was introduced to it from my boyfriend at the time, Lightning. I came for the social aspect. I have never pretended to be a great fabulous modder. I'm a graphic designer. And I am sure you know that from the fact that I stay within the general "DISCUSSION" boards, like the Valve board. And I am COMPLETELY OKAY WITH THAT. And I'm trying to be involved with Sel's Train Pack for TF2 that he's working on, so technically, I'm at least trying to be a credit to team.

I have been very vocal about what can be done to make this community a better place. Just because I do not mod doesn't mean I'm blind to what goes on in the modding portions of this forum. If you had the ability to see the "secret" board we had about "saving the site," you'd see me and many others there, making suggestions as how to bring more interest to the site, and how (and how not) to bring modding back to the forefront, with several other GREAT members of this community pitching in ideas. You may see me as someone who "rambles" about Valve shit, but I back it up with the fact that I at least make suggestions to our higher-ups instead of sitting on my ass saying, "Man, this shit sucks."

I didn't come here saying, "THIS WEBSITE IS GOING TO BUILD MY PORTFOLIO" because I don't have to rely on others to spur my work ethic, nor do I need others to dictate what I need to do to make my portfolio stronger. If you DON'T do work during your time here, it's no one's fault but your own. Call me a cold-hearted bitch if you want (oh wait--you did), but that's just how life is.

If I sat on my ass all my life, never got a job, expected others to come to me to give me work, and then blamed it on you--yes, YOU--you'd probably be downright offended. You'd tell me that it was my fault for not taking the initiative to find a job. And you'd be absolutely right! Flibit is being just that way--he's blaming Modacity for the fact that he didn't take the initiative to start something himself. And that's not fair. Cold-hearted bitch I may be, but keep in mind that I am just being REALISTIC.

You have the ability to close your browser, sit down at your desk, and WORK, instead of sitting on some forum on the internet fruitlessly waiting on others to come up with shit for you to do.

And finally, I've been called FAR worse than a cow, so if you expected me to curl up in a ball and cry about it, you're just plain wrong. :allears:

[English Mobster]

The problem is that Flibit wanted to begin a project or two, but, like Ifluafadidsidnsuidnsdsafi, he didn't think he had the knowledge to begin one.
Now, granted, Ifluadadidshdishdisidhsidhsidafi began a particle effects project, and that's great! If I were Flibit, I would've begun a project to revamp Halo's sounds the way Ifluadsasaaasdsdfsdfeaaafi did particle effects.

That being the case, I've been working hard to get Flibit to begin working on something or another. He and I have begun discussing a potential project together, and although we need some coders to really get things going, so far we've been getting along fine.
That being said, the post a page back or so about gutting the site and starting anew was pretty much going to be that promised second post I had made a while back. He brought up every point I wanted to, as well as some new ones I didn't think of. While I don't think destroying this site and starting with a blank slate is the best way to go about things, I do think that we need some dedicated management to get the ball rolling.
(Also, the person with the quote in their sig about being a gang was AAA.)

[ICEE]

The issue isn't the people who don't mod in the first place. If it was, you should just string up heathen and bodzilla right now. Not every member of the community is a contributor. This is normal. These people are the spectators, and they have just as much right to be here as the contributors, and can even help by coming up with ideas and being constructive on the general boards. attracting spectators is how any good community thrives. Some spectators (such as myself back in the day) get inspired to become modders in this way. Some won't. Lets not attack those people, they did nothing to drain the community of its inspiration.

[Inferno]

There is plenty of content on the site right now. A lot of it is halo centered but a few others and myself are working in different engines as well.

[Limited]

Herein lies the problem, a topic to discuss with members, how to save the site, was remained in secrecy. Why is there no transparency in this site?

A good question to ask, is what do we actually consider a good community to be? Releases every week? People collaborating? People discussing?

If your looking at the community from a Halo related perspective, well you will find problems. The people who started it all, have moved on to newer things. Halomods died, people on this site are losing interest. People are just generally growing up, HaloMaps thrives because it has new members, I would not be surprised if average member age is 14. To them, Halo still has that spark.

Like Inferno said, people are moving onto bigger and better things, which is good. Personally I'd like to see more input in those areas, Source SDK's, people doing mappings, maybe working on a total conversion mod (for some reason everyone wants to do them >_>). Unreal engine is very nice also.

Malloys been helping me with some new development projects, working on games from scratch. Would love to see more people in that area, but its more time consuming and has a very steep learning curve.

And, I called you a cow so you know my perspective, I didnt want to be nasty.

[Botolf]

See ya around lag, hope you pop up every now and then.

On the tangent the thread is going on: For me personally, I only dabbled lightly with Halo PC's editing tools. Currently I'm sticking with the Source SDK and developing a singleplayer campaign for Episode Two (or possibly even Episode Three, should that drop before my project does). I do intend on eventually posting about that project, but that's the thing: I don't really have enough to show to justify a whole thread on it (yet).

[Inferno]

Herein lies the problem, a topic to discuss with members, how to save the site, was remained in secrecy. Why is there no transparency in this site?

If you had input you guys could have made your own thread in feedback. It was just a discussion of what we should fix/add to the site.



If your looking at the community from a Halo related perspective, well you will find problems. The people who started it all, have moved on to newer things. Halomods died, people on this site are losing interest. People are just generally growing up, HaloMaps thrives because it has new members, I would not be surprised if average member age is 14. To them, Halo still has that spark.

Like Inferno said, people are moving onto bigger and better things, which is good. Personally I'd like to see more input in those areas, Source SDK's, people doing mappings, maybe working on a total conversion mod (for some reason everyone wants to do them >_>). Unreal engine is very nice also.

Malloys been helping me with some new development projects, working on games from scratch. Would love to see more people in that area, but its more time consuming and has a very steep learning curve.


Most people don't even view the sections out side of Halo CE and OT which I think is the biggest problem. We need to find a way to get people interested in the other mod projects going on around here. Like Selendick's train pack and Neuro's indie game and my UT3 mapping.

[Bodzilla]

@first post

Hit the nail on the head man.
Everything you've said is the exact reason i stepped down as a mod and backed away from the site direction discussions.
I just honestly thought it wasn't worth the time or effort to involve myself as much as i had been to see such a little return.

Theres more important things to worry about.

The only reason i'm still here is mainly nostalgia. I've made alot of good friends over the years and I still want to meet yas when i do my trip around america so i'm hoping to stay in touch.

[p0lar_bear]

I figure I'll throw in my two cents here.

As stated before, when I signed on, I was on the Halo 2 Vista bandwagon, despite [still] not having a PC capable of running it. I happened to have messed with PHP and forum software before, and having the spare time, some good ideas, and desire to do something, I offered my time to Ghost and Jcap. Then Halo 2 Vista failed. We collectively decided to shift to other engines. I coined the name "Modacity" and put the idea in my head that we'd expand to become a resource comparable to most third-party modding communities.

What the fuck was I thinking?

I got way too ambitious and lost interest in working, repeatedly. Combined with some personal bullshit that's mostly my fault, I've had some major ups and downs during my time here, the biggest fall being the time when I took my little vacation around this time last year. Realistically, I know damn well I am not the best and there are definitely people out there, hell, even within this community, that could work circles around the three of us, adding onto and maintaining this site. Yet, I continue on occasion to kid myself so that I continue working on things. I suppose Sirius's metaphor fits here... maybe I'm just holding onto this stupidly in hopes it'll get better, because things were one promising in the past.

On the other hand, I'm contributing the time I do because I enjoy it. I'll be blunt: I'm not being paid for this whatsoever. I do this as a hobby, and if someone came in and suddenly turned this place on its head, and kicked me out because I work too slow and complicate things, so be it. Of course I'd be a little sore, but in the long run, it doesn't really matter. I don't parade the fact that I'm an admin here on a huge banner and think that it means something.

[sevlag]

so how about bridge CE? the duke nukem forever of the custom edition community?

but anyways this thread is getting out of hand, we're saying goodbye to a moderator who has done his job and just thinks this site is falling to shit (which it is)

sso like before lag, stay golden man

[Angelus]

I said it once and I will say it again. The reason you never did anything during your stay at this community is YOUR OWN FAULT. You weren't motivated, or creative enough to come up with your OWN ideas, and instead you sat on your ass and you waited around for someone to HAND a project to you.

If it had meant so much to you, you could've taken matters into your own hands and STARTED A PROJECT YOURSELF. Oh, wait, that would've taken some :effort: on your part.

You say members "don't want to mod," but apparently neither did you if you never did a thing during your stay at this community. You were just a PART OF THE PROBLEM. So don't act all "high and mighty" because you say no one ever contributes because YOU DIDN'T EITHER. Unless you can say you actively tried to get the community involved in something, you can just :gtfo:.



Again, why is it that you talk so passionately about how no one around here does anything, and yet you seem to be allergic to taking matters into your own hands if it bothers you that terribly? If you're wishing there was a modding site other than Modacity, go ahead and make one. If you think the admins here are shit, and you think you could do better, I'd very much like to see you try, instead of whining about how terrible they are.

All I can say is WOW, and I'm surprised no one else has flipped on you for posting that other than Limited. Flibitijibibo from what I understand is spot on with whats wrong here, just as is Lag. From what I remember, flibitijibibo was always a good and active member who tried to get things done. No one here gets stuff done, you're not a modder as you said, and I doubt you have any clue what really goes on for people like him. This community has it's fist up it's butt so much of the time no one can help ANYONE get anything done, and people have been hammered into such a mindset that perfection for everything is needed it's no surprise that no one gets anything done here. There may be problems on both parties, but flibitijibibo IMO has always been a shining star more or less of what people should be here.
You can probably count the amount of releases here a month on one hand from projects that are done by people from halomaps.

As harsh as this sounds, and I do mean a tiny bit of disrespect when I say this, but you are really not part of the community that is the core of this site, or well should be the core. We have enough idiots here that you got put up on a pedestal for being the girl, and if this site were functioning like it should, you would have very little voice or be tolerated for posts like the ones you have in this thread. Maybe it's easy to pick on flibitijibibo's opinions but I noticed you have no opinion on Lag's. They're both saying basically the same thing, so what gives? People like you are part of the problem of it being a hangout, and have power because you are part of the in crowd. I hope the mods warn you for that post, because anyone else would be.

[SnaFuBAR]

Masterz, the situation with flib was he literally blamed us for not hand feeding him, regardless of all the tutorials available on google and on this site, not just in regards to CE, but to other things. We still haven't hand feed him anything, but he got off of his ass to get something accomplished after years of doing only audio work. Only after he got off his ass and started looking for things, which he should've done in the first place. Someone's lack of motivation and action is explicitly their fault, just as it was only flibit's fault he got nothing done. It's that simple.

He worked hard at what he DID do, but that was just about it. Action and non-action fall on the self, and it's immature as fuck to palm off his laziness on others.

[FRain]

sitting around here waiting for a project to join


As much as you are right about this forum, and where it's going, and as is Laggy, you need to take your OWN initiative to do things for other engines. If you don't look around or start something, no one is going to go up to you and say hey join this project, and correct me if I'm wrong, no one knew that you did audio other than us around here, who, like you said, no one is going to hire you to do anything because we don't really do anything anymore around here.

That being said, I encourage you to keep going where you're headed, as long as you're all cool with it.
ps you should be on skype more often, the only person i talk to anymore is inferno and all we do is test maps and play starcraft

edit: lmfao masters you failed to see the point yet again
and im waiting for the negative rep i know you're going to leave me because i hurt your feelings

[ICEE]

I feel like we're horribly off topic here.

[English Mobster]

I feel like we're headed for a lock. This is degenerating into a flame war, and it's really sad for Laggy to have to end it like this.

[Heathen]

Your posting sucks. Straighten the fuck up.
because I didn't post a lolhuge post like jay I get in trouble? I only said what people who make goodbye threads want to hear.

[English Mobster]

Heathen, no offense, but your post didn't sound like it came off with any kind of respect. It seemed more like "Well, that's one less mod to worry about! Bye!" than "I'm sorry you're leaving. Bye."
This is essentially the forum's equivalent of a funeral for one of its best members. Don't try to pick a fight with the mods. Not here. Not now. Take it to PMs if it's irking you that much.
I'm saying this not only because this is a time for reflection and respect, but also because you've been one of my longest-standing friends here and I don't want you to get banned.

[CN3089]

flibit is a cool guy and he did podacity so you shouldn't rag on him well cya :)

[flibitijibibo]

http://www.modacity.net/forums/showthread.php?22023-Goodbye-friends-and-others.&p=549937&viewfull=1#post549937

http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/644/reportc.png

At the risk of having another lapse at some point and eventually becoming the very thing I hate (again), I would like to request that my account be permanently banned. I was foolish for thinking that any of this mattered and it has been demonstrated to me what the priorities are around here. I should know better than to have my own set of expectations for others in a given community, especially when I do not even possess any form of authority within it. I clearly do not fit in and am nothing but a burden to this site and its community. The more prominent members tried to explain this to me, and it is only now that I’m truly getting it. SnaF, Aerowyn, FRain, and any others I can’t think of at the moment: I sincerely apologize. If I were any other member, I would be banned by now. It is only fair. The ban will remind me of this whenever I suffer from such a lapse again. Thank you.

[Rook]

http://www.modacity.net/forums/showthread.php?22023-Goodbye-friends-and-others.&p=549937&viewfull=1#post549937

http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/644/reportc.png

At the risk of having another lapse at some point and eventually becoming the very thing I hate (again), I would like to request that my account be permanently banned. I was foolish for thinking that any of this mattered and it has been demonstrated to me what the priorities are around here. I should know better than to have my own set of expectations for others in a given community, especially when I do not even possess any form of authority within it. I clearly do not fit in and am nothing but a burden to this site and its community. The more prominent members tried to explain this to me, and it is only now that I’m truly getting it. SnaF, Aerowyn, FRain, and any others I can’t think of at the moment: I sincerely apologize. If I were any other member, I would be banned by now. It is only fair. The ban will remind me of this whenever I suffer from such a lapse again. Thank you.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqkGmxzjtw0

[Bodzilla]

Look i've seen Flibits original rant and his reasons for posting it and i think some of you guys took it just a bit hard and just a bit literal.

When he was talking about how he spent all his time here and got nothing accomplished, it wasn't because he was angry you whern't spoon feeding him, it's that the aura the site gives off doesn't make you WANT to mod, therefore your kinda dead in the water even before you've started.
the very core of any modding community just doesn't exist.

You've got to look at it a bit differently, it's more like when you've seen an awesome montage made by someone in the community and you just get struck by that feeling of "WOW I REALLY WANNA DO THAT" or you want to play and get better ect.
We simply dont have that vibe and i believe it's because we've set the bar so high accross the board when it comes to modding, and people get hammered for the things they post.
I've written stories, songs, posted some of my music among other things and i've just been nailed for little things in the pursuit of perfection from members of the community that i simply lost the desire to share it with people. Say what you want about criticism and how harsh criticism improves the standard, but it also lowers the drive.

Quality comes with quantity to be perfectly honest, especially with self-motivated hobby's.

[rossmum]

hi someone tell me why masters regs a new alt every time there is some form of drama on this site okay thanks bye

(by the way these forums are now so full of crap even i barely post anymore)

[sleepy1212]

I don't mean to be rude but everything in this thread sounds like symptoms of CE dying, just reworded.

Regarding modacity in general, I came here because I outgrew Halomaps (modding-wise) - they just couldn't help whereas here i was actually able to learn some new stuff and get answers for the moderately difficult questions Halomaps couldn't answer. However, since CE is dead, I'm glad a few of you are into other games because I soon as I get a better comp I intend to join you. Also, I'm a lot older than the average user so I appreciate the relatively older community here and I, like most everyone here, have many other talents which aren't covered by pure gaming communities.

Lag, you are a good poster, it's unfortunate you need to leave.

[Martini-562]

Sorry to see you leave lag, your work has been a great inspiration to me, and though I have nothing to show for it, I must say you (and several others) have helped me improve my work (which still isn't that great).

[Arteen]

CE's not dead and it never died. The population has been remarkably consistent, and there's always ~1500 pirates on 1.00. It's just that our particular community grew bored with the game or frustrated at the futility of making maps that no one will play and moved on to other things. Only a few of the prominent mappers and modders stuck around, and few of the big projects ever worked out. H2CE just disappeared, CMT has been running on an apathetic skeleton crew for years, and nothing ever came of Prometheus or Cerebrum or the like.

Honestly, all we probably needed to keep up interest was to have a nice, populated, custom map server that we all played on frequently. Making maps and mods isn't all that fun if you don't have any CE buddies to play with. Gone are the days of Hive, HIV, and the Bunghole.

[Angelus]

Look i've seen Flibits original rant and his reasons for posting it and i think some of you guys took it just a bit hard and just a bit literal.

When he was talking about how he spent all his time here and got nothing accomplished, it wasn't because he was angry you whern't spoon feeding him, it's that the aura the site gives off doesn't make you WANT to mod, therefore your kinda dead in the water even before you've started.
the very core of any modding community just doesn't exist.

You've got to look at it a bit differently, it's more like when you've seen an awesome montage made by someone in the community and you just get struck by that feeling of "WOW I REALLY WANNA DO THAT" or you want to play and get better ect.
We simply dont have that vibe and i believe it's because we've set the bar so high accross the board when it comes to modding, and people get hammered for the things they post.
I've written stories, songs, posted some of my music among other things and i've just been nailed for little things in the pursuit of perfection from members of the community that i simply lost the desire to share it with people. Say what you want about criticism and how harsh criticism improves the standard, but it also lowers the drive.

Quality comes with quantity to be perfectly honest, especially with self-motivated hobby's.

Win post, both about Flibits's post and about the standards bar at this website, and even more about how modding needs to be a self motivated hobby.

[SnaFuBAR]

closed by request.