Site Update - Sunday 19th October
Far Cry Hub
With the US release of Far Cry 2 tomorrow and it's well-received map editor, we would like to announce today that we will be providing a forum for the sharing and discussion of Far Cry 2 maps in a similar fashion to the way in which Halo 3 maps can be shared and discussed here at present. Far Cry Hub will have its own version of the Forge Hub X skin which fits in with the theme of the game without distracting from your browsing experience by destroying your bandwidth. Map design, discussion and supporting the great things that spontaneously arise from our community shall be our focus, as always.
If you have an account on Forge Hub, you'll need do nothing more in order to participate - it's all under the same umbrella.
We're just working out the kinks - the wait won't be long.
New Kids on the Moderating Block
As spam has become a very prominent problem on our forums, an executive decision has been made to give select Premiums and Loyals the power to moderate the map boards. The selected members will have a new rank and rank image attached to their name - The Guardians. The first set of Guardians are Creep1ng Death, Predicide, corduroyCHUCK and DrawingMan. More will be promoted if the staff deem it to be necessary, but hopefully these guys should do the job. This is a temporary measure and the Guardians will be retired and reinstated as necessary.
Rep System Changes
After weathering several months of social experimentation, it has become apparent that rep causes more harm than good in its present format. Reporting rep abuse is apparently habit forming judging by the sheer volume of complaints, and -rep for meaningless reasons is as prolific as whoring off-topic for meaningless +rep.
The new look rep system has these super awesome all-new features:
All users now have 0 rep
Rep has no power, ever
All users over 5 posts can use rep
This achieves the following:
Users will never have a positive or negative score associated with their profile, and as such the primary driver for complaints is removed. Rep is no longer a 'big deal'.
Moderators have more time to deal with matters of importance, rather than petty squabbles. Maybe they'll get a little extra free time and be under a little less stress, too.
Users are still able to give feedback on specific posts without having to navigate away from the page. Mature users appreciate a thoughtful comment, whether praise or constructive criticism, and this is retained. Problem users can quickly be messaged about problematic behaviour, or advised on alterations to specific posts (such as map posts), by any member of the community.
We hope that everyone will enjoy this new stripped down version of rep, and that it will take some focus away from irrelevant numbers on the internet and putting it back where it matters: helpful advice, appreciation and so on. Things that help our community prosper rather than argue.
Remember, your post quality and general behaviour still counts. Now, however, you don't have as much ability to cause a scene. Mature members of the site will still notice your shenanigans, regardless of you having a red bar or, now, not - continue acting like a child and you are likely to simply be ignored.
Recent Promotions and more
As many of our members may have noticed, there has been a good deal of promotions since the last Site Update, including a pair of moderators to combat spam in the guise of Shad0w Viper and Linubidix. We have also bolstered the number of journalists with Pegasi Delta (not too recent) and Vicious Vice (very recent) who are constantly working to keep the front page up to date. Finally, Bl00D F1R3 and Roche178 were promoted to Event Staff to help with any future events the site may hold.
Also, today we are announcing the addition of two new loyals - Vorpal Saint and J A Y, for their contributions to the testers guild and the MLG forum respectively.
We have also had a fair few retirements - Chipsinabox has hung up the banhammer as has TXGhost; Mallet and Kapura from Event staff and Journalist respectively.
Premiums vs Non-Premiums
An epic battle has ensued within our forums, sparked off in the boards by AmercanPsyco and moving to the social groups. Both premiums and non-premium members have formed teams to face-off in a battle of pride and wit... a battle... of forge...
The premiums, assembled by none other than TheSilenceBroken himself, have a smaller team than the "Greys" but they are fierce at heart. The non-premiums on the other hand, have strength in numbers, but have yet to truly shine in the arts of forge and have undergone a change of leader from Bloumbas to Linubidix.
Each team is passing their map between members, each adding new sections. Gradually, each map is building up into the finished product. Once complete, we'll be checking back to hold a public vote on the winners! Who will it be? You can check out each team's progress by browsing their social groups: Premium Social Group | Non-Premium Social Group
PremiumsNon-PremiumsTheSilenceBrokenLinubidixBlazeIsGodVorpal SaintInsane54xX5w33ny70ddXxTDHardingMastarIv0rY Snak3TheXShadowXKingShock ThetaPegasi DeltaMattyGD27BlueDevilLIGHTSOUT225AmercanPsycoBL00D F1R3PiccetaGrifBloumbasSqorckDomiBoyBuddhacranePaulie WalnuttzTexFelipe dosShad0w ViperMetallic SnakeDraw the lineJ A Y-CorduroyCHUCK-Squidhands-chrstphrbrnnn