Forge Map Contests and Interactions

So I thought I’d talk a little bit about 343i’s interactions with the players.

What I’d really like to see in Halo 5, is 343i interacting more with the playerbase of the game. Having competitions like “343i vs The World” where employees jump on to certain playlists and play a couple rounds with the players, and if those players win they get a souvenir or something. Maybe do Forge competitions, where some of the map designers from 343i or CA jump on and analyze player maps, with different competitions for different styles.

I think it’d be a great way to really interact with the community and understand how they work, as well as being really encouraging for Forgers to try unique or innovative designs that they can show off.

Have competitions for Unique designs, Mini-Games, Competitive maps, best Aesthetics etc. every month of so that would allow forgers to get their names out and have their maps judged by professionals. This would go a long way for players opinions on the company, for me at least.

With these competitions, you could have it set up so the #1 maps could be re-made on an actual map editor (with approval from the forger who made it in terms of both aesthetics and possible changes) and put out as Free DLC, and maybe occasionally have “Community DLC” packs that players could submit and vote maps for.

This would be huge incentive for Forgers to be constantly changing and innovating their designs, and I think it would push players to make some really creative maps and ideas. It would also allow for Forgers to get their name out in a way they might not normally be able to via a forge site, which I think would be super encouraging to a lot of people and beneficial for Forgers who go largely ignored.

At the end of the day, I think this would serve to really improve the relationship between 343i and the community, and we’d get some pretty cool maps out of it too.

TL;DR: I think 343i should hold frequent Forge map competitions of various styles and ideas in order to invigorate the community as well as improve their public image.

So, what does everyone here think?

I apologize for the overuse of the phrase “I think”, I’m not particularly in a writing mood at the moment. I’ll likely come back and edit this later.

First off they will have to give us a good forging tool…

One thing that I thought 343 should have done with Halo 4 was allow the community to come up with the default configurations for Ravine, Impact, and Erosion. They could have made a contest out of it or something. I’ve seen some pretty wicked things come out of Forge, and I think it goes without saying that certain members of the Forge community could have come up with better designs than that of Settler or Ascent.

If Halo 5 has a beta, they should include their Forge canvasses, give us our Forge tools, and hold a contest for the best default configuration of said canvasses. Then they could ship the game with these configurations on disc.

I genuinely believe that those would probably end up being the game’s best maps.