For those of you who do not know me, I am Morax and have been a part of the Forged Alliance Forever community since 2014 and have enjoyed the past 5 years playing the game I have loved since 2006. You might ask why I say 2006 as opposed to 2007 when the original Supreme Commander debuted, and that is because I was invited to test the game among some other members of a clan called "Brotherhood of the Twisted Underground" (or BTU for short....) from the old Total Annihilation days. It was an honor to be a part of a group among other clans like TAG, the Gnugs, etc etc to see Mr. Taylor's follow-up. I started playing RTS games when I was 13 years old (am now 34) and have found that the genre has gone rather stagnant spare the efforts of the folks who work on this community. As aged as the game is, it still continues to inspire and build content like no other community out there, and yet, there is still work to be done that can show the game still has more to offer.
That is where maps and mods come in, and why I think creating them is so critical to keeping the game attractive to those new or those losing interest.
Personal Vision of the Maps & Mods Councilor
The role of a councilor for a gaming community is someone who not only fully enjoys the game itself, but the people, interactivity, content, and drive to improve.
My belief of the M&M Councilor in a quick summary is follows:
1) A didactic and driven person who learns the tools (map editors, modding languages, technical game functions) and capabilities to the best of their ability in order to discuss and teach what can be used to add content.
2) A regulator who decides what kind of rules and reasoning applies to different aspects of mapping and modding
3) Someone who will commit time to communicate to not only the council and devs, but the community itself (see detailed section below on what this means)
4) Maintain and update an active user base such as the M&M discord channel as a medium to act as a resource
5) Build a top-level list of advisers and talent (much like the PC ladder team) to assist and add further resources for people seeking info on certain subjects the councilor may not know enough about at present
6) Generate promotion with the promo councilor to demonstrate excellent works that can inspire others
Details of the Six Above Core Values
Number 1:
We all know things in FaF will be accomplished soon (TM), but sometimes the wait is worth it. I never thought I could seriously get into mapping as it kind of scared me a bit when I saw how much was involved. There was a rather lengthy and detailed wiki article (mostly written by Exotic and speed2?) that gave the general breakdown. The most frustrating part of it all was learning to deal with an alpha stage program (the GPG map editor) that was made usable thanks to some community members (do not know all involved, but you guys made this possible... so thanks!). It took me awhile to get into it: mostly updated some maps that had strange textures, symmetry gameplay issues like uneven mexes, etc etc. There must have been 10-15, absolute garbage maps I made before I cam up with "Maridia," which painfully took me dozens of complete remakes, getting harsh feedback from veteran mappers/modders, but in the end it was really pleasing to go from "A" to "B."
In time, I made some more maps, and even have gotten a couple featured in ladder. I spent a good year working with ozonex to help him test his new editor, which is dubbed the "FAF Editor" these days. Norfair was the result of pushing every feature in iteration after iteration, exchanging data between it, Photoshop, world machine, and some random symmetry checking tools that are no longer necessary.
All these efforts sound like self-improvement, but my feelings on the subject is this: "You can't help someone else until you can help yourself." I want to share that joy and enthusiasm to go from making something like your first cut map to a well-developed project that eventually sees a lot of play. It is a wonderfully-gratifying feeling to watch others develop, and helping that as best I can will be one of my utmost pillar values. In the past, it seems that is rare, but for every one that does join and make an impact, we are that much better as a community.
For mods, this is a learning opportunity for myself to get some more info on how everything works. I have very rarely worked in the code and familiarized myself with this subject. A panel of advisers will be really key here, but some good folks are around and have helped me here and there. I am not mapping much anymore so hopefully I can get this rolling and over the next years make content for it myself.
Number 2 & 3:
Maps and mods do have their negatives where things can get quite controversial. Just look at the "target priorities" mod thread and you will quickly see what I mean. The M&M councilor will not be the one who decides the outcomes for mods - no I do not think; however, an official stance and collective decision between that person and a team will look a lot better then an endless message board rant. It will be the duty and responsibility of the M&M councilor to hold their opinions until they are educated on the subject and make a word to convey.
I look at this mod as a prime example: [E] please!
Without my own words, it seems best to say that a collection of thoughts like the one from our PC is a better way to discuss then to vocalize oneself:
FtXCommando wrote:I’d ban any “ui” mod that does inputs for the player (turning radar off if you’re near e stalls, turning fabs off, doing “manual” reclaim commands, etc) personally. Or rather not ban in the sense they can’t be used at all but rather ban them in any competitive atmosphere which I guess for FAF would consist of ladder/tournaments.
Source thread
That said, I would like to take the approach of collecting votes with written word rather a simple checkbox "do you like this or not" so that opinions can be shared. The best route would be to take those concepts and decide if it's a community-desired action that the M&M councilor can promote. This will obviously result in some cases where I myself disagree, but I think the community voice is far more important than ever.
As for maps, I think the community is a bit soft on how they deal with these matters. When I was going through a Counter-Strike Source mapping phase some years ago, I posted a few maps that were about the same quality as some astro-crater-gap rip-off. The difference being that those uploads were either removed or cast aside - and with haste. I always pleaded why with some folks and the general response was pretty snarky, of the fashion, "you got a lot to learn noob." I hated that at the time, but if it were not for those instances, I would not improve. So why should we be any different here?
Do we really enjoy content like "Planet Zorg?"
https://imgur.com/a/OBNLIMS
I hope not....
Do we need the same map to be uploaded 3-12 times with varying titles?
Spoiler: show
I really hope not... This is a symptom of someone's lack of understanding or negligence, and we as a community should certainly help those folks at first. If they refuse to listen, then yeah, we need to give warnings out through official moderation protocol, leading up to banning use of the vault.
There are maybe a dozen people working hard to make maps. If those people made 2 maps a piece for an entire year, we would have more maps then most RTS games have for their ENTIRE life through official release.
There is a lot of merit to be had in uploading a map - I get that - and will not report and hide/remove all maps. That cannot be done as it will deter everyone away before they even get started.
Number 3 was tied in here because I want people to see the merits of well-thought content. Number 3 means: get feedback from advisers, people, etc on how to regulate things and promote them. I personally would enjoy getting talks from users about the state of things, how we aim to improve, and see potential where I myself do not see it.
Number 4:
I think this should be self-explanatory, but for those of you who do not know, SilentWarrior created a dedicated discord channel https://discord.gg/Z5pVWSx that has been filled with many talents and prospects over the time since its creation. There has been a lot of controversy, ups and downs, but it has progressed and become a valuable place to exchange information.
Leaving this concept would be extremely foolish, and I intend to work with everyone there and help transition Silent out so he can comfortably work on what has kept him from being more available.
Please join in if you want to create a map or mod and do use the feedback panel. It may be difficult and intimidating at first, but you have my word that I want nothing more than to help develop talent.
Number 5:
Who should make their decisions solely themselves these days? Hopefully no one... If someone needs a better explanation of how a team of advisers would work, let me know. I think it self-explanatory and hope others see it that way as well.
Number 6:
Councilor to councilor communication seems to be at an all-time low... When is the last time our PC had a poll or some official feedback about the inner-workings of FaF?
One of the core concepts that was brought up during my time assisting SilentWarrior in the M&M team was to make something called the "Sacred Vault." This is a name I don't necessarily want to use, but the concept is simple: make a curated vault where cherry-picked content is presented to the players of the community. THAT IS IT!
Time and time again I have read the logs and discussion about "maps that need to be hidden," only to get bored and annoyed, realizing it is such a labor-intensive job that it really calls for a system where either a special vault is on display, or the Promotions Councilor and myself will work to help boost content realization.
This does not apply only to maps, but mods in particular like Alliance of Heroes.
That looks fairly stunning... I had no idea that existed until I began talking to people about what to do with mods. Maybe a curated mod vault as well? There's quite a few in there and which ones are "community favorites" would likely be a nice to have feature. Obviously that requires dev time (which is nearly nada) so it will be a point of interest where I consult with Mountain (or whoever the Promo Councilor is at the time) to work up some reputation on these great additions.
Concluding Words
In summary, I really want to try and take a try at being on the official team of FaF. I think my passion alone is enough to help out.
I don't think I am the best person to do this as I tend to get overly-excited and speak before I think a lot, but why not try? I did not think I had enough time until SilentWarrior showed me otherwise. Best of wishes to you and your endeavors, hope to carry on what you started.
Be well, FaF, and good luck to whomever wins the council position.
