Say goodbye Created 20 years ago2004-07-24 11:50:06 UTC by VOX

Say goodbye everybody for I am leaving TWHL. I do not know for how long, but it will be for a while I can tell you. Why am I leaving? The quality of this site has almost been destroyed. When I came here, there were about 18 active members who actually had an interest in mapping. A few newbies came and went when the learned what they needed to know.

I am not ant-newbie or anything, but it seemed back then that everyone acted like adults. Even if your were young you still acted like you were older to win respect from Atom, Andy, Seventh and SlayerA. Now all I see is childish kids looking to make everyone laugh and are just ruining everything that The Founders had created.

The map vault I never even go to anymore. Nothing but crap maps that have 5 minutes of work put into them. Or a new person will join and post 12 maps. Who the hell would want to play a map with a block and a rock? Who the hell would want to endlessly fight monster after monster with no story, no purpose, no thought? Nobody! Now I understand why Atom doesn't come here anymore.

Well, I hope all these stupid problems are fixed when I come back, because if they aren't, and TWHL has sunken even lower, I will leave forever.

Amen

I understand what you mean, but good members leaving will just make it worse. You need to stay and keep your side up. If all the genuinely good mappers/helpers quit the forum, then it truely WILL be "say goodbye".

/msg VOX Goodbye :'(

im going wiht vox. il keep in touch wiht some people and obviously the horror mod of jazhel. but im sick of it to. to be really really fair, i think twhl sucks right now. it used to be good.

so goodbye all

maby later.

This is a very important point that we all need to look at and sort out. We've just lost two of our best members, because this place is turning into a spam hole, filled with lazy new people who want help, but because they don't put in any effort whatsoever to look for tutorials, they keep spamming the place with "How do you do this? How do you do that?". Not only does this drive people insane, but it shows that the place is dying. This never happened in the old TWHL. We need all our mods here if possible (Yes, that includes atom), so we can search the forums, point people in the right direction, warn them not to ask for things without looking for a tutorial on the site first, and then everything will be fine.

Also, the map vault is a complete shambles: There must be hundreds of maps made by people who have only just got to grips with mapping, and think that we'll think they're good if they submit a quick 2 minute map to show they can map. However, they shouldn't be submitting first maps, test maps, and maps which are of a low standard IE: rushed, effortless etc. We really need to look at these, and possibly put up a set of map vault rules (And of course, remove maps which we decide are spamming the vault). These include only putting up maps which you feel are worth releasing to the public in completed maps (OK, so I was guilty of crap maps early on, but I deleted them a while ago), but example maps are fine at the moment, and problem maps is ok. People really should sort out their finished and unfinished maps though. It's pointless to put an unfinished map in the completed section, just as it's pointless to post up a map with a start point, a weapon, and an alien, just to show you can map.

Right, let's get this place back to normal again now.

And as for everything bad I've done in the past, I'm really sorry. I won't do any of it again

NOOO!!! dont leave us!! i will fix up my maps and delete some of them. . !!

i have been here since the old version of TWHL....ah the memories...the chats with atom, well emails, BUT STILL

NOOOOOOO!
Sadly there is much truth in what you say, too much.
I've not been here very long, but I also noticed a decrease of the quality of the members, the topic we talk about and the maps that are submitted.
But you all just can't let this place die.
This was the first community that I really loved, because it was different.
It was more familial than all the other places.
This community encouraged me on my return to mapping. I stopped mapping about one year before I joined because there where no such good communities. Mapping wasn't what it used to be, until I found this place.
Here I've had people that didn't only care about CS and making multiplayer mods. This was what I was looking for.
And now, after a short good time, I have to see it dying?
This really really saddens me.

NO, don't say that hazardous!! that makes me cry even harder!!

Floater:
Dude, you've been a member 8 days, you've spammed the completed map vault with at least 3 crap maps, you've spammed the shoutbox and forums with idiotic questions and remarks, and you post any little thing you alter or steal from others as some great comleted creation of your own.

YOU are one of the people that is making this place sh*t. Instead of acting the fool, why dont you go read some tuts and practice mapping. When you actually have the skills to create something decent, come back and post your creations.

You're trying way too hard to be the center of attention. Get skills and your creations will speak for themselves.

HEY MAN, LOOK AT THE COMPLETED MAP VAULT, you wont find a map there by me.

Yeah, you deleted the last 2 today. Which I might point out is AFTER 2 great members quit. I see you aren't taking my advice.

Whoa, did I join just in time for the fall of TWHL?

Too bad...

But you guys are right, there are too many ppl join too fast and submitting crap. Most of my maps get 3/5 and 4/5 ratings (thank god) but whenever I go to the map vaults, I see tons of 1/5's and 2/5's. It's ridiculous at the number of mega-noobs just joining and submitting maps that are made up of a room into the completed map vaults! Not only is VOX leaving, but so is Pepper.

This site is like a city. It's a pretty good small town, but people notice the beauty of the land around it, and many people come to the town. They find some minerals in the ground that would make everyone rich. More people hear about this and come to the town. Soon, there are big factories everywhere, polluting the land. The old town is ruins, because everyone now lives in apartment complexes near the factories. Soon, there are commercial bussinesses everywhere. People from all around are flocking to the city. The city grows massive, but the quality of the land goes away.

And that's the story of TWHL...

Here's some comparisons:

Town/City: TWHL
Land: The maps in the map vault
People: Members of the site
Apartment Complexes: Forums
Factories: Tools used to create maps
Commercial Bussinesses: Members telling others about their maps in the forums.
Old Town: Old parts of the map vault

"As the town grew into a city, the land quality got worse and worse" is the same as "As TWHL gets bigger, the maps get worse"

read my latest Journal entry for my feeling on this subject,

this really is a shitty thing to happen guys

as much as i hate to say it, prickly pimple has a point floater. you came here, spammed forums, spammed the MV, over advertised your website which contained noobish reviews and compos and ripped off tutorials.

i think its time to crack down on this spam in twhl. i joined just before the wave of noobs appeared, and ill admit im no pro at mapping, but what ive seen in the vaults just comes under the heading of fossilized donkey crap. weve really been to lenient with all this. for a start we need a certian amount of time new members must wait until they can post maps, and a limit of how many the can post per day. being a little stricter in thread deletings would go down a treat too.

i'm sorry if i did anything to cause this.

Yeah, in almost every forum you write in, you write not just one, but several posts in a row. Why can't you just cram it all into one post?

i dont want this blamed all on me. plz dont blame it on me .

are you listening to anything were saying?

I'm not saying it's all your fault floater. I have also been feeling this coming since wilsonscastaway joined. He was like the biggest noob mapper ever! When he got bad reviews on his maps, he never logged on again...

Look guys, u r all blaming Floater619 for evrything here and u have to take into account that it wasnt just him, just lay off him a bit, he probably came here thinking that he could submit some stuff and get it rated, just to see how he could improve on it, maybe find some support. He may be a nOOb, I dont know that, but all I am saying is dont blame this one guy for everything.

Hey wrangler, I just said I wasn't!

we arent blaming it all on him, or at least im not, but the point is he was one of them. were not trying to single him out. there were plenty of others involved.

i never sed u did Silent Gunz, that was a general reply

alls I'm saying is think about it before you lay into any one person

Well, let me name some othere besides Floater:

Flaming_Death
halfhack
hiccups
wilsonscastaway
paulkennedy

Sticks and Stones...
Before you all get way to emotional about this, consider a few home truths.
I posted a reply in My journal to a similar e-mail I recieved from a respected friend.
I will outline a few more specific details here:
1. You were all NooB's once (That includes 'The Wise one's')
2. For every crap post, there is someone who actually read the tutorials and found what they were looking for and didn't need to post!!!
3. People come and go, that is life.
4. If you honestly believe that we have lost the "best" mappers... then you are in dreamworld.
5. Actually answering forum posts with a 'Link' to obvious solutions might help.
6. Posting a reply "READ THE F'ING TUTORIAL" doesn't actually help.

Consider this:
You ask you Mum what time dinner is.
She answers "READ THE F'ING TIMETABLE"

How do you feel?
Especially since you never knew there was a timetable....

So, if you feel the quality of the forums has declined (and I tend to agree with you) then do something about it.
Hassle spammers by IGNORING THEM, but answer the real questions. After all, a person that asks a question only does so because he or she believe's that it is important.
It might not be important to you... but this isn't about you.

27 replies to a post that really only requires 1 reply and a link, shows me that most of the people answering posts are more interested in getting their post count up or seeing their name on a page, instead of actually adding Value.

Don't let this site become an elite group of fools who think they know it all and have nothing to add to the community, far too many other HL sites have died because of that.

Make this a first stop place for people new to mapping, and help them out.
Don't flame them, Link them to the right place.

[/RANT]

Yeah no on blamed anything on floater alone (though he is one of the worst offenders). But what people are saying is that the stuff he is doing is the stuff that's ruining TWHL.

Instead of listening to what people are saying, he ignores it and continues on in the same old way. For example, today he posted his forth "finished" map and it wont even load. Not to mention all the forum spam and total noobish behaviour. There's NO excuse for not listening to multiple people telling you to knock it of when you've just joined 8 days ago.

He didn't listen to the polite suggestions, so what else is there to do?

I agree Andy, all noobs shouldn't be punished for the actions of a few withbad behaviour.

wise words from andy and surprisingly, priclky pimp as well.

Extremly wise words indeed from Andy.

I'm not sure if I've been here long enough to really comment on too much anyway. I seem to recall in a forum somewhere that TWHL wasn't about creating a community for the best and most elite mappers from around the world. TWHL is for beginners. Sure it may get a little annoying sometimes but that is not a reason to intentional flame/spam/etc.

To pepper and VOX: Hope to see you guys in the future.

And a note to all: Keep it real. This is about Half-Life Mapping and that's how it should stay.

Indeed wise words by Andy, now maybe will actually post links instead of giving a LINK TO GOOGLE!!!!!

Agree with Andy, but I reckon that civily pointing people to tutorials is helpful. Just say something like "there are tutorials on the left bar. Consult the "In The Beginning" ones."

YAY! i mean, awwwww... j/k

BYE!!?

I haven't been here too long, or gotten to know many people, but in the short time I've been here, I've noticed a decline in quality in the MV, Forums, and such.

I'm guilty of being a bit hostile about replying to questions, I admit. However, I ask myself if people have eyes sometimes...I saw 6 AllocBlock questions in the same two days, only spaced by a couple other forum posts.

@pepper and VOX, bye. Never knew yah much, but I saw work from both of you and it's great.

I took the plunge and logged-in, because this topic took me aback a little.

I thought you guys were overreacting just a tad, but then I haven't been following the GMQ forum or anything else in any depth. I've been visiting now and then to make sure everything's still, well, running, but I guess I've been too far out of the loop to notice the community's atmosphere changing, as it must be.

It saddens me that people are basically giving up on the site because of this. I hope you guys will reconsider...

But bear in mind that this is a beginner's mapping site. Perhaps with its growth it's experiencing a kind of n00b overload. We can't solve this by kicking people out though. We want to grow, right? Just, in a nice way.

I'm following hazardous's thread here, and promise to make some of the changes you guys are looking for. Perhaps we can evolve the site to accomodate the old-timers as well as the newbies.

Cities have a neat way of maintaining their character even as they grow, so I'm sure that with some effort and cooperation we can clear up some of pollution that's built up and get TWHL back on track.

YAY! Atom posted! My opinion on Atom's post: yes, the site has more "n00bs" than experienced members, but also has a lot of great mappers like kol, Captain P among other (including me :D).

I have been here for nearly a year and since I have joined, I have noticed that the members and maps have got increasingly shit(excuse my swearing, but it was needed). When I first joined, there weren't as many total idiots around. Everything was nice and calm with no disruption apart from the occasional bullshitting (excuse my swearing again) spammers. Yes, this site is a beginners site. But some people are pushing the limit of begginners too far. They post worthless maps which I could have done as a 2yr old if HL was out all those years ago. TWHL is definately going downhill. I will not leave you all like VOX and pepper have done. I will continue to be a TWHL member for as long as I am a mapper (probably a long time).

ATOM! HE IS ALIVE!

ATOM GET SOME NEW MAP VAULTS IN HERE FAST! YOU HAVE TO, TWHL IS DYING!

It's not a problem that newbies are here; that's bound to happen and what TWHL is about. The problem is that people aren't reading tutorials, old posts, etc, and are posting jibberish stupid questions.

I reckon that we need:

- More predominance on the tutorials somehow. Maybe on the front page.

• Flood control on the vault

• More sections in the vault

• Navigation of paged threads at the bottom! (Still having people saying "why aren't my posts showing up", then "oh nm".

• Slightly harsher modship, maybe. Deleting threads that are answered explicitly in one of our tutorials?

Those are very good ideas Seventh, especially the first one. Not enough ppl are reading the tutorials.

Atom and Andy have said it all. Very wise words.

All caps is very annoying, you know?

I think in someways it might be better now.
when i first joined, there wasnt that many people, on the newest member text at the top, it said welcome G_KID for about 4 days, now every time i look another person has joined, it used to take ages for people to respond to everything, now it is responded to daily.

there may be more "noob" mappers, but they will get better............eventually.
cya vox+pepper

It does kind of makes me angry that this is happening. Yes, there has been a recent 'onslaught' of n00bish maps in the vault. It is very irritating I know to go into the forums and seeing 'My box doesn't work'. I think the best way to combat this is, when you click on 'General Mapping Questions' a new page comes up, almost like terms of service kind of thing. Saying 'Before you start a new thread asking a question search the forums', 'Look at tutorials', 'Visit Tommy14's page to check the definition of your errors' etc. And maybe a 'Don't Show this message again' thing next to accept so we dont have to read it everytime.

I do think we need a filter of maps in the vault. A CS vault, And a beginners, and Better mappers vault. And a limit of maps. 1-2 a week? If they make more than that, it is obvious they are not spending much time on their maps, so they shouldnt be posting them anyway. An amount of threads that can be started each day - 3 sounds enough to me.

And when a new member is created, maybe have a form thing there. How long have you been mapping? A week, A Month = Give link to tutorials, and say this is a must read for all new mappers. 6 Months-More = Link to Map Vault.

Tell people to ask in IRC or post problem vault instead of always starting new threads.

In the Map Vault. Have in LARGE, BOLD font DO NOT POST YOUR FIRST MAP. If anyone does post their first map, and they say it in their comments, the map should be deleted and an email sent to the author explaining why.

I do think that the more experienced (you know who you are) should start posting their best work in the map vaults. And post their best work in progress in the unfinished. This should change the flow of n00bish maps in the vault, and it might give the new mappers an impression of what quality maps should be posted in the map vault.

I really hope we can get this fixed. I only recently (well not that recently) discovered this site. I only very recently became an active member in the forums and IRC. I would hate to see this die.

This is a message to all mappers getting 1-2 stars. Spend time making your maps. Put a whole lot of effort into one map for a while. After a whole lot of effort, when you think its a fantastic map and it couldnt get much better, you should post it. Good maps can be made in a week, if you are a quick mapper. Fantastic maps take lots of time. Be aware of that.

No offence to Floater619, But at one stage, after 4 days, he had 5 maps! 5 maps in 4 days? Fantastic maps take time. This is in no way aimed at Floater, as he has deleted his maps and has assured us that he will only post quality maps.

I really hope this helps.
-Trapt

Personally, I don't really like such restrictions. What if I want to publish some of my old map at once, some maps that aren't bad at all? What if I want to announce several things, several different subjects at once?

Some rules that members should keep themselves too, that's ok. In my opinion, off course. This would give moderators something to stand on, e.g. they then have a sort of law to base their actions on. So, a policy that members have to agree with first before entering the forum, or before becoming a member.

So far for my 2 cents...

Captain P, are you really likely to decide you want to post 5 "completed" maps in the same day? Even if they're all from a long time ago and decently-playable, it's not necessary to post them all simultaneously.

I have sent me mail of ideas to andy and atom and hopefully they should both read their inbox today.

But it's rather hindering when you can't. Just the restriction, as if you weren't trusted. The good ones suffer for the errors of the bad ones, so to say.
Anyway, this has happened, someone that posted 4 maps of good quality. Hypnos that was, if I'm not mistaken. So, it can happen...

Not that I have 5 finished maps under my belt, though...

You'd still be welcome to do so, just not all within a day