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HaloCustoms started as a site used for creating custom game lobbies and inviting friends using a unique RSVP system that made it easier for hosts than any other forum. It was developing in 2011 and fully launched by Insane54 with BigStack and TACTICS in 2012 along with previous members from ForgeHub and some entirely new members making up its starting population. The site has seen many additions and changes in format, features, and members since its launch. Forums HaloCustoms' forums have seen lots of use from its ever-growing population. Above are the on-topic forums for different discussions that take place on the site. There are directories to the Custom Games tab and Maps tab along with forums for discussion of each tab's content. The Media Stream is where all of HaloCustoms' official annoncements are made regarding Halo, HaloCustoms, and general gaming news. ShoutBox The ShoutBox is active with regular members like Sky, boomer, deathwish, and Steelgreen always occupying it (note: I am not responsible for the content of the ShoutBox). In the ShoutBox tab, members appear with blue names, staff members are orange, and admins are red. On the side you can always view a small overview of your profile including likes, posts, trophy points, and a list of online members. Lobbies This feature has seen two major changes over time. The original customs system was a list-style forum that allowed members to click on the lobby they desired to join and click an RSVP button to allow their name to appear on a list of attendees for that lobby. It involved a rating system for each lobby and had hosts reporting back to their threads to see who RSVP'd. The HaloCustoms 2.0 lobby system ran on a different page entirely and had the same essential features but a different style that seemed to have some slight issues and was less enjoyable for hosts. The latest version of the lobby system is an "improved version of [the] 'OG' custom games system." Above you can see the list of lobbies in a given week and use the same one-click style. Now though, with adderrson's help, members can now message hosts straight from their profile (along with a few other nifty features). Maps The Maps tab was not available at launch but quickly became one of the most popular features on HaloCustoms when it did. HaloCustoms has over 1500 maps in its library. It includes a rating system, discussions, map update logs, and map reviews. They even used to have a dedicated Review Crew. The Maps section is still widely used by Forgers. Streams Here's the latest feature implemented by adderrson on HaloCustoms. The Streams page hosts live streams from various streamers. Displayed above are featured streams based on the amount of viewers. You can see Ducain, Ogre 2, Biitersweet, and Jimbo above. A red number appears on the tab when someone from the site is streaming. As you can see, the streams can be sorted between the various Halo games and even others. Members On the Members tab, notable members can be viewed based on amount of posts, likes, trophy, points, maps, and staff members. We may even know someone at the top of a couple of these lists (@Zandril). Some may even recognize some of the other names up there that have not been seen in years. Meet Your Maker "The Meet Your Maker Forge Contest has always been a large-scale Forge contest attracting many different Forgers spanning all corners of the larger Halo Community bringing them together for the common goal of winning this massive battle royale of wonderful Halo map madness. The first Meet Your Maker Contest, the brainchild of previous Site Moderator Absolute Dog with the previous THFE, was a 4v4 core/competitive Infinity Slayer Forge competition hosted by ourselves in alliance with many big name Forgers such as Psychoduck, SaltyKoala, WARHOLIC, undr zid, and Spades N AZ. The second Meet Your Maker Forge Contest was a Dominion-based competition that brought out the best of the Dominion Forgers. Psychoduck created the third Meet Your Maker in conjunction with ForgeHub which took place on MCC's Halo 2: Anniversary. Now we have more presences involved in this year's contest than ever before. Hosted by HaloCustoms in association with us here at 343i.org and BTB.net with the support of well known YouTubers like UnsortedGaming, Ultimate Halo, Vetoed, and Zandril. We present to you the Meet Your Maker BTB Forge Contest." The latest MYM has come to a close and winners will be announced soon. YouTube The HaloCustoms YouTube Channel has map features and event highlights. This is where viewers can watch the winning map submissions from the Meet Your Maker BTB Forge Contest (along with other associated channels). You can subscribe here. Read a little more about HaloCustoms's admin @Psychoduck in our latest interview. We wish our good friends at HaloCustoms the best with their future endeavors and we're glad to have been on the administrative panel in such a large Forge competition! Readers, follow them on Twitter for lobby updates. Also please visit Halocustoms.com to register and meet some cool people. That's it for this week, read again Sunday for another CS.

Hey guys thanks for returning for this week's interview. As listed in the title, this week's interviewee is a returning individual who has been many places in the Halo Community including here, ForgeHub, and now HaloCustoms as an admin of the site and working for 343 Industries. Read on about Psychoduck: DD: "Alright Psychoduck, you've been lots of places and done many things since we last had an interview. Let's focus on the online part first: you've been part of HaloCustoms since the beginning. Can you give us an overview on your road to HaloCustoms admin and the stops between?" PD: "As you mentioned, I have been with HaloCustoms since the site was founded back in December of 2012. When I joined the staff team, I was more focused on my YouTube channel, but I quickly fell in love with the HaloCustoms community and began looking for opportunities to cross-promote HaloCustoms and THFE to strengthen both and improve the experience for followers of each. This desire to work with other community groups extended beyond my own personal projects and helped set a precedent for partnering with other communities for the benefit of all involved. This helped open the door for some cool events like the original Meet Your Maker contest, THFE Throwback Weekends, and others. After a few years of juggling moderation, promotional, and event organization roles for the site, I stepped into an administrative role when some of the previous admins stepped down. Now my duties are mainly to ensure that we have our staff team pointed in the right direction, to pitch and organize events, and to handle some of our web development. My most recent projects have been bringing back an improved version of our 'OG' custom games system from back in the Halo 4 days as well as to organize and help judge the Meet Your Maker Big Team Battle Forge Contest. I've been fortunate enough to work with another admin, Adderrson, on the former and with the fine folks here, at BTB.net, and at several cool YouTube channels on the latter." DD: "You've had a long career in the online Halo Community full of twists, turns; bumpy rides but also really fun ones. Bringing back the original-style customs lobby system seems much more convenient in my opinion and I'm glad it's back. Much easier way of organizing a lobby and Adderrson has done a great job adding nifty new features like messaging members through their profile. So you brought up Meet Your Maker. Can you give us some specs on the competition?" PD: "This installment of the Meet Your Maker contest was intended to bring out the best of the best in terms of Big Team Battle Maps from the forge community. Matclan and I began discussing a BTB contest a while back, and summer is usually the best time to host these contests. We focused on Magnum starts for the contest due to the negative effects BR starts have on vehicle use and long range engagements in Halo 5. For this contest, we really wanted to branch out in terms of partners. Bringing 343Industries.org back into the mix was an obvious choice and we also partnered with BTB.net, Vetoed, ZannyVids, Ultimate Halo, and Unsorted Gaming for the first time. It's been exciting working with so many talented and dedicated people from around the community to make this event happen, and that talent and dedication has been reflected in the maps submitted. Right now, the judges are in the process of narrowing the maps down. We're looking forward to selecting and announcing the winners very soon." DD: "We're really excited to see the winners announced and get to play on these Forge maps filled with hours of dedication. I'm sure a lot of people want to know this since you are one of our Community Cartographers: do these maps get considered for Matchmaking if they win this Forge contest?" PD: "The Community Cartographer title is actually a little outdated. While it's true that I work with 343 to test and select forge maps for matchmaking, the system has changed somewhat. Maps are reviewed and pulled from a group of submission threads on Waypoint. I merely help narrow these maps down and run the testing and polish necessary to make the best ones matchmaking-ready. On that topic, I highly encourage everyone with forge map they're proud of to submit it to the appropriate thread over there; just make sure it's been tested and refined to a reasonably polished state before doing so! So, the short answer is that all Waypoint map submissions are given some degree of consideration for matchmaking. Will some of the contest winners find their way into the Big Team Battle playlist? Well... it seems entirely within the realm of possibility." DD: "That's really cool that you get to work with 343 Industries on a regular basis. So it sounds like winners of this contest are really having their efforts paid off with the great prizes being given and this possibility of maps being considered for multiplayer use. So is the Community Cartographer title outdated for you specifically because you do other work now or is it kind of not a the title that isn't really used anymore at all?" PD: "The Community Cartographer title in general doesn't really apply anymore. 343 will work with various forgers and community members where the situation calls for it. That, combined with the new emphasis on the submission threads, is a pretty big change to how things are done. At the end of the day, it was only ever a title anyway. We're all just community members helping bring fresh experiences to matchmaking and other aspects of Halo." DD: "A great quality that you have is that you're very community-oriented and community-driven which shows through the various inter-site events you've hosted like the Meet Your Maker Contests mentioned earlier. Do you have any upcoming events or updates that you wouldn't mind sharing?" PD: "I've been very busy with work lately, so I haven't been able to plan too far ahead in terms of future events. Wrapping up the Meet Your Maker contest is my main priority currently. I'm really looking forward to Forge coming to PC and seeing what kind of custom game community forms there. Past that... I guess we'll just have to see what the future brings." DD: "Hopefully the future brings HaloCustoms and 343i.org together again among other Halo Community members and entities for some more contests, events, and support. We love HaloCustoms on our site quite honestly. I'm here every day with always a tab always open. I also steal all your featured lobbies and put them on our calendar for our members to message hosts if they wanna join and have their streams set up for viewing. Let's throw a silly one out there before we close this one out Duck: do you ever get hatemail after playing a game online in Halo? If so, can you give us an example of some really bad XBL hatemail?" PD: "I'm not sure if some of the hatemail I receive is entirely appropriate to share. I did, however, receive a message simply saying "MOTHER?" recently." DD: "Oh boy. Well that's good enough then lol so Psychoduck let's wrap this up right. Do you have any messages or anything at all you wanna share with the readers?" PD: "I have nothing else in particular to share. Thanks for reaching out, and keep doing what you're doing!" Unfortunately, I was not able to press him for any inside information . Big thanks to Psychoduck for enthusiastically participating in this. He's so pleasant for such a corrupt, but handsome (/hint), guy. Thanks 343iCF and other readers for tuning in.

This interview I was very pleased with because it gives the view of the site through the eyes of one of the members of our site's affiliates: The Halo Forge Epidemic. It also gives the background on THFE and why they decided to be a part of the 343i Community Forums. So please enjoy this one like I did: DD: "Where does your name Psychoduck originate from? How'd you think of it?" PD: "I came up with the moniker "Psychoduck" in sixth grade when I got my first game platform (the original Xbox) and needed a cool name to play Star Wars Battlefront under. It has no relation to the Pokemon." DD: "So this name is a long time running name, that's cool! What does your title, 'The Competitive Host', mean in The Halo Forge Epidemic." PD: "Well, at The Halo Forge Epidemic (THFE for short), we try to cover the full spectrum of Halo's forge mode. This means covering all types of maps, from Flood to Dominion. The group of maps I cover are competitive ones. This includes any map designed to play standard game modes like Slayer, CTF, etc. I am in charge of selecting high quality competitive maps to feature, as well as creating forge tutorials that relate to competitive maps." DD: "Ah very cool, you have a really important job then . Had you ever heard of the site before THFE became a major group on it?" PD: "I hadn't actually heard of 343i Community Forum until we began negotiating our partnership. I'm not quite sure how I missed it." DD: "We were about 2.5 times smaller when you guys had joined than what we are now and a lot of members stumbled upon this site when joining so it's understandable that you missed it. What influenced the partnership between THFE and 343iCF?" PD: "The partnership was brought about due to several factors. Mainly, we needed a place to send our fans for discussion and to organize map submissions to make them easier to sift through. This site not only provided us with those functions, but also acts as a friendly forum base to work with. After Oakley started sleeping with AD, everything just fell into place. " DD: "Finally after 4 questions you show a sense of humor! Well we're really dishing out the hot gossip here now aren't we? Oakley and AD, who would've known! . Well we were all very excited when we heard about joining of The Halo Forge Epidemic. So about Forge in general, what do you think of Halo 4's Forge? Do you have a wishlist for it? (For all the Forgers and artists out there who want to know from a professional's point of view .)" PD: "Well, I think that one-price Shmeefs is pretty much all Forge needs... But, in all seriousness, I am pretty happy with Halo 4's forge. The omission of precision editting and zoom are saddening, and the camera controls in general as well as the rotation snap and magnets could certainly all function a bit better. Overall, though, I think it's great. The dynamic lighting system is awesome, the canvas maps provide a lot of variety, and object textures are pretty nifty this time around. I do wish that the rumored jumbo coliseum wall was included, but other than that my only qualm is performance issues which should be a thing of the past on next generation hardware. It couldn't hurt to have a few more large pieces to use for flooring on BTB maps, but the current limitations keep us on our toes." DD: "That's good to hear, so Forge is still getting better then! Alright, how long has THFE been together? Are you an original member?" PD: "THFE has been around since April of 2011, back when it was just Darth Human and Bevans Law working out of Darth's bedroom. It wasn't long before Oakley was brought on, but I didn't join until a bit later on in January of 2012. My first video was feature number 44 back in Reach." DD: "Very interesting stuff! So how big is your team?" PD: "Well, we have sort of a core team of a few of us with a few dingleberry people hanging around on occasion. The core group is Oakley HiDef and myself backed by Mr. Pokephile, Able SirThomas, RLD HotTamale, and A J Yusi." DD: "That's quite a team you got there on THFE. So you're now listed as an official affiliate of 343i Community Forums, do you ever think about becoming more active on the site like posting outside of The Halo Forge Epidemic forums, using the shoutbox, maybe even attending playdates or competing in community Forge contests?" PD: "I've been fairly active in the chatbox here, but frankly I don't have a ton of time to look around the forums here. I appreciate the services we get out of the site, but I just don't always have time to fully explore everything this place has to offer. I host my own customs quite regularly, so I don't really like being constrained by the schedule of official playdates. Of course, it's always a possibility." DD: "The Halo 4 Playdate went really well and we'd all love to see you and other members of THFE at our playdates. Are there any members outside of your group that you are pretty good friends with on the site?" PD: "Oh I've made a few friends on the site like Cooltest Rap, Robius, Archy, etc. I'm sure some of us will make it to a game night some time." DD: "That'd be excellent! So Psychoduck, it's been great. Do you have any tips, tricks, or advice for the up and coming Forgers out there that want to reach your status in Forgery?" PD: "My only advice is to spend time to learn about forge. Look at tried and true maps and learn from them. Be open to criticism, and spend the time needed to fix issues brought to your attention. Of course watching THFE videos can always be helpful too!" And that's your fix of insight from THFE's Psychoduck! Thank you Psychoduck for taking the time out to do one of these with me. Make sure this man is awarded! Thank you 343i Community Forums for being awesome and supporting these I'm grateful to you all.

Download Link Player Count: 10-14 Gametypes: Team Slayer, Multi Flag CTF, 3-Flag, Assault, Neutral Bomb, Stockpile, KOTH, 3-Plots Hello everyone. In an attempt to bring more activity to the Forge World forums, several avid forgers including myself have decided to share our goods here. Most of these are not new maps (this one was finished last November after five months of testing), but these are quality maps which have been tested endlessly and honed to something resembling perfection. So, what is S? Well, it is a symmetrical map for squad/BTB games (10-14 players). The map is designed completely around creating a perfect balance between infantry and warthogs. The map plays a mean game of multi flag CTF, with some of the most hectic but balanced gameplay around. This video should explain everything to you, and I know you'd all rather listen to me speak than read a wall of text. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUkyY1grmfI&list=SP6A29376A730D8C40&index=3&feature=plpp_video So, that covers pretty much everything, right? Thanks to all the testers and everyone who helped with this map in any way. You guys are the best. For the rest of you, what are you waiting for? Go play this map! Don't forget, the map also supports 4-player splitscreen! Thanks for reading! Don't forget to download!