Halomods.com and The Halo Modding Future

I recently went to check in with the goings on over at Halomods.com and to my surprise I was greeted with this message

To the guys at rework3d and anyone else who was a fan of halomods.
I’ve decided to discontinue the site for reasons you can probably figure out yourself. If anyone is interested in taking over the domains and the rest of the site, send a message outlining your future plans for the domain\site to [email protected]. Whoever has the best plans for the site can have it. Deadline: 20 feb.

-SG

Now I knew there were some big changes that went on, there was a new domain and stuff but I was very shocked to see it complete down with everything gone!

What ive been planning on doing for a long while was to setup a place where people could upload old and new mods, programs, patches, articles on modding, research, pictures etc everything really, all to one place. With the relevant Creator/Author details if the mod wasn’t yours, Release dates, The History, Description, Different versions of the files etc – you know all those kind of things. It would be one big Halo Modding Archive spanning all the titles Halo1, 2 and 3 and all the different platforms.

I have currently host online some files and some big map packs ( http://halo.snaver.net/modding/h1x/mpack.php ) for people to download, I did this ages ago its just a simple html page linking to the files i’ve hosted. But this gives you a very general idea of what it would be like, it would be alot more advanced, dynamic and I hope there would be a lot more files and an active community behind it all.

It wouldn’t be a ‘forum community’ anymore sort of thing ( I personally dont think this is what people want anymore, if people just want to mod or find out/research about modding its hard to do that on a forum – plus its too hard to moderate aswell ) I would allow comments on files/programs/etc to allow for discussion and I would allow user registration so they could upload any random mods they had laying around on their computer, because I bet a lot of people have loads of Halo Modding related stuff on their hard drives – Which they may just get rid off.. Now that halomods.com is gone alot of mods are hard to come by!

I have quickly looked into it, and there could even be put online a complete static archive of the old halomods forum, for historical purposes so people could look back through everything – Maybe with the original theme!

Things would be have to be moderated and approved of course, but with the help of a few people it could become a great collection – a great resource for all the hard work people have put in. I would have to code a completely custom system, from scratch to do all this of course.

I have started to design the back-end and the database structure, but its a massive undertaking that will take a while – there’s no pre-built solution out there. Its going to be PHP/MySQL with the codeigniter php framework which I’m most comfortable with and I think will provide the most expandable solution.

I hope that someone out there, or SourceGuy has all the relevant files from the forum because that would be a great start – I could pull all the relevant details from mod postings into the new system, along with the files and it would save a lot of time of people uploading each entry one-by-one.

If SourceGuy is willing to transfer the domain control over to me that would be great too, then anyone looking for Halo modding related things then they would be able to find them easily.

Anyway this is just my vision, I would love peoples opinions and feedback on this so either send me an email or just add a comment here.

Cheers

P.S

If anyone has contact with SourceGuy please send him a link to this post, or ask him to check his emails I havent heard anything back from him yet regarding this!

(feb 13th..)

17 responses to “Halomods.com and The Halo Modding Future”

  1. Gunmonkey80 says:

    Halomodding is dead.
    I realised it 3 years ago.

    SourceGuy did all you ignorant fucks a favor.
    about time the site died.

    also, google meh, “gunmonkey80”

  2. iSoap says:

    God speed Snave, let’s see what happens.

  3. Gunmonkey80 says:

    There is no future for Halomodding, it already died in the past.

  4. i-ghost says:

    This needs to be done. There’s so much budding game developers and modders can learn from the Halo Engine and the history of modding associated with halomods.

  5. Phantom360 says:

    This of course is still a fantastic idea. Why not preserve the things people worked hard on. Its not dead is long as someone is working on something. But as a whole, its fun to see even a few people still working on something.

  6. Blackout046 says:

    @Gunmonkey80
    If Halo Modding is dead then why are you looking on this form and repeatedly typing.

    “IT’S DEAD! FORGET ABOUT IT!”

    Obviously it’s not dead. When people still care about an idea like ‘Halo Modding’ it can never die nomatter what you or anybody else say.

    You see, Halo IS an idea. Ideas don’t die unless they’re forgotten. And I don’t know why Halo should ever be forgot! as long as you played it, your memory of Halo will be forever burned in your mind.

  7. Infern0 says:

    Sigh.. I miss that site, used to be an old member(not a regular modder though) on there.
    And I remember you, just googled halomods cause I was greeted with a parking site, and next thing I know I’m on your site.

    Since Halomods died, rework3d died too. There’s just no activity on there, I think the last post was in the news section about a backup of sorts.
    Seems like the people there are down with it, moving on and stuff…
    It’s a shame really.

    If there are still people willing to continue modding, YOU in particulair Snave, I’d love to help out.

    Now it’s just a matter of you reading this post, and if you still remember me, since we didn’t really conversate on the site.

    But.. yeah. I’m open to a revival of sorts.

  8. Galvination says:

    I’ll do anything to help. I still chat with anthony on occasion (creator of the yelo trainer program for halo2). I never really published any maps but if I get around to getting a JTAG for my old 360 I figure this’d be the best place to look for people to collaborate on future projects for Reach.

  9. Snave says:

    I’ve tried to contact SourceGuy, and he did reply but he seems to have fallen off the face of the planet as I’ve heard nothing from him since.

    He has let the domain expire now so I’m not sure what to do.

  10. d4rkfire says:

    I miss halomods 🙁

  11. CaptainValor says:

    Wow, what a trip… 🙁

    I started the Project Torlan (aka. HaloUT) mod group back in the Summer of 2004 with a thread on the HaloMods forums. We had a rocky time but released some great content. I’m in the process of restoring what I have left of that project to my current domain. (badphilosophy.com/torlan)

    I agree wholeheartedly that even though the HM community is no longer active, we must preserve the content for historical and educational purposes. The Wayback Machine at Archive.org has the skeletons of the majors sites, but the files, images, and discussions are the most important parts.

    Glad to see the Halomods.info up and going. All hail the glory days of Halomodding! 🙂

  12. xorange says:

    I also just visited Halomods to find a placeholder. I guess I just got in the habit of checking in every now and then for old time’s sake.
    😥 Ah, what a shame, but I suppose it was inevitable.
    Many times I’ve dreamed of putting HXBDev.org back up and trying to recapture something that ended for me many years ago. I do of course also consider every now & then trying to track down MonxideC, Grenadiac & iron_forge and getting the Prometheus source code from them. Alas, I think Halo modding is over for me. I shall remember it fondly. I still have all the files from my very first Halo 1 scenario hacks for duplicating items, and my log collision work, and all the NMP files. Kinda’ sad.

    • Snave says:

      Its such a shame.

      All the forum data is pretty much lost too (aside from http://rework3d.com/forums/ which is now dead and I’m unsure how long it will remain online) :\ I was desperate to get a backup and host it in a read-only form..

      Heh HXBDev.org was awesome.. If you have a copy of the website I can host it online for you as an archive or live/usable. I’ve spoken to DocOctavius who created yayap.com about something similar, such a shame to loose all that information/research etc.

      Prometheus would have been unbelievable, I still believe like others it would have changed everything in halomodding! Even a release now of what was shown was capable of years ago would be sweet. Maybe give it a try? If not source code just a binary.

      I don’t know of any contact details though? :\ I have MonxideC and Nick on Xbox Live if you would like their gamertags.

      If you need anything hosted just let me know, this goes for anyone! I’m slowing gather a nice list of files now here – Halo.snaver.net/modding/

      • xorange says:

        I found my last database backup from HXBDev. I’m working on getting an install of phpBB up and running so I can import the db and check it out. I may also get in touch with AngryCamel, who was the very last to get a db backed up from HXBDev (after it was hacked & I abandoned it, haha..uggh) and see if he still has that sitting around somewhere. I’ll let you know when I’ve gotten a bit further with it, prob within the next couple weeks (after finals). 🙂
        I’m focusing more now on developing games rather than modding. While I still love modding, I don’t know if I’m interested in getting back into it. Maybe though, since I can code better now. If the rumors of a Halo 1 remake come true there could be some new fun in this. Idk…something to think about. Regardless, I’d be happy to pass on what I have from HXBDev to you for archival purposes or something more, once I get it together. I think it’d be great if you could really push the last admins of Halomods & rework3d to get you any db/site backups they have! Hell, if Nick/Mono/Gren even have an old backup that’d be worth something too for sure! All that work could just completely disappear, with no detailed records whatsoever. 🙁

    • macegac says:

      Forging before forge 😉 good ol days

  13. TheeExWife says:

    A damn dirty shame, there has to be somthing to be done, perhaps start a new generation of modders, tinkers, bring those memories back, and make more kickass ones to join them, if you wish to discuss this more, drop me a line

    [email protected]

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