News The End of an Era

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Yesterday marked the five-year anniversary of Halo: Reach: a game which was truly instrumental in bringing Halo's forge community to life. One of the biggest pieces of forge community history born during Reach's lifespan was a YouTube channel called TheHaloForgeEpidemic. What began as a way for [REDACTED] to showcase his talents as a mini game forger quickly evolved into a major community phenomenon. THFE map features become the most viewed forge content on YouTube and the channel thrived. With help from the talented commentator Bevans Law and the enterprising Oakley HiDef, THFE became a respected community group.

In January of 2012, I came on board in order to feature what we then called "competitive" maps on the channel. I eased in with big team battle maps because they were what I knew best. I soon began featuring a variety of core Halo maps and slowly began earning the respect of forgers from that side of the community. Around this time, Bevans departed from the channel and [REDACTED] ceased producing content for it. Since that time, [REDACTED] has had no direct contribution to the channel whatsoever. Instead, he sat back in the shadows: pulling the strings and taking 100% of the channel's (then considerable) profits for himself, despite generating none of them. To my knowledge, most of this money was spent on illegal drugs.

Oakley and I grew wary of [REDACTED]'s selfishness, but were driven by passion for Halo and the forge community rather than a desire to be paid. However, the thought of all of the money we were generating going straight into the pockets of someone who acted only as a parasite was unsettling. [REDACTED] was paranoid and wanted full control over the channel and all of the revenue generated. After a considerable amount of time, Oakley and I were granted a bit of freedom to make decisions for ourselves and we even received a small percentage of the money we were generating for a few months. Eventually, when the community began to dry up during Halo 4's life, Oakley chose to stop contributing to the channel rather than continue to deal with [REDACTED]. I pushed on, desiring to uphold the channel's legacy. I built a new team to maintain the channel and did my best to stay true to its origins. I was even able to divide what portion of the channel's revenue [REDACTED] didn't take for himself equally among them for a time. However, I constantly struggled against [REDACTED]'s paranoia and desire to push the channel in a more commercial direction.

Ultimately, I failed to stay true to THFE's legacy as my desire to provide informative, in-depth content and to feature only the best maps around clashed with [REDACTED]'s commercial intentions. As myself and my team strayed further away from the channel's commercial roots, [REDACTED] became more paranoid of loosing his free source of income. He attempted to make personnel decisions in order to bring new commentators onto the channel who would create dumbed-down content to appeal to a broader audience and maximize views. Naturally, this clashed with the ideals of myself and my team. For a time, I was able to override his poor decisions. As the community grew smaller with MCC's buggy launch, other channels scrambled to farm views and feature whatever content they could find. Meanwhile, my team and I stuck to our guns. However, motivation became more and more hard to come by and the team eventually fell apart. With only PA1NTS and myself creating content, the channel fell further behind the pack in terms of views. This did not bother us, however. We were, after all, committed to enhancing the forge community and to high standards of quality. [REDACTED] became increasingly worried of losing his grip on what had, in the past, been a money machine and decided once again to attempt to make personnel decisions. This time, without my permission and against my advice, he decided to bring on a former commentator from the channel's past. This commentator's skillset (or lack thereof) did not align with my vision for the channel, and PA1NTS and I finally decided we'd had enough.

THFE is, as of this day, defunct. If the channel continues to operate, know that it is but a shell of its former self; that it is maintained only to put money in the pockets of an individual who strangled the channel for years; that it is not done for the betterment of the Halo community; and that it is in no way a reflection of myself, PA1NTS, SOLIDSNAKEee, Master Debaytes, buddhacrane, Oakley HiDef, AbleSir Thomas, or any other entity that you should have a shred of respect for. It is no longer related to this website.

While I am sad to be put in a position where departing from the entity I have poured thousands of hours of working into over the past three and a half years and I am sad to see a piece of forge community history die, I am incredibly relieved to be free from [REDACTED]'s paranoia and parasitism. We had a good run. PA1NTS and I will be moving to the ForgeHub channel where we will continue to provide in-depth forge video content. You will find the Meet Your Maker contest winners as well as future map features and design talks there.

Now, let's look back on some of the highlights of this site's relationship with THFE.









Thanks to everyone who stuck with us and supported the team through our struggles against the channel's owner. What are some of your favorite memories of THFE?
 
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Orzium, shush.

I initially was going to write some nostalgic heart felt comment about how I have been here since the halo reach toyfactory video and at that time this channel helped bring fun to me and my friends when I was only 10 and 2010. How I would have so much fun playing all your custom maps and trying to get into custom games. Watching yardbird and ablesir Thomas make invasion maps and tutorials on how to make because I didn't have a hard drive to download them, bad because of that watching you videos over and over to try and exactly recreate the map...and failing every time. It's thanks to you guys that I play halo I played halo 3 and was amazed but wasn't a big fan but custom games solidified my title as a halo player and for a while my YouTube account was named theprohalogamer or the tphg because it looked like thfe. But I know feel betrayed. A large part of my child hood though now wasn't only spent having fun but I also gave a drug addict free money unknowingly. I feel horrible and stupid. It all know makes sense now. When I asked to get a youtube account my mom wouldn't let me at first because she said you guys could be bad people, she was right. Now that I think about it you guys were always changing commentators and were never open about the channel. I've been learning about the collapse of the Roman Empire and the second Rome or Byzantine empire. The western Roman Empire became weak and corrupt and fell like the bad side of thfe is in the middle of doing and the eastern Roman Empire went on to become the Byzantines like the good side of the thfe is going on to become but join forge hub. I know a few other lines can be drawn but I don't want to bore you guys with a history lesson. All I'm trying to say is to anyone including the former thfe members is that history really does repeat itself even in strange and like this, so always make sure you know who your working for. So any ways if [REDACTED] who I assume is Darth human sees this I want to say fuck you. You have soiled my memories of halo reach custom games, and to former thfe cast members I wish you the best in your halo adventures. If I have any details wrong please let me know.
Dude, I swear I tried to read this. But, come on man. Paragraphs.

Also just found out that THFE goes by The Epidemic now. Someone should probably tell them to change the name. Before, the channel was infecting the community with the love of forge and customs. Now, they're just an unnamed disease. Anyway, I'm just babbling to procrastinate writing a five page paper that's due tonight.

P.S. We should make a video that certain Halo YouTubers will upload to their channels to direct people to the ForgeHub channel. Name it something like "Where THFE is now" or something like that.
 
Damn, this is a sad moment in the Halo community, I remember playing THFE maps all the time back in Reach with my friends. They stopped playing Halo as much and I haven't played a custom game in a while, but THFE maps were one of my favourite things about Halo. You guys are the reason I got into forging, sad to see you go over the actions of one man.
 
I finally made an account after hearing this news... I'm sorry this happened to you and I'm very excited for any future content you all have planned for Halo Customs and for the ForgeHub YouTube channel.

Also... I know I'm not gonna get an answer but who the hell is redacted...? :mad:
Edit: nvm I found out :p
 
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Wow. I never thought this would actually happen. When I first saw a THFE video, I was always amazed at the commentaries and the content. To think, it's gone from that to this. I still appreciate you guys, and I hope whoever's left of the THFE can bring back what this thing used to be. Not tomorrow, not next week, but one day.
 
I'm no staffer and I'm not speaking "officially" for the site but there's a reason the name of [REDACTED] is being withheld guys, no need to guess it if you're sure who it is as a majority of us who are familiar with THFE know as well. Let's try to avoid any more arguments and controversy than what we've had on the site in the past few days. At this point his name is irrelevant and let's keep it like that.
 
I'm no staffer and I'm not speaking "officially" for the site but there's a reason the name of [REDACTED] is being withheld guys, no need to guess it if you're sure who it is as a majority of us who are familiar with THFE know as well. Let's try to avoid any more arguments and controversy than what we've had on the site in the past few days. At this point his name is irrelevant and let's keep it like that.
You're right.