I wanted to tell you all what's currently happening with the HaloMods server. Despite all of the generous offers for servers from several people - a few of them I was seriously considering - I've decided to shift to a lower performance server. The reason for this was very simple - I just didn't feel sure that the donated server would be around beyond a few months; most of the offers came from people I didn't know so I felt it would be best to just move to a cheaper server.

The downside of this is that the site may run a bit slower, but I think a slow site is better than no site at all.

I would also like to express my sincere appreciation to the people who made donations to HaloMods, especially the few that sent in rather large donations. It helps to defray some of the costs of the past few months.

Over the next week or so I will be moving content to the new server, so it is likely that a day or two of posts will be lost when we make the switch. I will let you know before that happens.

Gren

Just thought I would give an update on what's going on with the site. We've had three (serious) offers from various people for hosting that we are evaluating. The other possibility Iron_Forge and I discussed involved moving the site to a cheaper server that will be more in line with the current ad revenue. In any case, we are considering the options at hand and will probably make a decision within the next week or so.

Also, a special thank you to the three members that made donations to help with some of the server costs. It is very much appreciated.

If you want to help, there is a donate button at the upper right corner of the page. Thanks!

Grenadiac

Hey everybody-

I know it's been a long time since you've heard from ol' grenadiac (I would venture to guess some of you probably don't even know who I am). I started HaloMods about 4 or 5 years ago - just before HaloPC came out and console modding was in its infancy. I've watched the site grow from a personal homepage to the monster forum it is today.

Over the past year or so you haven't heard much from me - my virtual life took a backseat to getting married, selling/buying a new house, and starting a consulting business. Needless to say it left little time to tend to HaloMods. Thankfully, there were a number of very devoted staff to keep things running, and for the most part it has kept the website under control.

One of the reasons HaloMods has lasted so long is that the ads have, for the most part, covered the server expenses. It costs $240 per month to rent the server we currently use, and ads normally cover most of that. At the end of the year I usually break even, but recently something has changed with google's advertising program. The result is that the pay per click has been reduced to about 25% of what it was. You can read about it here:

Adsense changes since November

How can you help? Contribute to the discussion thread

And if you can spare a few bucks, click on our PayPal donate button to the right :) We'll figure something out.

The seventh Prometheus update has finally been posted, and it was a long time coming. The update touches on the new UI, revamped rendering, redesigned core, new team members, and more.

Head on over to HaloDev to check out the new update and feel free to comment on it in the Prometheus forum.

Prometheus Update #7

This can be considered a sub-follow up to the previous Halo 3 issues, "The Last Straw" and "A Disgrace to Halo Modders."

The HaloMods staff, along with the lead development team for Halo 3 Beta modding and other key members have decided to disallow the extraction of assets from the Halo 3 Beta map files. This content includes bitmaps, models, and sounds, among other things.

We still encourage you to research the map structure, as well as the structure of the raw data. The H3Core team will certainly continue their diligent work on the maps. We hope others will do the same. However, we will not tolerate people posting code, tools, or similar things pertaining to extraction of this type of content from the Beta maps. Anyone doing so will be punished on sight.

You can read the full explanation here.

Shade45 posted a preliminary metadata extractor/injector to the forums. Since it is the first utility uploaded to the vista forums, I thought I would give it a plug :)

He says it is a very early beta, but it's a start. Get it here:

http://forums.halomods.com/viewtopic.php?t=61186

According to Pro-G, H2V has been delayed for European release until June 8th. I couldn't find any info on the reason for the delay, but there have been rumors of disk problems and a recall, even in the US.

More info as it becomes available.

I've been in this community from the early days of modding, and I've watched this website grow from about 5 or 6 web pages showing off personal projects into the behemoth that it is today. During that time I've seen the kinds of innovations that made me proud to be a member of the modding community...projects like Halo2CE, crazy custom maps, new Xbox maps when people thought it was impossible. I've also seen the bad side of modding, standby-ers, cheaters, bridging. Through all of it, I feel like we do a pretty decent job of policing ourselves thanks to the moderators and staff of the forums that keep the watchful eye.

Unfortunately, the watchful eye can't always stop someone from exercising poor judgment. I was just informed by a good friend of mine (Nick from HaloDev) that someone posted information found in the beta mapfiles. Fortunately, one of our moderators found it shortly after it was posted, but by that time the lightning in a bottle was already released. By then some news websites had already latched onto the information and credited "HaloMods" with releasing the info.

Let me make this perfectly clear. We love modding and pushing the game to its limits, but along with that I know that the vast majority of us feel a responsibility to Bungie and their games. I personally find the actions distasteful and apologize on behalf of the HaloMods community.

Grenadiac

HaloMods was down for the past few days due to a large spike in traffic, which was unfortunately caused by the irresponsible posting of previously unknown Halo 3 "information," and not a newfound internet-wide love for modding Halo.

The spreading of this information soils what it means to be a Halo modder. Why? How? Well, there is a lovely little article that you should read, if you consider yourself a Halo modder, that will spell it all out for you.

A Disgrace to Halo Modders