How can we make the 405th great?

Status
Not open for further replies.

Art Andrews

Community Owner
Community Staff
As mentioned elsewhere, we are very excited to be managing this community! We think it has a tremendous amount of potential and want to see it grow and flourish, but we need YOUR help to do that! This thread is for posting your thoughts and ideas about 1) existing changes as they are made and 2) changes you would like to see made.

Please bear in mind that there is only a handful of us and 10s of thousands of you, so we may not respond to every post or comment on every idea but we WILL read and consider every idea, comment and even criticism. Some things we should be able to implement quickly and easily while others may take time or not be feasible at all. Be patient with us as we already have a tremendous backlog of things that need to be done, but one-by-one, we will get to them.
 
Ok, I'll get started searching. In the meantime, I would ask that anyone that reads this and sees a non-halo related thread outside of that forum to link it for me in a PM. I'll start with the most recent and work backwards.
 
Upvote 0

Heh, we joke, but honestly I see that as a very real possibility. I know the 405th has a "good working relationship" with 343, but Bungie has a "good working relationship" with their entire community, not just the ones who can help them with their PR. And Bungie, unlike 343, has a "good working" game under their belts. 343 is just now figuring out that hey, maybe a Beta test might actually be a good idea. Honestly I see Destiny overshadowing future Halo games in many ways, and the older Halo games enduring only because they have Bungie in their DNA.
 
Upvote 0
I think a lot of people who say Halo is dying off are focusing too much on their own feelings.

Halo 4 is pretty much considered a success, like or hate the changes 343i made. Halo merchandise continues to expand ever more.

If you're going to speculate Halo's slow death, you might as well speculate about Destiny's. I doubt destiny will do poorly, but if you think a massive franchise like Halo is going to sink but feel Destiny will definitely take over? That's a stretch.

Episode I or the Christmas Special didn't kill off the Star Wars franchise. You honestly believe Halo will fall apart in the next 5 years?

You can speculate about popularity all day, but the best way is to rally your fellow Destiny fans, use the OT section to build a destiny community, and then I'm sure Art will gladly support it as he has other community driven ventures such as the RPF su forums or the 405th regiments. But that requires more of an actual showing. You can do a simple comparison on FB between destiny costume groups and Halo costume groups.

An OT forum provides room for 405th members to continue to expand and create in other fields just fine in my view.
 
Upvote 0
I'm all for seeing a 405th Destiny squad team whatnot down the line. If you guys can craft it, great!

But I'm a little tired of all this stuff knocking on Halo and 343i. Can your community's premise be founded on something other than bashing another franchise and company? Does your community not have a reason to exist that doesn't hinge upon insulting others interest?

I bet people that like Battlestar Galactica costumes don't decide to pick up their specific hobby just because "Star Wars is dead"
 
Upvote 0
I'm all for seeing a 405th Destiny squad team whatnot down the line. If you guys can craft it, great!

But I'm a little tired of all this stuff knocking on Halo and 343i. Can your community's premise be founded on something other than bashing another franchise and company? Does your community not have a reason to exist that doesn't hinge upon insulting others interest?

I bet people that like Battlestar Galactica costumes don't decide to pick up their specific hobby just because "Star Wars is dead"

Really good points. You are touching on an issue that is an area of high sensitivity for me. Over the course of my time, managing communities like this (or just being a member of communities like this) I have seen countless spin-offs, splits and factions break away. When those splits happen in anger, bitterness or resentment, no matter what the excuse is, and the premise they try to reform under, they NEVER work out well and are always less than shadows of the former group. You cannot sustain a community on hate, anger and resentment no matter how you try to repackage it.

As you said, if a group of our members begin posting Destiny content and we see that it reaches such a level that it can't be ignored, we will gladly create a Destiny area for them, but I think it is going to be a long long time before we see that kind of support for a brand new franchise.
 
Upvote 0
I never meant it to sound like Halo was going to just completely die, and it won't, just like you've said.
But after 343i releases the 6th game in the series (which is what I assume is to be the final game), you won't be seeing people making costumes for upcoming releases, which we have seen a lot of in the past. Most people tend to build in order to make it to a game release, a specific convention, or Halloween, and then there are the few that build just to build.
You take away new upcoming releases of games, and that cuts out part of everyone willing to do a Halo build. Now that doesn't mean that they won't place themselves into another group of builders, but losing one of the few things to look forward to does diminish the number of people that could be working on Halo costumes.

So lets say that Halo 5 comes out in 2015, well there is a good chance we might see an intermediate title after that before we see Halo 6 somewhere in 2017/18. Seems far away, but it'll come up faster than you'd imagine. I'm not saying that it will be the last Halo game ever, I can't say that, but it might be.
So what happens after the 2017/18 release of Halo 6? Well, I would guess that the community in whole will stay strong for the next 2 years before having some fallout, and another 3 years before there is a larger fallout UNLESS we find some new hotness to move onto and adopt it as one of the focuses of the 405th.

Will Destiny be the only game in the franchise? I have no idea, it might be, or Bungie may have plans to release new games in the series until like 2025, I don't know.

I'm not saying we should jump ship from Halo and move onto something else at this current time nor am I saying that Halo will completely die eventually.
But I do think there will be a time in which we need to decide what to do moving forward with the 405th when there are not going to be any more Halo games produced.

Maybe I'm trying to look too far ahead, but I don't want to see the 405th slowly meet its demise once Halo content is no longer being produced.


Right now all I'm saying is that for future consideration, should we only identify ourselves with a specific Title of a game (ex. Halo), only certain specific titles (ex. Halo, Destiny, ....), or should we consider turning the community into the "Home" for builds based on any number of Titles that are made by certain game developers (ex. Bungie/343i)?

I think the last one might be weird to do; while it opens the community up to making builds for all the games they produce, trying to identify ourselves with a gaming company while trying to say that we are not associated/affiliated with them could potentially cause issues.
 
Upvote 0
Looking and planning for the future is always a good thing, but sometimes (and I have been guilty of this myself) you can be so focused on the future or what MAY happen that you end up missing out on what IS happening right now. This is a very very exciting time for the 405th. We have a tremendous amount of work to do to get the club aspect of the community off the ground. Heck... we still have a lot to do in terms of just finishing up the website stuff. We could fret about when it all could end but I think, at least for the moment, we should focus more on building what we have than worrying about possibly losing it at some date in the future.

I never meant it to sound like Halo was going to just completely die, and it won't, just like you've said.
But after 343i releases the 6th game in the series (which is what I assume is to be the final game), you won't be seeing people making costumes for upcoming releases, which we have seen a lot of in the past. Most people tend to build in order to make it to a game release, a specific convention, or Halloween, and then there are the few that build just to build.
You take away new upcoming releases of games, and that cuts out part of everyone willing to do a Halo build. Now that doesn't mean that they won't place themselves into another group of builders, but losing one of the few things to look forward to does diminish the number of people that could be working on Halo costumes.

So lets say that Halo 5 comes out in 2015, well there is a good chance we might see an intermediate title after that before we see Halo 6 somewhere in 2017/18. Seems far away, but it'll come up faster than you'd imagine. I'm not saying that it will be the last Halo game ever, I can't say that, but it might be.
So what happens after the 2017/18 release of Halo 6? Well, I would guess that the community in whole will stay strong for the next 2 years before having some fallout, and another 3 years before there is a larger fallout UNLESS we find some new hotness to move onto and adopt it as one of the focuses of the 405th.

Will Destiny be the only game in the franchise? I have no idea, it might be, or Bungie may have plans to release new games in the series until like 2025, I don't know.

I'm not saying we should jump ship from Halo and move onto something else at this current time nor am I saying that Halo will completely die eventually.
But I do think there will be a time in which we need to decide what to do moving forward with the 405th when there are not going to be any more Halo games produced.

Maybe I'm trying to look too far ahead, but I don't want to see the 405th slowly meet its demise once Halo content is no longer being produced.


Right now all I'm saying is that for future consideration, should we only identify ourselves with a specific Title of a game (ex. Halo), only certain specific titles (ex. Halo, Destiny, ....), or should we consider turning the community into the "Home" for builds based on any number of Titles that are made by certain game developers (ex. Bungie/343i)?

I think the last one might be weird to do; while it opens the community up to making builds for all the games they produce, trying to identify ourselves with a gaming company while trying to say that we are not associated/affiliated with them could potentially cause issues.
 
Upvote 0
I've only just found this topic so I thought I'd throw my input out there.

As Art said, split factions almost always fail. I've helmed and created multiple groups over the years and almost always had people split off because "they want to do something different", or that members have a fight; resulting in a year later want to come back under our wing because it didn't work out for them. If a system works, it shouldn't have to change to accommodate something unless it actually benefits the main group itself. Let's say that Destiny is introduced as a subset for the 405th, and the whole thing flops, causing outcry because "there wasn't enough work put into it", "405th should have become dedicated to destiny", etc. Then you have the issue of multiple people angry because something they care about fell apart, whether it be Halo or Destiny.

The way I look at it, if there's going to be some kind of subsection/circle for a new game/project, it needs to be separate from the 405th entirely. The 405th is known to only cater to the Halo Universe and other workings with Bungie pre-split and 343i. It honestly wouldn't work well unless the size of the community for Destiny builders equalised to the same amount of Halo builders. Groups need a balance. Have a Miscellaneous Build board to accommodate stuff like Destiny, W40K, and other sci-fi/game costumes, that might work, it might not. But it should only exist if there's demand for it.
 
Upvote 0
We understand not all members (in fact, many) will want to broaden their horizons beyond Halo. In fact, many already have. The decision to set up and support an "Other" costumes and props section should speak to the support that we hope to lend to members who want to create, regardless of the fandom. And if our members want to create something new, whether it be local regiments (which are all community driven), new costuming groups, or new major forum sections, etc. it will be created as the needs arise, as occurred on the RPF. In fact, it already has. Again, just like the RPF spawned Marvel, Judge Dredd, etc. sub sections, here on the 405th the prevalence of other games costumes has become so prevalent that they've warranted their own section devoted to them. If Destiny does eventually become as big as some people expect it to be, then perhaps we may see a Destiny section someday. But at this point, while it's popular, it doesn't warrant it. But that doesn't mean "Never"

As far as the future of Halo, again, we'll keep an eye on it. The series was supposed to end at a trilogy, and I'm sure some Bungie fans are aware of the mixed feelings of handing the reins over to 343i. Speculating what will happen in several years is difficult. If the games do end, does that mean people will stop costuming from it? Perhaps, perhaps not. Star Wars is a good example to look at. There was a limited amount of new material, and often what material was released was heavily criticized, but its costuming community goes strong to this day. And suddenly, we have an announcement for an Episode 7 (plus a complete wipe of the EU...) so who knows what the future holds? Will Halo have that amount of staying power? Some expect yes, some expect no, but it's speculation in the end.

What is true right now is that, despite our community tackling many other projects, the 405th is identified with Halo. Destiny, Skyrim, Fallout, etc. large costume gatherings for these games have never been identified with the 405th moniker, their developers have never felt the need to mention 405th by name, and we don't have as close a working relationship with any other company as we do with 343i. The 405th IS the Halo gathering at many cons, but this does not apply to other gaming franchises. As Art notes, we have a very exciting opportunity for Halo fans at this time, and it behooves us to make the most of it.

Right now all I'm saying is that for future consideration, should we only identify ourselves with a specific Title of a game (ex. Halo), only certain specific titles (ex. Halo, Destiny, ....), or should we consider turning the community into the "Home" for builds based on any number of Titles that are made by certain game developers (ex. Bungie/343i)?

This line I find interesting, but let's try rewording it a little.

How about we identify ourselves with a specific franchise (Halo) while also building a community for builds based on any number of titles, not even specific to game developers? Because honestly, that's effectively what we have here. We have a costuming organization that's heavily identified with Halo and focuses on Halo at events (tabling, photoshoots, etc.) with a forum that, while exemplifying and focusing largely on Halo also provides outlets for a wide number of gaming costume construction needs, even if it's as simple as a dedicated "other costumes" section. Hopefully that makes sense?

I think the biggest thing I want to stress is that, regardless of how you feel about the success of Halo, if you want to create new ventures, such as say, a Destiny costuming group, you should create it because you love and want to see Destiny costumes, not simply because you think franchise is dead. As Art and others noted, trying to form a group because you hate something, never turns out well. Instead, create because you love something.
 
Upvote 0
Ok, I'll get started searching. In the meantime, I would ask that anyone that reads this and sees a non-halo related thread outside of that forum to link it for me in a PM. I'll start with the most recent and work backwards.
23Magnum already moved most if not all of the non halo threads to the non halo forum. This should suffice for the non halo stuff and if destiny takes off here it probably should happen their. Art even put in a spot for non halo files in the archive.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Upvote 0
Just an observation, but the "Join the 405th at DragonCon" is huge. So large in fact, that I can not even tell when I change pages because it takes up the whole page. FYI, I am running 1366X768 resolution. Not the highest, but high enough that this sort of thing should not crowd so much of the page.

Also, I have noticed that the old layout has been drastically changed. I really liked the idea that the "Stuck" links were different in color (they used to be light gray background I believe) from the rest. This helped differentiate from the "unread" (In bold) and non-stuck posts (white background). This would not be such an issue if it were more like the "New Recruits" section, where all the stuck threads are contained in one stuck thread. This prevents a full page of scrolling, just to get to the "meat 'n taters".
 
Upvote 0
Also, I have noticed that the old layout has been drastically changed. I really liked the idea that the "Stuck" links were different in color (they used to be light gray background I believe) from the rest. This helped differentiate from the "unread" (In bold) and non-stuck posts (white background). This would not be such an issue if it were more like the "New Recruits" section, where all the stuck threads are contained in one stuck thread. This prevents a full page of scrolling, just to get to the "meat 'n taters".

As far as I'm aware, the Sticky Threads are going to be reworked at some point - some are woefully out of date or have broken image links, some need consolidating since they deal with a very minor tutorial that could be rolled into another, more major and comprehensive tutorial.
 
Upvote 0
Just an observation, but the "Join the 405th at DragonCon" is huge. So large in fact, that I can not even tell when I change pages because it takes up the whole page. FYI, I am running 1366X768 resolution. Not the highest, but high enough that this sort of thing should not crowd so much of the page.

It is pert large. There should be an X in the upper right corner of the notice that allows you to close it. As long as you're logged in I don't believe it'll reappear once closed.
 
Upvote 0
WandererTJ said:
Right now all I'm saying is that for future consideration, should we only identify ourselves with a specific Title of a game (ex. Halo), only certain specific titles (ex. Halo, Destiny, ....), or should we consider turning the community into the "Home" for builds based on any number of Titles that are made by certain game developers (ex. Bungie/343i)?

I certainly understand where the rest of this post is coming from, not only from an "all good things come to an end" perspective but also "can a surrogate developer maintain the success created by the original developer," that that is already being addressed, so I wanted to weigh in on this piece in particular.

My personal 2 cents here would be to consider a future 405th in which it is simply that. The 405th. Not a "Halo" or a "Destiny" group, not a "Bungie" or a "343" group, nor any hybridization or blend of those elements, but simply, The 405th. I know there have been concerns voiced about "wouldn't that just be an RPF clone" and other similar scenarios, but to that I would ask, is Chevy just a Ford clone? Is Burger King just a McDonald's clone? Is 343 just a Bungie clone? We can have more than just one group of people running the same theme without any of them "just being a clone" of another. What sets the 405th apart from any other costuming community is the community. Halo, Destiny, Ultimate Ghosts and Goblins, neither the game nor the theme nor any franchise developer is more significant than the community itself, the men and women to your left and to your right who make this group of people different than any other. That is how I feel about the 405th. 343 and Bungie could both go bankrupt tomorrow never to be seen again in our lifetime, does the 405th simply disappear? Hardly. Here in the 405th, we have more than just any one game in common, we have more than just any one approach to costume creation in common, and we have more than just any one interest or passion in common. The addition or subtraction of any one game, franchise, studio, or concept cannot make nor break the 405th. We are a global community, united by our creativity. Paper, foam or worbla, Destiny, Halo or Gears, man or woman, young or old, we are here because of a shared passion for creativity and immersing ourselves into our favorite characters and environments, regardless of origin.

Getting back to improvements and suggestions for the site in the here and now, can we get a default color change to the text when making a link in a post? Right now links are underlined, but regular text can be underlined as well. If someone's just skimming through a post they might not realize that the underlined text is meant to be a link. So if we could get a standard color change to the text, I think that would be helpful in making links more easy to recognize.
 
Upvote 0
Just an observation, but the "Join the 405th at DragonCon" is huge. So large in fact, that I can not even tell when I change pages because it takes up the whole page. FYI, I am running 1366X768 resolution. Not the highest, but high enough that this sort of thing should not crowd so much of the page.

You realize you can close that notice via the X on the far right, yes?
 
Upvote 0
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top