"Only nice people get Halo's"

[guido666]

i like the whole thing very well put and written, but one question???? if this is the proper edicate then why do i see people shooting down ideas and being really mean and shiity with other members {noobs} when they are not real sure on how to do forums and other things, just a question for the masses.

Sorry for this long post, but I think it presents some good reasoning.



I think there is a very significant difference between "shooting down ideas and being really mean and shiity [sic]". Shooting down bad ideas, especially dangerous ones, but also those with very little realistic chance of success, is in most people's best interest. But if you ask a question and just get "F**k you n00b, take your stupid ideas elsewhere...", there's no reason for that. Here are some of my observations...

1. A lot of noobs are trying to do things with nearly no budget. A real cinema prop house just pays a real sculptor/artist to crank out a clay model in a day, they pour $500 worth of silicone casting rubber over it, churn out 100 castings at $10/ea, and have a professional prop painter with 1000 airbrush colors paint them all up. Here you've got a lot of members that are kids, or are adults working with less money, skill, and experience as the professionals, trying to achieve the same results. The consequence is that hobbyists usually need to invest significantly more time, possibly hundreds or thousands of hours, to match the quality while keeping costs low.
   
2. Lots of noobs want to do something original/extreme, without realizing that the "normal" version of this hobby is extreme, and to try to take it one step further, from the beginning, is setting yourself up for failure. Despite having thousands of active members, the portion of this forum's users that will successfully complete an entire, "movie quality" armor set is very small (read the Elite forum to see how many people achieve this). So to walk in the door, especially if you don't already have costume/armor experience, and say that you want to go out on a limb with paintball-resistant armor, armor made of real metal, bulletproof armor, fullsize vehicles, unorthodox/expensive manufacturing methods like CNC or 3D printing, exotic materials like kevlar or carbon fiber, weapons that fire, electronic or moving parts, etc. only further reduces your chance of success to a tiny percentage of the Elite users (which is already only a tiny percentage of the community). Yet a large portion of new users immediately post a thread about one of the topics I mentioned.
   
3. Despite the fact that there are in fact hundreds, possibly thousands, of threads that start off with "I want to make <EXTREME IDEA HERE>" (where the extreme ideas are any of those listed in the last bullet, or similar things), almost all of which contain copious amounts of information about how difficult it will be, why you should not do it, etc., new members fail to search for or see them, and instead post their own new thread on the topic. I bet that on any given day, there is at least one post on the first page of the Noob forums that deals with one of these topics. This is likely why new members are quarantined to the "Noob forum", until they've at least been around long enough to see what's around, so that the other forums don't get cluttered with them. All this repeated posting of the same "original" ideas just wears on anyone who has been around the forums for a long time, or has experience with projects of this magnitude. (Also, despite the idea threads being so numerous, there are few or no finished examples of any of these things.)
   
4. Given enough resources, nearly all of these extreme projects are actually possible. You could probably make bulletproof Halo armor, WETA has made a fullsize driveable Warthog, most of the higher quality cast armor is probably paintball resistant already, you could mill a helmet from a solid block of titanium, whatever... When most people ask "How can I make <EXTREME IDEA>?", what they are REALLY asking, is "How can I make <EXTREME IDEA> with almost no investment of time, and for only $7.53 that I found in the couch cushions?".
   
5. Of biggest concern, are the dangerous ideas. These days, every Walmart sells 10 varieties of paintguns (or airsoft), and lots of kids have them. However, the kid who has enough money to get him a $150 paintgun, does not have the $1000 to build a suitable set of armor to handle paintballing in. Even a decent paintball mask still costs $40-60. If someone gets hurt while doing anything related to Halo armor, in today's sue-happy society, they're going come after this community because of course we had a hand in their stupidity. And the media will be all over it too, since we all know that video games make you kill people, rock music is the devil, and building Halo armor is surely a precursor to trying to build real armor for your murderous rampage.
   

 

[ImaGonnaGetYou]

...(read the Elite forum to see how many people achieve this)... ...only further reduces your chance of success to a tiny percentage of the Elite users (which is already only a tiny percentage of the community). Yet a large portion of new users immediately post a thread about one of the topics I mentioned.

I completely agree with your post (very well written), except for this. Being in the Elite forum doesn't necessarily mean you should be regarded as higher than other members, it means you did something unique/worth distinguishing, not that you are better than member x or member y. I have seen countless "movie-quality" costumes that are not in the Elite section. I don't mean to sound defensive, but I hate when people place Elite members on a pedestal in terms of armor quality.



But, yeah, most of the time people need to be shot down before the Icarus effect comes around.

 

[guido666]

I completely agree with your post (very well written), except for this. Being in the Elite forum doesn't necessarily mean you should be regarded as higher than other members, it means you did something unique/worth distinguishing, not that you are better than member x or member y. I have seen countless "movie-quality" costumes that are not in the Elite section. I don't mean to sound defensive, but I hate when people place Elite members on a pedestal in terms of armor quality.



But, yeah, most of the time people need to be shot down before the Icarus effect comes around.

Sorry if I implied that, but I wasn't trying to put them on a pedestal. I was simply trying to illustrate that the number of people that complete something outstanding is small, and that trying to go above and beyond that only represents an even smaller subset of the members. The elite members equally valued as everyone else, but they have managed to achieve something noteworthy in a group that is already dedicated to something (Halo costuming) which the "outside world" considers universally noteworthy.



So in order of noteworthiness: Normal person playing Halo < 405th Halo Costumer < Elite Costumer < WETA guy driving around in fullsize Warthog (Drool.)



The number of people: Normal person playing Halo >> 405th Halo Costumers >> Elite Costumers >> guys driving around in fullsize Warthog



And a lot of noobs are immediately trying to jump from the first category, to the last. Although I think they need to spoken to respectfully, talking to them about the realities of what they are attempting is warranted as well.

 

[Michalanthropos]

So in short, "play nicer, please". Although I agree with this, I believe that only "good kids" (kind/serious forum members) will listen to you. After all, it's a bit moot to ask from bullies to behave nicely. And let's not forget the ocassional troll. The more serious and polite a forum is, the tastier the lolmilk.