Hey everyone, Jordan here. As part of the launch of the Halo Community section, I’m announcing our Q&A portion of the blog. To celebrate the launch of this section, 3 Q&As will be released in this first week, followed by one a month after this week. I plan to choose Halo fans from the community, be that page admins, cosplayers, YouTube content creators, forgers, bloggers, or just normal fans to take part, so anyone that is a long time fan, or has been with the franchise for a while, you may be in with a chance of being featured.
In this first Q&A I spoke to Tyler Brough, who is the co-creator of a Facebook page known as The Forerunners. I asked some questions about what life as an admin is like, as well as his background with Halo. I hope you enjoy the read.
Q: When did you first get into Halo?
A: I had always known about Halo since my father first got it on Xbox, but it didn’t catch my interest until much later. My first thoughts were “ooh pretty crystal gun” on Halo on CE. I came back into it later after I ran a mission for my friend in Halo 3 while he had to run a couple chores. That’s when I remembered I had CE and decided to start my journey. The story grabbed me, sucked me in, and before I knew it I was through the first 3 games and books waiting for the next title to be announced.
Q: What made you want to co-create a Halo themed Facebook page?
A: It wasn’t in the original plan, myself and the co-creator Tony had made a Halo group on a now extinct gamer website. Once that closed we decided to upgrade and thus The Forerunner’s presence on Facebook began. Our new goal had become to be the guys you’d come to if you had Halo lore questions. Events, battles, deaths, we made it our mission to know it as best we could.
Q: What’s your favourite part of being an admin on a Halo page?
A: My favourite part about being an admin is probably getting to meet new people who share common interests. Sharing what I know and love about Halo with others and on some occasions, guiding the newcomers on where to start and what they need to know. If it wasn’t for this page I never would’ve met many of my friends as well as the friendly people at Xbox Live Gamerhub. Personally I love informing people of the Halo lore, but I think I’ll touch on that a bit later.
Q: What’s the hardest part of being an admin for a Halo page?
A: I think the hardest part is trying to keep things fresh and fun. As any game specific community could tell you, there is always a dry spell. The time between games when the last update has come out for the previous title and no news has been revealed on the next. Luckily Guardians has kept us pretty busy as far as news and updates go. It even got us to Halo Wars 2 which will be ripe with news and lore to explore in the coming months with Comic-con and Gamescom coming up, then the release in February.
Q: What’s your opinion on the current Halo community? Any good and bad points?
A: That one’s a bit touchy. The community in general has been okay lately I guess. But the vocal minority are well… Very vocal. Let’s start with the obvious part. Halo 5’s campaign could have been better. But does it deserve the hate and anger it gets? No. The multiplayer, on the other hand has raving reviews and has become one of the most popular. Even recently stated by Bravo, Halo 5’s numbers have been the best since 3 even before the free play period. I think it’s safe to say that 343 has found its MP area after they made a reworked version of Reach MP for 4. That’s another thing, 4’s MP received hate despite being a revamped Reach MP. But when people look back they praise reach like it was 3 even though I vividly remember these same people hating it. Least favourite part of the community? The ones who think they know how it should be. My favourite part, is the side that gives constructive criticism and supports the teams. And the Forge community, they’re awesome.
Q: What benefits do you think Halo pages have on the community?
A: As far as benefits go, I think pages are a good place for people to find other players without having to go to the game’s site. We share forge creations, game types, videos. It’s just a great place to spread content, friendship, and knowledge. There’s page for everything. You prefer the comedy side? Meme pages and communities are your go to. Forge? I know a few of them. Story? Ha. That’s what the Forerunners were founded on. We’re the Lore masters of Halo. We do our best to keep informed of all major events and small events that take place in the Haloverse. I might not be able to give exact details off the top of my head but I can generally give a good summary of the event and get you into the ball park time frame of when it happened. Want to try me? Pop us a message on Facebook or Twitter. And since we’ve expanded our team we now over not only lore, but products, competitions, gameplay. We’ve kinda become an all-in-one Halo page.
Q: What do you hope to see from future Halo titles that would increase the Halo community?
A: I really think that 343 has found their MP niche with Halo 5. Of course it’s going to need to evolve, but I think this is it, just some minor tweaks here and there maybe altering the Spartan abilities, but this is it. For campaign, I loved Halo 4 and 5 but I feel like 5 could have been a bit better. But now that they found the right MP, that’s one less thing to really worry about. Give it some evolution, then put more resources into the campaign team. I doubt you’ll read this, but don’t listen to ‘em Brian Reed. I loved it, just needed some fine tuning here and there. You’re just one man and only human. I’d say better forge would make it better too, but honestly… I don’t think it can get any better than what Tom French and his team have done with it. We can already make completely different experiences with what we have now.
Q: If someone wanted to make their own Halo page, what advice would you give them?
A: My advice to someone wanting to start a page would be to find your niche. Or at least a starting place, like we did. A page is hard work. The likes won’t just come rolling in after a week or a month. If you want to make a page it also helps to have some connections in the community. I know of a group that has many admin’s from different Halo pages and communities. If you’re serious about a page and can prove it, I guarantee they’d be willing to help one way or another. Either by sharing content or if you’d allow, join your page’s team and helping it from the inside. Another tip, try to create original content. Don’t steal it from other individuals or pages, there are some groups out there who would tear apart repeat offenders. Besides, original content shows the community what you have to offer and that you care enough to put effort into it and people like that. (Pun intended) If you’d like to reach out to that group of admins, you can come to us and we can help point the way or be the page that helps you.
Q: What’s your favourite Halo page (besides your own) and why?
A: But we’re so cool! Fine, hahah. My favourite page besides The Forerunners would probably be Halo Memes. As we’re more of a serious page they are really light hearted and fun. Generally their content is on point and can always get a laugh if you can understand the joke, but once in a while they get a few bad ones. But what are you gonna do? It’s a meme page, they can’t all be good. Oh and if you go to them because of this, let them know I sent you. ;)
Overall talking to Tyler was a great experience. It helped me learn about the different types of Halo fans that exist in the community, and understand the journey they’ve been through with Halo. As the weeks and months progress, I look forward to learning more about people in the community, and the Q&As will hopefully do the same for everyone reading too. Once again big thank you to Tyler for taking part. I wish you well and the continued success of your page.
For any details on events or community projects, keep to to date with the XBLG Twitter account and our XBLG Community Facebook group to check out if you fancy getting more involved with your fellow hubbers. You can also check out our Facebook page and Youtube channel for extra content. Are you a fan of cosplay and fan art too? If the answer is yes, you can head over to The Worlds First Poncho Chief for additional Halo related goodness.
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