<![CDATA[Project Contingency - Forums - All Forums]]> https://forum.project-contingency.com/ Mon, 06 Apr 2026 06:52:08 +0000 MyBB <![CDATA[[Draft] Copyright law, the DMCA, and Contingency]]> https://forum.project-contingency.com/showthread.php?tid=546 Sat, 11 May 2024 22:09:32 -0400 https://forum.project-contingency.com/showthread.php?tid=546 Draft

Preface
Copyright law and the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) are large pieces of legislation filled with nuances to account for the multitude of ways humans have begun to create pieces of work.  Despite its size, it is a straight forward piece of legislation.  Unfortunately, there has been a great deal of misinformation regarding copyrights built up over the years.

It has come to my attention that within Contingency, copyright/DMCA matters have not been fully understood and handled in an unideal manner.  With this policy, the rights to the works invovled with Contingency will be explained and a path set in how to deal with percieved infringements.


Official Sources
Copyright:  https://www.copyright.gov/title17/
DMCA:  https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PLAW...ubl304.pdf


The basics of copyright in relation to Contingency
When an author first saves a newly created asset, a copyright is immediately granted over that work.  This applies whether that asset is a model, texture, animation, Unreal blueprint, text file, etc.  Said copyright for the newly saved work lasts for 70 years past the duration of the author's life.  After that 70 year period, the copyright expires and the work enters public domain.

The author mentioned above may not be a human in all cases.  Copyright Law allows for works to be made through employment and through collaboration.

In case of employment, the employer generally owns the copyright for works created as part of the job.  This is not always the case though, as it is allowed for the employment contract to dictate alternative terms for how the copyright is granted.

In case of collaboration, an author retains copyright of the work they contribute to the collaboration.  The collective, which is what the collaborators of a shared work are referred as, is fundamentally assumed to only have the right to reproduce and distribute that work as part of the collaboration.

Filings to the United States Copyright Office (and other nation's equivalent services) is the mechanism in which ownership of copyright is conveyed.  This is the only guaranteed method for ensuring transfer of copyright is documented and legaly recognized.

So what is Contingency?  First and foremost, it operates under the Microsoft GCUR and thus is unable to function as an employer hiring indivudals to create works.  Additionally, it is not a formal legal organization (such as a tax entity partnership or a limited liability corporation).  At best, it can be considered a collaboration for the purposes of copyright law.

That means Contingency doesn't exclusively (as in be the only owner) own copyright for the assets in the game.  It only owns the rights to distribute and reproduce the assets provided.


The basics of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in relation to Contingency
The DMCA is a piece of legislation that amends copyright law from 1976 in order to account for "the digital millennium" bringing news ways to create and distribute copyrighted works according to international treaties regarding intellectual property.

The DMCA provides Contingency the right to secure its digital work so as to prevent unlicensed copying in whole or part.  Any circumvention of the security measures is not allowed.  And when I say "any" I mean it.  There is no defense provided through law to permit it.  Copyright infringement exceptions such as education or fair use do not apply to circumvention of the security of digital work in any way.  Thus, ripping content from the Contingency game client is not legally allowed.

What does this mean for Contingency?  Let's establish some foundational statements for assumptions made on how the collective driving Contingency operates.

 - The collective basically began having no formal agreements in place.  Any agreements that are said to exist are done orally and are only done so through a subset of the collective.  Any such oral agreements are only binding if they can be proven to take have taken place.
 - It is presumed by the collective that works contributed to Contingency will not be distributed outside of the collective.
 - Nothing is actually preventing members of the collective from distributing their contributions to the public.  That is to say, no one in the collective has taken anyone else from the collective to court to try and enforce any perceived agreements.
 - Contingency secures its works in accordance with the DMCA.

What are the practical uses of the information above?

First, oral agreements have mostly kept works contributed to Contingency from being freely distributed to the public.  Therefore, it is safe to assume that the only way for the general public to get the works of Contingency is to play the game in accordance to the EULA.

Second, the game employs security measures to ensure its contents are not freely copied and/or distributed.  So if Person A ends up distributing a copy of something from Contingency in a mod for another game, there is a baseline established in determining infringement.  Has 100% of the content in the mod been distributed by its copyright owner through a means which it can get to Person A without the Contingency game?  If so, then that is perfectly okay under the law.  If not, then the DMCA affords members of the collective, under certain conditions, to act on behalf of the collective to protect the copyrights of the infringed work and initiate a takedown request to halt further distribution of the infringed work.

Third, one of the conditions the DMCA has for allowing members of the collective to act on behalf of the collective to protect infringed work is that it is done so through the best of their knowledge that the work in question is trulying having its copyright being infringed.

According to the DMCA, the infringing work must cease distribution within a set timeframe.  After distribution has ceased, the offending party may only restore distribution after filing a counterclaim notice stating they do have the rights to distribute the work(s) in question.

Fourth, if the collective actor wishes to further halt distribution of infringing content then the only option is for litigation to be filed in court.  This is why that it is paramount that the information in a takedown request is 100% certain of its factualness in claiming the perceived infringer has no rights to copy/distribute the work whatsoever.

ANY false statements, whether they were known as false at the time or not, made in the takedown request or counterclaim are considered perjury and grounds for financial penalty amongst other things.


Contingency's new copyright policy
It is important for Contingency to have a clear and present policy on how to act in regards to potential copyright violations.  A single takedown attempt that ends up being a false positive is all it takes for the entire project to be put at risk of being shut down and any individual on the team having to face civil litigation or criminal indictment.  Every step of the way, from suspected infringement to details of an attempted takedown, needs to be documented and recorded in case of any sort of legal retaliation.

The tooling I have been working on for the team does have this planned, but it has yet to be implemented.  In the mean time, I have opened a new channel in the discord:  Contingency Central > DMCA Infringement.

In this channel, you should report any suspected infringements you run across.  Once you have done so, the team will discuss the merits of the claim.  Once a conclusion has been reached, the appropriate measures will be taken and logged for future reference.]]> Draft

Preface
Copyright law and the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) are large pieces of legislation filled with nuances to account for the multitude of ways humans have begun to create pieces of work.  Despite its size, it is a straight forward piece of legislation.  Unfortunately, there has been a great deal of misinformation regarding copyrights built up over the years.

It has come to my attention that within Contingency, copyright/DMCA matters have not been fully understood and handled in an unideal manner.  With this policy, the rights to the works invovled with Contingency will be explained and a path set in how to deal with percieved infringements.


Official Sources
Copyright:  https://www.copyright.gov/title17/
DMCA:  https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PLAW...ubl304.pdf


The basics of copyright in relation to Contingency
When an author first saves a newly created asset, a copyright is immediately granted over that work.  This applies whether that asset is a model, texture, animation, Unreal blueprint, text file, etc.  Said copyright for the newly saved work lasts for 70 years past the duration of the author's life.  After that 70 year period, the copyright expires and the work enters public domain.

The author mentioned above may not be a human in all cases.  Copyright Law allows for works to be made through employment and through collaboration.

In case of employment, the employer generally owns the copyright for works created as part of the job.  This is not always the case though, as it is allowed for the employment contract to dictate alternative terms for how the copyright is granted.

In case of collaboration, an author retains copyright of the work they contribute to the collaboration.  The collective, which is what the collaborators of a shared work are referred as, is fundamentally assumed to only have the right to reproduce and distribute that work as part of the collaboration.

Filings to the United States Copyright Office (and other nation's equivalent services) is the mechanism in which ownership of copyright is conveyed.  This is the only guaranteed method for ensuring transfer of copyright is documented and legaly recognized.

So what is Contingency?  First and foremost, it operates under the Microsoft GCUR and thus is unable to function as an employer hiring indivudals to create works.  Additionally, it is not a formal legal organization (such as a tax entity partnership or a limited liability corporation).  At best, it can be considered a collaboration for the purposes of copyright law.

That means Contingency doesn't exclusively (as in be the only owner) own copyright for the assets in the game.  It only owns the rights to distribute and reproduce the assets provided.


The basics of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in relation to Contingency
The DMCA is a piece of legislation that amends copyright law from 1976 in order to account for "the digital millennium" bringing news ways to create and distribute copyrighted works according to international treaties regarding intellectual property.

The DMCA provides Contingency the right to secure its digital work so as to prevent unlicensed copying in whole or part.  Any circumvention of the security measures is not allowed.  And when I say "any" I mean it.  There is no defense provided through law to permit it.  Copyright infringement exceptions such as education or fair use do not apply to circumvention of the security of digital work in any way.  Thus, ripping content from the Contingency game client is not legally allowed.

What does this mean for Contingency?  Let's establish some foundational statements for assumptions made on how the collective driving Contingency operates.

 - The collective basically began having no formal agreements in place.  Any agreements that are said to exist are done orally and are only done so through a subset of the collective.  Any such oral agreements are only binding if they can be proven to take have taken place.
 - It is presumed by the collective that works contributed to Contingency will not be distributed outside of the collective.
 - Nothing is actually preventing members of the collective from distributing their contributions to the public.  That is to say, no one in the collective has taken anyone else from the collective to court to try and enforce any perceived agreements.
 - Contingency secures its works in accordance with the DMCA.

What are the practical uses of the information above?

First, oral agreements have mostly kept works contributed to Contingency from being freely distributed to the public.  Therefore, it is safe to assume that the only way for the general public to get the works of Contingency is to play the game in accordance to the EULA.

Second, the game employs security measures to ensure its contents are not freely copied and/or distributed.  So if Person A ends up distributing a copy of something from Contingency in a mod for another game, there is a baseline established in determining infringement.  Has 100% of the content in the mod been distributed by its copyright owner through a means which it can get to Person A without the Contingency game?  If so, then that is perfectly okay under the law.  If not, then the DMCA affords members of the collective, under certain conditions, to act on behalf of the collective to protect the copyrights of the infringed work and initiate a takedown request to halt further distribution of the infringed work.

Third, one of the conditions the DMCA has for allowing members of the collective to act on behalf of the collective to protect infringed work is that it is done so through the best of their knowledge that the work in question is trulying having its copyright being infringed.

According to the DMCA, the infringing work must cease distribution within a set timeframe.  After distribution has ceased, the offending party may only restore distribution after filing a counterclaim notice stating they do have the rights to distribute the work(s) in question.

Fourth, if the collective actor wishes to further halt distribution of infringing content then the only option is for litigation to be filed in court.  This is why that it is paramount that the information in a takedown request is 100% certain of its factualness in claiming the perceived infringer has no rights to copy/distribute the work whatsoever.

ANY false statements, whether they were known as false at the time or not, made in the takedown request or counterclaim are considered perjury and grounds for financial penalty amongst other things.


Contingency's new copyright policy
It is important for Contingency to have a clear and present policy on how to act in regards to potential copyright violations.  A single takedown attempt that ends up being a false positive is all it takes for the entire project to be put at risk of being shut down and any individual on the team having to face civil litigation or criminal indictment.  Every step of the way, from suspected infringement to details of an attempted takedown, needs to be documented and recorded in case of any sort of legal retaliation.

The tooling I have been working on for the team does have this planned, but it has yet to be implemented.  In the mean time, I have opened a new channel in the discord:  Contingency Central > DMCA Infringement.

In this channel, you should report any suspected infringements you run across.  Once you have done so, the team will discuss the merits of the claim.  Once a conclusion has been reached, the appropriate measures will be taken and logged for future reference.]]> <![CDATA[[Draft] State of Contingency 2023 | End of Year Update]]> https://forum.project-contingency.com/showthread.php?tid=545 Mon, 01 Jan 2024 01:51:53 -0500 https://forum.project-contingency.com/showthread.php?tid=545
Hello, all!  I am Zeph, the new project leader for Contingency.  In this update, I will provide information explaining the current state of Contingency and announce what to expect in 2024.


Lets begin with the game as it is currently available to the public.  The core gameplay of Contingency is more or less complete.  The Alpha contains a complete vertical slice of functionality that allows players to start the game, play as much as they want, and then quit while gameplay statistics are retained and added to on subsequent play sessions.  That was the threshold former team leader Cobby required for a release and it was met well before the Alpha was made public.  There are still a good number of technical features on Contingency's list to finish up but they will only augment the core game.  More on those later.

The visual fidelity of Contingency is currently nowhere near the bleeding edge of lighting and rendering capabilities possible in Unreal Engine 4.  But it is of a high enough quality that when something is wrong it stands out.  A number of the game's assets were authored on the order of a decade ago and were absolutely stunning compared to the AAA titles that were released/showcased at the time.  If the game were released back then, it would have created a media frenzy.  But a great deal of time has passed; and as time passes further the lower-end of Contingency's graphics will look relatively bad while the higher-end will look increasingly average.  Priority one for visual content moving forwards will be to replace the remaining temporary meshes, textures, and animations with finalized work so as to reach a "content complete" state within the game.  A lower priority is to address the "errors" within the game that put it at risk of death by a thousand paper-cuts.  Such errors range from UV maps with unaligned seams, collision geometry mismatches with render geometry, and so forth.  I would like to see it all done eventually, but I prefer to have the game leave alpha/beta and hit a v1.0 release over remaining in development hell.

Of all the levels in Contingency, both public and private, only Overlord is considered complete.  It was submitted to the project on the condition that it not be modified and I intend to honor that agreement.
Cardinal is in an odd spot.  I personally consider this level as the game's test laboratory due to it going through immense drastic changes its over its life.  If I had the time, I'd love to take a screenshot from each build of the game just to see it evolve and devolve time and time again. A great deal about Unreal Engine has been learned by the team through tinkering with this level and I consider it to be one visual pass away from reaching the limit of what the current geometry can sustain.  I would like to see it get some new geometry here and there to do some cool lighting effects, but it is a low priority.
The current composition of Asgard is basically a whitebox layout where third party meshes are used instead of white boxes.  This has given it a look and feel that suggests it is much further along in development than it actually is.  There are some custom meshes in the level, but they need to be overhauled and expanded to encompass the entire play area.  Thus, Asgard should be considered ready for its first art pass to more successfully blend rugged terrain with sleek Forerunner architecture.
Jaywalk was introduced to Contingency as a true whitebox level.  In the time since the Alpha's release, it has been getting a visual overhaul with new geometry for the roads and buildings.  It's all coming together nicely, but it isn't quite ready to be shown off just yet.

The exact fate of the main menu is currently undecided.  Its current form was crunched together in the weeks leading up to the Alpha's release.  Priority 1 for that crunch was to ensure that all available features were controllable through UI.  The end result was functional but it fell short of the original vision of the user experience when not playing a match.  The good news is that the engineering that went into the main menu during the crunch was quite good and can mostly be left as-is even if we don't stick with the current "flat" UX.  


Next, let's discuss the state of the team behind Contingency.  Among the current developers, activity levels are currently low.  Very low.  I attribute this mostly to the real life of our devs taking priority.  Over the past few years I have seen some from the team start families, get new jobs, go back to school, get promotions, begin their own business, move on and publish their own game(s), and more.  To a lesser extent, the crunch leading up to the Alpha's release pushed a few members into burnout.  Whatever the cause, a good chunk of the leadership has stepped down from their roles and/or left the team.  Some of those leadership roles have been filled while others remain vacant.  Given that the inertia of the game's development was generally maintained by the leadership being active, it has been difficult to move out of this most recent bout of low activity.  More on this later.

The infrastructure supporting the team is currently healthy overall.  When I stepped into the project leader role, I quickly ran into some bus-factor of 1 scares where some development data was believed lost.  Most of those deficiencies have been resolved and as far as I am aware, only a single non-critical one remains to be solved at leisure.  It is safe to say that if Contingency has lost access to any data now, it's simply because that data hasn't been handed over for storage.  Contingency also recently saw some well needed server upgrades take place.  A new generation of hardware components should make all services, both public and private, much more responsive.


To conclude, lets discuss the bigger works in progress and what to expect in 2024.  I'll admit that the planning for Contingency was no less ambitious than Bungie's feature set for Halo 3, ODST, and Reach.  Single-player, Multi-player, Theater, Forge, and more were all on the table and I see little reason to cut them as a feature at this point.  Especially when some of them are already functional and viable.  Theater mode is mostly complete and mainly needs user interface work completed before it is ready for ring 1 testing and beyond.  It's a shame that it hasn't been finished, because it has already been used internally to help track down some bugs.  If it were available from the start of the Alpha, I feel that a good amount more problems would have been found and addressed.

While it's not a full fledged single player campaign, solo-play online lobbies will be much less empty thanks to AI/Bot support being added into the game.  Bots won't debut with much more than basic shooter logic, but they will help fill lobbies on quiet nights.  I won't promise anything in regards to numbers or performance yet, but this does open the door to some Big Team Battles on the scale Contingency's founders could only hope to see some point in the future.

Forge is technically supported within the game, but essentially in limbo.  I feel that after MCC made its way onto PC, that most of the immediate desire for it to be a part of Contingency started fading away.  There's not exactly a big need to craft level authoring tools in Contingency because the level editor for the engine is easily available for use.  You want a new level in Contingency?  Join the team and use Unreal Engine's level editor to add one!  But at some point Contingency may be feature rich enough with AI bots to have a meaningful need to design/script encounters in a level at runtime.  At that point something like Firefight could easily be a community tweakable feature.  Only after something like that is ready would Forge start getting some more development time from the team (don't expect it in 2024).

On the back-end of development, tools to better support the team's management are being written.  Over Contingency's life, all sorts of productivity assistance tools have been used to try and organize thoughts and track activity/requirements.  Google docs, spreadsheets, kanban boards, issue tracking, milestone lists, pinned chat comments, and more have found a use over the years but all of them have fallen short in one way or another.  The primary objective of this new tooling is to facilitate discovery of what has happened in terms of development and what has yet to take place.  When I stepped into the project leader role, there was nothing prepared to brief me on the full scope of the team's work this past decade.  I had to scroll, dig, and interrogate to find things and there's a good chance I've still missed a considerable chunk of the team's history.  If Contingency is still around after another decade, I don't want any new members to have to go through the same thing.  Instead, I want them to be able to find all they need in one single resource.

Once this tooling is functional, a formal "Road to 1.0" will be plotted by a full auditing of the game to identify shortcomings.  These will be converted directly into tasks with a priority, clear scope, and view of dependencies.  For instance, an animation identified as missing would have a task created stating which source files in Contingency's source repository can be used to create the animation.  Any available animator could find the source file, open it to see if they want to work on it, and then assign themselves to the task to ensure no one else's time is wasted.  The task can then be updated or discussed as needed similar to a forum thread where the team can see progress as it is being made.  Any commits to version control can be associated with this task automatically prompting peer review and/or critique if desired.  If tasks do not get someone assigned to them over an extended amount of time, that is valuable information as well.  The tooling can be used to report what skills are in the highest demand and prompt a more focused recruiting drive for talent.

It is my hope that having the development planning organized in this manner that the team can start forming positive feedback loops within itself to be more productive and attract new talent.  Speaking of, Contingency is always recruiting.  Currently the greatest need is for animators, 3d hard surface environment artists, and PBR texture artists but we are interested in growing the Contingency team in all disciplines.  If you're interested in joining, please put together a portfolio illustrating your competencies and fill out the form from the "Join Our Team!" page linked in the header above.]]>
Hello, all!  I am Zeph, the new project leader for Contingency.  In this update, I will provide information explaining the current state of Contingency and announce what to expect in 2024.


Lets begin with the game as it is currently available to the public.  The core gameplay of Contingency is more or less complete.  The Alpha contains a complete vertical slice of functionality that allows players to start the game, play as much as they want, and then quit while gameplay statistics are retained and added to on subsequent play sessions.  That was the threshold former team leader Cobby required for a release and it was met well before the Alpha was made public.  There are still a good number of technical features on Contingency's list to finish up but they will only augment the core game.  More on those later.

The visual fidelity of Contingency is currently nowhere near the bleeding edge of lighting and rendering capabilities possible in Unreal Engine 4.  But it is of a high enough quality that when something is wrong it stands out.  A number of the game's assets were authored on the order of a decade ago and were absolutely stunning compared to the AAA titles that were released/showcased at the time.  If the game were released back then, it would have created a media frenzy.  But a great deal of time has passed; and as time passes further the lower-end of Contingency's graphics will look relatively bad while the higher-end will look increasingly average.  Priority one for visual content moving forwards will be to replace the remaining temporary meshes, textures, and animations with finalized work so as to reach a "content complete" state within the game.  A lower priority is to address the "errors" within the game that put it at risk of death by a thousand paper-cuts.  Such errors range from UV maps with unaligned seams, collision geometry mismatches with render geometry, and so forth.  I would like to see it all done eventually, but I prefer to have the game leave alpha/beta and hit a v1.0 release over remaining in development hell.

Of all the levels in Contingency, both public and private, only Overlord is considered complete.  It was submitted to the project on the condition that it not be modified and I intend to honor that agreement.
Cardinal is in an odd spot.  I personally consider this level as the game's test laboratory due to it going through immense drastic changes its over its life.  If I had the time, I'd love to take a screenshot from each build of the game just to see it evolve and devolve time and time again. A great deal about Unreal Engine has been learned by the team through tinkering with this level and I consider it to be one visual pass away from reaching the limit of what the current geometry can sustain.  I would like to see it get some new geometry here and there to do some cool lighting effects, but it is a low priority.
The current composition of Asgard is basically a whitebox layout where third party meshes are used instead of white boxes.  This has given it a look and feel that suggests it is much further along in development than it actually is.  There are some custom meshes in the level, but they need to be overhauled and expanded to encompass the entire play area.  Thus, Asgard should be considered ready for its first art pass to more successfully blend rugged terrain with sleek Forerunner architecture.
Jaywalk was introduced to Contingency as a true whitebox level.  In the time since the Alpha's release, it has been getting a visual overhaul with new geometry for the roads and buildings.  It's all coming together nicely, but it isn't quite ready to be shown off just yet.

The exact fate of the main menu is currently undecided.  Its current form was crunched together in the weeks leading up to the Alpha's release.  Priority 1 for that crunch was to ensure that all available features were controllable through UI.  The end result was functional but it fell short of the original vision of the user experience when not playing a match.  The good news is that the engineering that went into the main menu during the crunch was quite good and can mostly be left as-is even if we don't stick with the current "flat" UX.  


Next, let's discuss the state of the team behind Contingency.  Among the current developers, activity levels are currently low.  Very low.  I attribute this mostly to the real life of our devs taking priority.  Over the past few years I have seen some from the team start families, get new jobs, go back to school, get promotions, begin their own business, move on and publish their own game(s), and more.  To a lesser extent, the crunch leading up to the Alpha's release pushed a few members into burnout.  Whatever the cause, a good chunk of the leadership has stepped down from their roles and/or left the team.  Some of those leadership roles have been filled while others remain vacant.  Given that the inertia of the game's development was generally maintained by the leadership being active, it has been difficult to move out of this most recent bout of low activity.  More on this later.

The infrastructure supporting the team is currently healthy overall.  When I stepped into the project leader role, I quickly ran into some bus-factor of 1 scares where some development data was believed lost.  Most of those deficiencies have been resolved and as far as I am aware, only a single non-critical one remains to be solved at leisure.  It is safe to say that if Contingency has lost access to any data now, it's simply because that data hasn't been handed over for storage.  Contingency also recently saw some well needed server upgrades take place.  A new generation of hardware components should make all services, both public and private, much more responsive.


To conclude, lets discuss the bigger works in progress and what to expect in 2024.  I'll admit that the planning for Contingency was no less ambitious than Bungie's feature set for Halo 3, ODST, and Reach.  Single-player, Multi-player, Theater, Forge, and more were all on the table and I see little reason to cut them as a feature at this point.  Especially when some of them are already functional and viable.  Theater mode is mostly complete and mainly needs user interface work completed before it is ready for ring 1 testing and beyond.  It's a shame that it hasn't been finished, because it has already been used internally to help track down some bugs.  If it were available from the start of the Alpha, I feel that a good amount more problems would have been found and addressed.

While it's not a full fledged single player campaign, solo-play online lobbies will be much less empty thanks to AI/Bot support being added into the game.  Bots won't debut with much more than basic shooter logic, but they will help fill lobbies on quiet nights.  I won't promise anything in regards to numbers or performance yet, but this does open the door to some Big Team Battles on the scale Contingency's founders could only hope to see some point in the future.

Forge is technically supported within the game, but essentially in limbo.  I feel that after MCC made its way onto PC, that most of the immediate desire for it to be a part of Contingency started fading away.  There's not exactly a big need to craft level authoring tools in Contingency because the level editor for the engine is easily available for use.  You want a new level in Contingency?  Join the team and use Unreal Engine's level editor to add one!  But at some point Contingency may be feature rich enough with AI bots to have a meaningful need to design/script encounters in a level at runtime.  At that point something like Firefight could easily be a community tweakable feature.  Only after something like that is ready would Forge start getting some more development time from the team (don't expect it in 2024).

On the back-end of development, tools to better support the team's management are being written.  Over Contingency's life, all sorts of productivity assistance tools have been used to try and organize thoughts and track activity/requirements.  Google docs, spreadsheets, kanban boards, issue tracking, milestone lists, pinned chat comments, and more have found a use over the years but all of them have fallen short in one way or another.  The primary objective of this new tooling is to facilitate discovery of what has happened in terms of development and what has yet to take place.  When I stepped into the project leader role, there was nothing prepared to brief me on the full scope of the team's work this past decade.  I had to scroll, dig, and interrogate to find things and there's a good chance I've still missed a considerable chunk of the team's history.  If Contingency is still around after another decade, I don't want any new members to have to go through the same thing.  Instead, I want them to be able to find all they need in one single resource.

Once this tooling is functional, a formal "Road to 1.0" will be plotted by a full auditing of the game to identify shortcomings.  These will be converted directly into tasks with a priority, clear scope, and view of dependencies.  For instance, an animation identified as missing would have a task created stating which source files in Contingency's source repository can be used to create the animation.  Any available animator could find the source file, open it to see if they want to work on it, and then assign themselves to the task to ensure no one else's time is wasted.  The task can then be updated or discussed as needed similar to a forum thread where the team can see progress as it is being made.  Any commits to version control can be associated with this task automatically prompting peer review and/or critique if desired.  If tasks do not get someone assigned to them over an extended amount of time, that is valuable information as well.  The tooling can be used to report what skills are in the highest demand and prompt a more focused recruiting drive for talent.

It is my hope that having the development planning organized in this manner that the team can start forming positive feedback loops within itself to be more productive and attract new talent.  Speaking of, Contingency is always recruiting.  Currently the greatest need is for animators, 3d hard surface environment artists, and PBR texture artists but we are interested in growing the Contingency team in all disciplines.  If you're interested in joining, please put together a portfolio illustrating your competencies and fill out the form from the "Join Our Team!" page linked in the header above.]]> <![CDATA[[Team Announcement] - Setting course to the future of Contingency]]> https://forum.project-contingency.com/showthread.php?tid=544 Sun, 20 Aug 2023 18:07:05 -0400 https://forum.project-contingency.com/showthread.php?tid=544
My interest in taking the position of Project Lead for Contingency is to ensure that the collective knowledge generated over the past dozen or so years since the original musings of "our own Halo game" first began is preserved and the project is in a position where it could feasibly continue for another dozen or so years.

My immediate goals for the team are to build up the tooling to help the team manage itself better, change the team's overall development ideology, and start working the project up to a state where it is fundamentally easier to attract and utilize talent.

I consider the tooling to provide the most immediate benefit to the team.  The kanban style organization just isn't cutting it and a great deal of source files for content are missing.  The project needs a centralized system that can reach out through our communication platform(s) and our dev tools (discord, gitlab, etc).  This tooling should eventually take over the bulk of the workload that Directors and Leads were theoretically supposed to be supporting as they managed their own subsets of the game's development.  Additionally, it will dramatically help with the onboarding process of getting new members set up and ready to contribute.

Changing the team's development ideology is going to be a slow process but it should eventually feed into itself and start increasing activity levels.  In the short term, I don't really expect anything to change in regards to the ProjContDev repository.  By all means, maintain the status quo and aim to proudly delete that "ALPHA BUILD" widget.  But in the future, I expect the team to operate in a slightly more open environment.

After the new tooling is in place, I will begin leading an effort to tackle the technical debt that the game has incurred over the project's sevenish years of utilizing Unreal Engine 4.  The important thing to note here is I do not intend for the fruits of this labor to go directly into the ProjContDev repository.  Instead, I will be creating two new repositories.  I have no names for these repositories yet and have simply been calling them the Open and Closed repositories.

The Open repository will host a game-agnostic framework in which "Halo style" games can be built off.  The key factor of this repository is it will be exposed to the public.  Licensing for this repository will allow anyone to use it as long as they are in compliance with the MGCUR.  There is no obligation for those using it to contribute back to the repository.

The Closed repository will take advantage of the Open repository's license and configure/tailor the framework to the specific design of Contingency and plug into its back-end services.  It will more closely resemble how the project currently operates.  But assets from ProjContDev will only be added to the closed repository if the author agrees to allow unrestricted use by Contingency in compliance with the MGCUR.  Furthermore, source files for content submitted to the Closed repository must be provided as well so future issues/changes may be resolved in haste.  I am grateful to those who have contributed to ProjContDev under various restrictive conditions, but such verbal agreements on the matter are an administrative nightmare.  I don't want a theoretical new project lead ten+ years from now to inadvertently cause drama because someone's assets aren't being used according to agreements the lead was not even a party to.

I understand there may be some resistance against these ideas, but consider for a moment just how approachable ProjContDev will be over the next few years.  From an artist perspective, the Directors have already honed in on what the game should look like and what assets are to be created.  For some artists, that's desirable but it leaves those who are wanting an outlet for their own creativity no place in the team.  From an engineering perspective, the game is hard coded to do what it does and is very inflexible.  If the engineers who have worked on the game for years aren't comfortable touching certain parts due to the effort involved, how can we expect new members to help?

In creating the Open repository, we are forcing ourselves to first create something that is usable by all.  By making the Open repository public, we are allowing the public to become familiar and fluent with the way Contingency does things through no additional effort.  The project can only thrive on the good will and free time of its contributors.  I have no intention of changing the game that has already been created.  I only want to establish an environment that attracts talent and further cultivates them.  Keep in mind that ProjContDev is just one game and is wildly different than the concepts toyed with back when it was in Cryengine.  The path I am declaring is to open the possibility of the current game, that so much effort has gone into, just being one tiny module in a greater catalog of games created under the Contingency banner.]]>
My interest in taking the position of Project Lead for Contingency is to ensure that the collective knowledge generated over the past dozen or so years since the original musings of "our own Halo game" first began is preserved and the project is in a position where it could feasibly continue for another dozen or so years.

My immediate goals for the team are to build up the tooling to help the team manage itself better, change the team's overall development ideology, and start working the project up to a state where it is fundamentally easier to attract and utilize talent.

I consider the tooling to provide the most immediate benefit to the team.  The kanban style organization just isn't cutting it and a great deal of source files for content are missing.  The project needs a centralized system that can reach out through our communication platform(s) and our dev tools (discord, gitlab, etc).  This tooling should eventually take over the bulk of the workload that Directors and Leads were theoretically supposed to be supporting as they managed their own subsets of the game's development.  Additionally, it will dramatically help with the onboarding process of getting new members set up and ready to contribute.

Changing the team's development ideology is going to be a slow process but it should eventually feed into itself and start increasing activity levels.  In the short term, I don't really expect anything to change in regards to the ProjContDev repository.  By all means, maintain the status quo and aim to proudly delete that "ALPHA BUILD" widget.  But in the future, I expect the team to operate in a slightly more open environment.

After the new tooling is in place, I will begin leading an effort to tackle the technical debt that the game has incurred over the project's sevenish years of utilizing Unreal Engine 4.  The important thing to note here is I do not intend for the fruits of this labor to go directly into the ProjContDev repository.  Instead, I will be creating two new repositories.  I have no names for these repositories yet and have simply been calling them the Open and Closed repositories.

The Open repository will host a game-agnostic framework in which "Halo style" games can be built off.  The key factor of this repository is it will be exposed to the public.  Licensing for this repository will allow anyone to use it as long as they are in compliance with the MGCUR.  There is no obligation for those using it to contribute back to the repository.

The Closed repository will take advantage of the Open repository's license and configure/tailor the framework to the specific design of Contingency and plug into its back-end services.  It will more closely resemble how the project currently operates.  But assets from ProjContDev will only be added to the closed repository if the author agrees to allow unrestricted use by Contingency in compliance with the MGCUR.  Furthermore, source files for content submitted to the Closed repository must be provided as well so future issues/changes may be resolved in haste.  I am grateful to those who have contributed to ProjContDev under various restrictive conditions, but such verbal agreements on the matter are an administrative nightmare.  I don't want a theoretical new project lead ten+ years from now to inadvertently cause drama because someone's assets aren't being used according to agreements the lead was not even a party to.

I understand there may be some resistance against these ideas, but consider for a moment just how approachable ProjContDev will be over the next few years.  From an artist perspective, the Directors have already honed in on what the game should look like and what assets are to be created.  For some artists, that's desirable but it leaves those who are wanting an outlet for their own creativity no place in the team.  From an engineering perspective, the game is hard coded to do what it does and is very inflexible.  If the engineers who have worked on the game for years aren't comfortable touching certain parts due to the effort involved, how can we expect new members to help?

In creating the Open repository, we are forcing ourselves to first create something that is usable by all.  By making the Open repository public, we are allowing the public to become familiar and fluent with the way Contingency does things through no additional effort.  The project can only thrive on the good will and free time of its contributors.  I have no intention of changing the game that has already been created.  I only want to establish an environment that attracts talent and further cultivates them.  Keep in mind that ProjContDev is just one game and is wildly different than the concepts toyed with back when it was in Cryengine.  The path I am declaring is to open the possibility of the current game, that so much effort has gone into, just being one tiny module in a greater catalog of games created under the Contingency banner.]]> <![CDATA[UPDATE: April 3rd 2017]]> https://forum.project-contingency.com/showthread.php?tid=23 Mon, 03 Apr 2017 22:15:37 -0400 https://forum.project-contingency.com/showthread.php?tid=23
http://project-contingency.com/blog-post...ril_Update

This article has the bulk of the update information ready for you. We also have quite a few other articles to show you!

Here's a look at our Art, We'll be updating this a bit more within the next few days as we get more to show
We published an article detailing our thought process behind the game
Take a look at everyone who put a lot of effort into making this push!

Feel free to discuss!]]>
http://project-contingency.com/blog-post...ril_Update

This article has the bulk of the update information ready for you. We also have quite a few other articles to show you!

Here's a look at our Art, We'll be updating this a bit more within the next few days as we get more to show
We published an article detailing our thought process behind the game
Take a look at everyone who put a lot of effort into making this push!

Feel free to discuss!]]> <![CDATA[Contingency - Where to Reach Us]]> https://forum.project-contingency.com/showthread.php?tid=11 Wed, 22 Mar 2017 03:38:05 -0400 https://forum.project-contingency.com/showthread.php?tid=11
Main Website
Official Youtube Channel
Official Team Twitter Page

Community Manager's (R93 Sniper) Twitter Page
Website Designer's (Caspar) Twitter Page
Website Designer's (Clark) Twitter Page

Public Discord Chat

Everything that is underlined is a link that you can click.]]>
Main Website
Official Youtube Channel
Official Team Twitter Page

Community Manager's (R93 Sniper) Twitter Page
Website Designer's (Caspar) Twitter Page
Website Designer's (Clark) Twitter Page

Public Discord Chat

Everything that is underlined is a link that you can click.]]> <![CDATA[Contingency - Behind the Scenes]]> https://forum.project-contingency.com/showthread.php?tid=10 Wed, 22 Mar 2017 03:36:58 -0400 https://forum.project-contingency.com/showthread.php?tid=10 Spartan Third Person Rig
Spartan First Person Rig
Various 2D Art
HUD and Menu Concepts
UI Design (2016)


This will be updated as the team begins to post more of their stuff online.]]> Spartan Third Person Rig
Spartan First Person Rig
Various 2D Art
HUD and Menu Concepts
UI Design (2016)


This will be updated as the team begins to post more of their stuff online.]]> <![CDATA[UPDATE: June 16th 2016]]> https://forum.project-contingency.com/showthread.php?tid=9 Wed, 22 Mar 2017 03:32:06 -0400 https://forum.project-contingency.com/showthread.php?tid=9 We are moving to a new home, a new site, soon, but we couldn’t wait to give you guys this update, so here it is before we move across the web!
Welcome back everyone! It has been a long time coming but we are pleased to finally present our biggest update yet! A lot of progress has been made and content has been created since the last update, so let’s get started!
If you wish to learn more about the team and the project, you can take a look at our Meet The Team and FAQ pages.
Before we dive right into the update, we have a little teaser to show you... hopefully you'll enjoy it as much as we did creating it!




A quick reminder, first, that a lot of the content shown is still a work-in-progress, meaning a lot of what is shown is being updated and iterated upon. The two maps shown are also getting a rework as we speak, so they will most likely look different when shown later on. We have improved the look and feel of the game since last time if you have noticed. To go along with that is our next big announcement: (Drum roll please...)
We've officially switched to UE4!
This has been a major transition for us, with which came a lot of progress as well as a few hiccups. The decision to switch to UE4 was not an easy one, but we felt it was a solid choice. However, this leads to the questions: Why did you switch and how does that affect us? Good question fellow readers! It provides us a myriad of new features and functions that streamlines the process and allows us to create a better experience for you guys!
 
Here's a quick rundown of what we mean:
  • - Full access to Unreal Engine’s source code.

  • - Access to Blueprint: a system that helps non-coders rapidly prototype features.

  • - Access to a suite of debugging tools to help find errors and correct them easily..

  • - A more natural workflow that allows us to have more control over our creative process

  • - More overall flexibility in creating our work and presenting it

  • - Better custom materials and shader types.

  • - Higher graphical fidelity and accuracy And More!
Now let's look at some gameplay. Here are samples on three of our maps, Asgard, Cardinal, and Monolith. Keep in mind this is still heavily WIP.











With this change, we hope to be able to push updates a bit more frequently than we have so far. To the next announcement, we are clearing our slate for recruiting and opening up to new applicants! Unlike last time we will also be providing a list of people that we are currently looking for in our application form. If you want to help us out, send us an application and we’ll take a look as soon as we possibly can!

We would also like to ask for everyone to take a hardware survey so that we can accurately figure out what our optimization target is. The form can be found here, so please do fill it out!

For those of you who don’t know, we have a bit of a social media presence along with this fancy website of ours. You can message our official Twitter page @ProjContingency, Our Community Manager @R93_Sniper[/url] and our Website Designers @PraiseBeNewGuy and @__Caspar__ for questions, comments, or general remarks. You can follow our Composer and Music artist, Fernando Pepe, at his soundcloud and listen in to all his amazing works of auditory perfection, as well as subscribe to our Youtube Channel and follow up with any videos that we may put out. You can also follow up with our developers and the community on our [url=http://forum.project-contingency.com/index.php]forum. Be sure to read the important important messages and sticky notices before you post though!

That’s all for now, until next time!



Addendum: For anybody who wants a bit of insight to what Contingency used to be versus what it is now, click here.]]> We are moving to a new home, a new site, soon, but we couldn’t wait to give you guys this update, so here it is before we move across the web!
Welcome back everyone! It has been a long time coming but we are pleased to finally present our biggest update yet! A lot of progress has been made and content has been created since the last update, so let’s get started!
If you wish to learn more about the team and the project, you can take a look at our Meet The Team and FAQ pages.
Before we dive right into the update, we have a little teaser to show you... hopefully you'll enjoy it as much as we did creating it!




A quick reminder, first, that a lot of the content shown is still a work-in-progress, meaning a lot of what is shown is being updated and iterated upon. The two maps shown are also getting a rework as we speak, so they will most likely look different when shown later on. We have improved the look and feel of the game since last time if you have noticed. To go along with that is our next big announcement: (Drum roll please...)
We've officially switched to UE4!
This has been a major transition for us, with which came a lot of progress as well as a few hiccups. The decision to switch to UE4 was not an easy one, but we felt it was a solid choice. However, this leads to the questions: Why did you switch and how does that affect us? Good question fellow readers! It provides us a myriad of new features and functions that streamlines the process and allows us to create a better experience for you guys!
 
Here's a quick rundown of what we mean:
  • - Full access to Unreal Engine’s source code.

  • - Access to Blueprint: a system that helps non-coders rapidly prototype features.

  • - Access to a suite of debugging tools to help find errors and correct them easily..

  • - A more natural workflow that allows us to have more control over our creative process

  • - More overall flexibility in creating our work and presenting it

  • - Better custom materials and shader types.

  • - Higher graphical fidelity and accuracy And More!
Now let's look at some gameplay. Here are samples on three of our maps, Asgard, Cardinal, and Monolith. Keep in mind this is still heavily WIP.











With this change, we hope to be able to push updates a bit more frequently than we have so far. To the next announcement, we are clearing our slate for recruiting and opening up to new applicants! Unlike last time we will also be providing a list of people that we are currently looking for in our application form. If you want to help us out, send us an application and we’ll take a look as soon as we possibly can!

We would also like to ask for everyone to take a hardware survey so that we can accurately figure out what our optimization target is. The form can be found here, so please do fill it out!

For those of you who don’t know, we have a bit of a social media presence along with this fancy website of ours. You can message our official Twitter page @ProjContingency, Our Community Manager @R93_Sniper[/url] and our Website Designers @PraiseBeNewGuy and @__Caspar__ for questions, comments, or general remarks. You can follow our Composer and Music artist, Fernando Pepe, at his soundcloud and listen in to all his amazing works of auditory perfection, as well as subscribe to our Youtube Channel and follow up with any videos that we may put out. You can also follow up with our developers and the community on our [url=http://forum.project-contingency.com/index.php]forum. Be sure to read the important important messages and sticky notices before you post though!

That’s all for now, until next time!



Addendum: For anybody who wants a bit of insight to what Contingency used to be versus what it is now, click here.]]> <![CDATA[UPDATE: October 24th 2014]]> https://forum.project-contingency.com/showthread.php?tid=8 Wed, 22 Mar 2017 03:15:27 -0400 https://forum.project-contingency.com/showthread.php?tid=8 For months, the team has been in the shadows, working hard to create a Halo experience on the PC unlike any other. The time has come for us to unveil a portion of our work thus far. Remember, all work shown is subject to change and nothing is necessarily final.

Starting with the Administrative sector of the team, we have our two head designers, Sam Santillo and our Anonymous leader. Our administrators are in charge of keeping the team organized and leading the game as required. They're also in charge of recruitment and gameplay design.

Moving to the visual section of the game, we have our 3D artists. Every model the player will see in this project will have been created by one of the people on this section of the team. The artists are tasked with creating props, weapons, vehicles, and various other models, as well as adjusting them to fit the aesthetic that we've planned for the game.

Our team of 3D Artists consists of the following people:
Alex Penn - Also known as "Master Noob", Alex is in charge of characters and Covenant materials.
Christian Kendall - Christian is in charge of creating Human Weaponry and props.
Ryan Richardson - Ryan's task is to create Human Vehicles.
Simon Riverin - Simon's work is centered around large scale props.
Michael Belousov - Michael creates human props and structures.
Ethan Nino- Ethan's tasks are based in creating small scale UNSC props and Vehicles.
Martin Carlsson- Martin is in charge of creating UNSC Weapons.
Lee Cobb - Going by the handle Cobby, is skilled in UNSC and Forerunner Materials.

Our talented artists have prepared a variety of renders for you to look at today.
SPOILER

On another visual aspect of our game, we have our 2D Artists. Just as the name states, these artists are primarily concerned with creating concept images. The team as a whole votes on what version of an object will be implemented, and then our 3D artists create it. Our 2D Artist team consists of:
Daniel Hauca - An artist whose primary focus is on weapons, vehicles, and characters.
Kevin Day - Ikki's work is centered primarily around environment art but also creates weapon art.
P3 - P3 is a skilled artist who creates concepts for covenant materials and UNSC props.
Jim Tomatoes - A very talented artist who focuses on environment and spatial art.
Cody Avery - Another Talented 2D Artist who has created many pieces of Environmental art.
Lavadeeto - A skilled artist known for working with Custom Mapping Team, he creates HUD and UI elements.
Clark Melton - Website Designer/Concept Artist.

Our 2D Artists have a small selection of work to show you as well. 

SPOILER

the final visual aspect of the game, we have our Animators. Animators are responsible for making any sort of dynamic mesh move, such as characters, vehicles, and dynamic props. We have a rather small animation team, but make no mistake, their skill makes up for their small numbers.
Matt Zhiss - Notable for his work with Custom Mapping Team, Matt is responsible for all First-Person animations.
Wahab Quazi - Wahab's work is centered around animating Third-Person animations for the Covenant Characters.
Farzad Morshed - Known for his various work as TheAnimatedFlame, Farzad is tasked with Third Person animation for UNSC Characters.
Currently, Matt has prepared some of the First-Person animations for you to take a look at and indulge in. 

SPOILER

Moving to a more technical aspect of the game, we have our programmers. Their task is quite notably the most arduous, as they must write out hundreds upon hundreds of lines of code with little assistance from anyone other than each other. The amount of hours that the coding team puts in surpasses any part of the team, pulling all-nighters just to get a single task completed if necessary. Our talented team consists of the following people:
Anthony House - Anthony, notably the hardest working coder, has made a vast majority of progress for the team. This includes but is not limited to: Menus, Shield Code, and a working Motion Tracker.
Elijah Montenegro - Elijah's work is centered around vehicle code and prototyping assorted gameplay dynamics and entities. He also assists Anthony on various tasks, notably the shield effects.
David Starkey - Starkey is an experienced coder who works on Database and SQL Data, as well as statistic saving.
Ayoub Chouak - Being the newest member of the coding team, Ayoub works primarily as a coding assistant to Starkey and Anthony, but is given his own tasks based on the needs of the team.
Clark Melton - One of the newer members, Clark is better known as "New Guy", or the one responsible for reworking the website singlehandedly. 

SPOILER

To the final section of our update, we have our Audio designers. Constructing audio from scratch is a very difficult task. That being said, our Audio designers work carefully with the members of the team trying to get the best sound as determined by the team's consensus.

Matt Ryan - Matt is in charge of creating weapon and ambient sounds, most of the ingame sounds created by player interaction will be constructed by him.
Fernando Pepe - Our soundtrack artist, well known for his "Star Citizen" fan soundtrack, is an extremely skilled master of audio. Fernando wishes to share a small selection of the soundtrack that he has composed for us up until now. You can listen to it here: 

SOUNDCLOUD
]]> For months, the team has been in the shadows, working hard to create a Halo experience on the PC unlike any other. The time has come for us to unveil a portion of our work thus far. Remember, all work shown is subject to change and nothing is necessarily final.

Starting with the Administrative sector of the team, we have our two head designers, Sam Santillo and our Anonymous leader. Our administrators are in charge of keeping the team organized and leading the game as required. They're also in charge of recruitment and gameplay design.

Moving to the visual section of the game, we have our 3D artists. Every model the player will see in this project will have been created by one of the people on this section of the team. The artists are tasked with creating props, weapons, vehicles, and various other models, as well as adjusting them to fit the aesthetic that we've planned for the game.

Our team of 3D Artists consists of the following people:
Alex Penn - Also known as "Master Noob", Alex is in charge of characters and Covenant materials.
Christian Kendall - Christian is in charge of creating Human Weaponry and props.
Ryan Richardson - Ryan's task is to create Human Vehicles.
Simon Riverin - Simon's work is centered around large scale props.
Michael Belousov - Michael creates human props and structures.
Ethan Nino- Ethan's tasks are based in creating small scale UNSC props and Vehicles.
Martin Carlsson- Martin is in charge of creating UNSC Weapons.
Lee Cobb - Going by the handle Cobby, is skilled in UNSC and Forerunner Materials.

Our talented artists have prepared a variety of renders for you to look at today.
SPOILER

On another visual aspect of our game, we have our 2D Artists. Just as the name states, these artists are primarily concerned with creating concept images. The team as a whole votes on what version of an object will be implemented, and then our 3D artists create it. Our 2D Artist team consists of:
Daniel Hauca - An artist whose primary focus is on weapons, vehicles, and characters.
Kevin Day - Ikki's work is centered primarily around environment art but also creates weapon art.
P3 - P3 is a skilled artist who creates concepts for covenant materials and UNSC props.
Jim Tomatoes - A very talented artist who focuses on environment and spatial art.
Cody Avery - Another Talented 2D Artist who has created many pieces of Environmental art.
Lavadeeto - A skilled artist known for working with Custom Mapping Team, he creates HUD and UI elements.
Clark Melton - Website Designer/Concept Artist.

Our 2D Artists have a small selection of work to show you as well. 

SPOILER

the final visual aspect of the game, we have our Animators. Animators are responsible for making any sort of dynamic mesh move, such as characters, vehicles, and dynamic props. We have a rather small animation team, but make no mistake, their skill makes up for their small numbers.
Matt Zhiss - Notable for his work with Custom Mapping Team, Matt is responsible for all First-Person animations.
Wahab Quazi - Wahab's work is centered around animating Third-Person animations for the Covenant Characters.
Farzad Morshed - Known for his various work as TheAnimatedFlame, Farzad is tasked with Third Person animation for UNSC Characters.
Currently, Matt has prepared some of the First-Person animations for you to take a look at and indulge in. 

SPOILER

Moving to a more technical aspect of the game, we have our programmers. Their task is quite notably the most arduous, as they must write out hundreds upon hundreds of lines of code with little assistance from anyone other than each other. The amount of hours that the coding team puts in surpasses any part of the team, pulling all-nighters just to get a single task completed if necessary. Our talented team consists of the following people:
Anthony House - Anthony, notably the hardest working coder, has made a vast majority of progress for the team. This includes but is not limited to: Menus, Shield Code, and a working Motion Tracker.
Elijah Montenegro - Elijah's work is centered around vehicle code and prototyping assorted gameplay dynamics and entities. He also assists Anthony on various tasks, notably the shield effects.
David Starkey - Starkey is an experienced coder who works on Database and SQL Data, as well as statistic saving.
Ayoub Chouak - Being the newest member of the coding team, Ayoub works primarily as a coding assistant to Starkey and Anthony, but is given his own tasks based on the needs of the team.
Clark Melton - One of the newer members, Clark is better known as "New Guy", or the one responsible for reworking the website singlehandedly. 

SPOILER

To the final section of our update, we have our Audio designers. Constructing audio from scratch is a very difficult task. That being said, our Audio designers work carefully with the members of the team trying to get the best sound as determined by the team's consensus.

Matt Ryan - Matt is in charge of creating weapon and ambient sounds, most of the ingame sounds created by player interaction will be constructed by him.
Fernando Pepe - Our soundtrack artist, well known for his "Star Citizen" fan soundtrack, is an extremely skilled master of audio. Fernando wishes to share a small selection of the soundtrack that he has composed for us up until now. You can listen to it here: 

SOUNDCLOUD
]]> <![CDATA[[Read Before You Post!] Message to all Forum Users, Newcomers and Veterans Alike!]]> https://forum.project-contingency.com/showthread.php?tid=7 Wed, 22 Mar 2017 03:12:03 -0400 https://forum.project-contingency.com/showthread.php?tid=7
Project: Contingency is a Free-To-Play Halo game, following Microsoft’s Game Content Usage Rules. We are not a large company, we are not a Triple-A game studio, and we are not getting paid for this project. We are simply a team of dedicated halo fans who want to bring the halo experience back to PC, and allow everyone to enjoy it. For any of those who have the question of “Is this even legal??” the answer is Yes, it is! Our team has gotten confirmation that so long as we abide by Microsoft’s rules, we can create our game without hindrance.

For those of you who are wondering what that entails, here’s what it means.
1. We cannot use content from the halo games. Meaning we cannot use Microsoft/343i’s music, sounds, models, textures, animations and etc.
2. We cannot make a profit from the game. As much as we’d love to take donations, we unfortunately cannot.
3. Any content within the game will not contribute to the official narrative of the universe. This means that everything within the game is strictly non-canon.
4. Further information can be sought here
Hopefully that’ll clear up any misconceptions about the game’s legality.

Now to the more game-focused portion of this thread. Here’s a list of things you should know
- Our game is made in Unreal Engine 4
- At the moment, our game is strictly Multiplayer. This is mainly due to the fact that we would like to focus on our multiplayer experience. We may add other modes post-release, but presently we do not have plans to do so.
- There has been a large Battle Rifle vs DMR discussion on multiple sections of the forums. I can confirm right now that the DMR will not be making an appearance in our game.
- There are currently no plans to include forge into our game
- We currently have no plans to include custom/community maps in the game.
- From our UE4 Update, We are in Pre-Alpha. We currently do not have plans for a Open/Closed  Alpha/Beta test. If/When this changes, everyone will be notified.

Next, allow me to make a few statements about the forums.
1. There are Two Community Managers, Myself (R93 Sniper) and Master Noob. Expect to see these names quite a bit.
2. There are several moderators here: Jenkins, Kusa 'Aezotee, and XFXRadeon. These three are not part of the team, so don’t expect many game related answers from them.
3. Show some respect to the Developers and Moderators. We’re all here for a common goal, there’s no need to be disrespectful by any means.
4. Rules of the forum can be found here.
5. If you have questions about the game, try to keep the forums free of clutter. We have a dedicated question thread here where you can ask pretty much anything.
6. Before asking questions or random threads, be sure to do a bit of research first. The forums have been inhabited for a while and many questions have been asked already and their answers given. Look through the forums for anything that needs asking. If any random one-shot questions are asked, be warned your question may be merged into the question thread.
7. Be sure to put your threads into their respective forums or they will be moved. Organization is very important to us.
With that all said, I once again welcome you to the forums and hope you enjoy your stay here. If you wish to join the team, we have a recruitment form that you can fill out here. If you have questions about anything stated here, feel free to ask in this thread.
8. If you have twitter, be sure to follow me @R93_Sniper. If you have questions about the technical portions of the site, you can ask Clark on twitter as well @PraiseBeNewGuy
9. We have public chats you can join us at! Join us on  Discord. Be wary that our forum rules apply to Discord has its own set of rules.

All highlighted content are links that may be clicked. Note that not all of them redirect within the site.]]>
Project: Contingency is a Free-To-Play Halo game, following Microsoft’s Game Content Usage Rules. We are not a large company, we are not a Triple-A game studio, and we are not getting paid for this project. We are simply a team of dedicated halo fans who want to bring the halo experience back to PC, and allow everyone to enjoy it. For any of those who have the question of “Is this even legal??” the answer is Yes, it is! Our team has gotten confirmation that so long as we abide by Microsoft’s rules, we can create our game without hindrance.

For those of you who are wondering what that entails, here’s what it means.
1. We cannot use content from the halo games. Meaning we cannot use Microsoft/343i’s music, sounds, models, textures, animations and etc.
2. We cannot make a profit from the game. As much as we’d love to take donations, we unfortunately cannot.
3. Any content within the game will not contribute to the official narrative of the universe. This means that everything within the game is strictly non-canon.
4. Further information can be sought here
Hopefully that’ll clear up any misconceptions about the game’s legality.

Now to the more game-focused portion of this thread. Here’s a list of things you should know
- Our game is made in Unreal Engine 4
- At the moment, our game is strictly Multiplayer. This is mainly due to the fact that we would like to focus on our multiplayer experience. We may add other modes post-release, but presently we do not have plans to do so.
- There has been a large Battle Rifle vs DMR discussion on multiple sections of the forums. I can confirm right now that the DMR will not be making an appearance in our game.
- There are currently no plans to include forge into our game
- We currently have no plans to include custom/community maps in the game.
- From our UE4 Update, We are in Pre-Alpha. We currently do not have plans for a Open/Closed  Alpha/Beta test. If/When this changes, everyone will be notified.

Next, allow me to make a few statements about the forums.
1. There are Two Community Managers, Myself (R93 Sniper) and Master Noob. Expect to see these names quite a bit.
2. There are several moderators here: Jenkins, Kusa 'Aezotee, and XFXRadeon. These three are not part of the team, so don’t expect many game related answers from them.
3. Show some respect to the Developers and Moderators. We’re all here for a common goal, there’s no need to be disrespectful by any means.
4. Rules of the forum can be found here.
5. If you have questions about the game, try to keep the forums free of clutter. We have a dedicated question thread here where you can ask pretty much anything.
6. Before asking questions or random threads, be sure to do a bit of research first. The forums have been inhabited for a while and many questions have been asked already and their answers given. Look through the forums for anything that needs asking. If any random one-shot questions are asked, be warned your question may be merged into the question thread.
7. Be sure to put your threads into their respective forums or they will be moved. Organization is very important to us.
With that all said, I once again welcome you to the forums and hope you enjoy your stay here. If you wish to join the team, we have a recruitment form that you can fill out here. If you have questions about anything stated here, feel free to ask in this thread.
8. If you have twitter, be sure to follow me @R93_Sniper. If you have questions about the technical portions of the site, you can ask Clark on twitter as well @PraiseBeNewGuy
9. We have public chats you can join us at! Join us on  Discord. Be wary that our forum rules apply to Discord has its own set of rules.

All highlighted content are links that may be clicked. Note that not all of them redirect within the site.]]> <![CDATA[[Read Before You Post!] Website Rules and Regulations]]> https://forum.project-contingency.com/showthread.php?tid=6 Wed, 22 Mar 2017 03:06:45 -0400 https://forum.project-contingency.com/showthread.php?tid=6

As a member of Project Contingency, you are responsible for following these rules. As this site's staff, we are responsible for upholding these regulations. Breaking any of these rules can result in a multitude of punishments [each differing in severity depending on the inflicting staff member, the number of offenses made, and the proof given] leading up to banishment from the website.


I. Before Posting

--Report Bad Posts, Don't Respond to Them (AKA Don't feed the trolls.)
We have a staff of moderators specifically tasked to deal with nonconstructive, offensive, or nonsensical posts, and any post you report will be looked at and dealt with if necessary. We will also delete any responses to that post, for the sake of keeping the conversation on track and understandable - which frequently takes longer than dealing with the original issue.

--Use the Search Feature
When you have a question on a topic, use the Search feature first, most likely your question has already been answered. Posts in which users have clearly NOT performed even a superficial search will be unilaterally deleted, in order to avoid the forum being swamped with countless threads on common topics.

--Be Aware of Sub-Forum Rules and Other Stickies
It's good practice to make sure that you read all stickies before you decide to post in any particular forum section. Your question or topic may already be covered in one of the stickies, and certain forums contain rules that pertain specifically to that section.


II. Thread & Post Content

--Banned Subject Matter: Politics, Religion, Illegal Activity (Including Piracy) and Sexually Themed Material (Including Pornography and Cybering) and Explicit Gore.

Do not post about or link to the above subject matter. Also, please be mindful of your language. Message boards such as Project Contingency draw many different kinds of people, and people of different ages – observing these rules is good common sense and etiquette when dealing with others.

--No Trolling or Flaming
Flaming is the act of posting messages that are deliberately hostile and insulting. Trolling is the act of posting messages intended to cause a disruption or provoke other members into hostility. We encourage intelligent discussion and healthy debate, and personal attacks are not warranted in either. If you cannot be respectful to others, then don’t be surprised if those in charge are not respectful of your continued privilege to post.

Side note: The posting of PM's, or other personal information, between users will result in a website suspension.

--Mind Your Profanity
Serious use of profanity will not be tolerated on our website. Context, though, will apply. In case of meaningless and insulting use of cussing, consequences will be given.

--Do Not Hijack Threads
Thread hijacking is the act of trying to steer a web forum discussion thread off-topic by discussing something unrelated to the subject at hand. This is an intentional act of taking the thread off at a tangent to the original subject matter at hand. Off-topic replies will be flagged or deleted.

--No Spamming
To determine whether or not your post can be considered as spam, ask, "does this add to or advance the thread in a constructive way?" If you answer "yes," then you are probably good to go. If it's a "no" then you may want to rethink. Examples of spam posts include: "Yeah!" "lol", "/signed" "^this", or any form of repetition. Responding with images does not constitute as constructive posting, nor are posts which repeat a few words over and over. Posts deemed to be spam will be removed.

--Do not engage in "Quote Wars"
Quote Wars is defined as when a person dissects someone else's post into several quotes and responds to those individually instead of quoting and replying to the entire post as a whole. It's ugly, it's messy, and usually disintegrates into out-of-context replies and flamewars.

--Do not (or at attempt not to) Double Post
Use the EDIT Button. As the edit button will never disappear, you can always go back to edit your last post and add new thoughts. The practice of "bumping" is highly discouraged in our forums. If people wish to respond to your thread, they will add their opinions without the need of repeated spammed "bumps." Repeated "bumping" of a thread will most likely lead to the thread’s deletion instead.

--Plagiarism
No intellectual thief will be tolerated on Project Contingency; whether it is art, writing, Gfxing or coding. An intellectual thief defines itself as claiming as yours someone else's work or leaving a piece uncredited. This rule is taken very seriously on our website.

--No Advertising
This rule is pretty much for the usual poster that wishes to advertise their commercial site, or someone else's. Obvious spammers will receive an immediate IP ban.

--Necroing
Do not post in a non-spam or project forum thread that has been dead for three weeks or more just to revive it. This is equal to a 'bump' post and is generally frowned upon, unless there is an acceptable reason behind the post.


III. Your account

--Multiple Accounts
No multiple accounts will be allowed for any purposes, whether it is for trolling, creating yourself new personas, or evading a ban and/or a warning. In case of siblings (or any similar situation that involves the share of the same IP address - cohabitation), we will be comprehensive, however proofs will be requested. Anything will do as long you will properly be able to assure us that the two accounts are two different people. We shall also be lenient on user who report themselves their multiple accounts. This rule is to ensure a better, proper moderation.


IV. Moderation Actions & Guidelines

--No Public Discussion Over Moderator Activity
If you have questions or concerns over moderators actions - infractions, closed threads, or comments made by our Project Contingency staff, please send a PM to the staff member responsible for the decision, or contact an administrator who will happily explain the situation. Our staff does not have the time to publicly justify their every move, and neither could we reasonably expect them to.

Disrespectful commentary toward our staff will not be tolerated and the public posting of PM's, or other personal information, between a user and moderator (as with anyone else) will result in a suspension.

--Warnings and Infractions
A warning or infraction may or may not be issued for violating any of these guidelines. If warnings are sent, it will be delivered through PM’s, the bottom of your thread post in the form of a "Moderation Notation", or in your Closed Thread.

--Bans: Temporary and Permanent
When you have accumulated a substantial amount of warnings, you will be temporarily banned for a period at the discretion of the staff. If you break the rules repeatedly you will be permanently banned, no questions, no excuses. However, depending on the severity of violations, disciplinary measures may vary. If we see any member evading a temporary or permanent ban, i.e. creating another account after being banned or posting on another member's account, this account will be permanently banned with the high possibility of affecting the main account as well.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Final Notations:

- Ban lengths are not necessarily identical for users who commit the same offense, context and the user involved matter. In this case, nobody cares about your website tenure.

- Respect your fellow members, or at least tolerate them publicly. Harassment of any kind will not be tolerated, even if they probably deserve it.

- We are strongly against acts of any forms of sexism. Period.

- We have a Public Discord Server where you can come and chat with us.

- Halo Online chatter is welcome at this forum / in the chat. However, providing links to the download of the game files and/or the Dewrito files is not. Breeching this will result in an immediate suspension.


The interpretation of these rules is at the present Moderator or Admin's sole discretion, and we reserve the right to modify, remove, or append to these rules without prior notice, warning or consent of anyone.

Failure to conform with the rules may result in warnings, chat kicks, temporary chat bans, permanent bans, and possibly some other creative and cruel punishment that we haven't thought of yet. The severity of the punishment depends on the severity of the crime. One thing can be sure, you won't like it. If anyone wishes for us to explain the reason behind a rule, we would be happy to oblige.

<3,
The Project Contingency Moderation Team]]>

As a member of Project Contingency, you are responsible for following these rules. As this site's staff, we are responsible for upholding these regulations. Breaking any of these rules can result in a multitude of punishments [each differing in severity depending on the inflicting staff member, the number of offenses made, and the proof given] leading up to banishment from the website.


I. Before Posting

--Report Bad Posts, Don't Respond to Them (AKA Don't feed the trolls.)
We have a staff of moderators specifically tasked to deal with nonconstructive, offensive, or nonsensical posts, and any post you report will be looked at and dealt with if necessary. We will also delete any responses to that post, for the sake of keeping the conversation on track and understandable - which frequently takes longer than dealing with the original issue.

--Use the Search Feature
When you have a question on a topic, use the Search feature first, most likely your question has already been answered. Posts in which users have clearly NOT performed even a superficial search will be unilaterally deleted, in order to avoid the forum being swamped with countless threads on common topics.

--Be Aware of Sub-Forum Rules and Other Stickies
It's good practice to make sure that you read all stickies before you decide to post in any particular forum section. Your question or topic may already be covered in one of the stickies, and certain forums contain rules that pertain specifically to that section.


II. Thread & Post Content

--Banned Subject Matter: Politics, Religion, Illegal Activity (Including Piracy) and Sexually Themed Material (Including Pornography and Cybering) and Explicit Gore.

Do not post about or link to the above subject matter. Also, please be mindful of your language. Message boards such as Project Contingency draw many different kinds of people, and people of different ages – observing these rules is good common sense and etiquette when dealing with others.

--No Trolling or Flaming
Flaming is the act of posting messages that are deliberately hostile and insulting. Trolling is the act of posting messages intended to cause a disruption or provoke other members into hostility. We encourage intelligent discussion and healthy debate, and personal attacks are not warranted in either. If you cannot be respectful to others, then don’t be surprised if those in charge are not respectful of your continued privilege to post.

Side note: The posting of PM's, or other personal information, between users will result in a website suspension.

--Mind Your Profanity
Serious use of profanity will not be tolerated on our website. Context, though, will apply. In case of meaningless and insulting use of cussing, consequences will be given.

--Do Not Hijack Threads
Thread hijacking is the act of trying to steer a web forum discussion thread off-topic by discussing something unrelated to the subject at hand. This is an intentional act of taking the thread off at a tangent to the original subject matter at hand. Off-topic replies will be flagged or deleted.

--No Spamming
To determine whether or not your post can be considered as spam, ask, "does this add to or advance the thread in a constructive way?" If you answer "yes," then you are probably good to go. If it's a "no" then you may want to rethink. Examples of spam posts include: "Yeah!" "lol", "/signed" "^this", or any form of repetition. Responding with images does not constitute as constructive posting, nor are posts which repeat a few words over and over. Posts deemed to be spam will be removed.

--Do not engage in "Quote Wars"
Quote Wars is defined as when a person dissects someone else's post into several quotes and responds to those individually instead of quoting and replying to the entire post as a whole. It's ugly, it's messy, and usually disintegrates into out-of-context replies and flamewars.

--Do not (or at attempt not to) Double Post
Use the EDIT Button. As the edit button will never disappear, you can always go back to edit your last post and add new thoughts. The practice of "bumping" is highly discouraged in our forums. If people wish to respond to your thread, they will add their opinions without the need of repeated spammed "bumps." Repeated "bumping" of a thread will most likely lead to the thread’s deletion instead.

--Plagiarism
No intellectual thief will be tolerated on Project Contingency; whether it is art, writing, Gfxing or coding. An intellectual thief defines itself as claiming as yours someone else's work or leaving a piece uncredited. This rule is taken very seriously on our website.

--No Advertising
This rule is pretty much for the usual poster that wishes to advertise their commercial site, or someone else's. Obvious spammers will receive an immediate IP ban.

--Necroing
Do not post in a non-spam or project forum thread that has been dead for three weeks or more just to revive it. This is equal to a 'bump' post and is generally frowned upon, unless there is an acceptable reason behind the post.


III. Your account

--Multiple Accounts
No multiple accounts will be allowed for any purposes, whether it is for trolling, creating yourself new personas, or evading a ban and/or a warning. In case of siblings (or any similar situation that involves the share of the same IP address - cohabitation), we will be comprehensive, however proofs will be requested. Anything will do as long you will properly be able to assure us that the two accounts are two different people. We shall also be lenient on user who report themselves their multiple accounts. This rule is to ensure a better, proper moderation.


IV. Moderation Actions & Guidelines

--No Public Discussion Over Moderator Activity
If you have questions or concerns over moderators actions - infractions, closed threads, or comments made by our Project Contingency staff, please send a PM to the staff member responsible for the decision, or contact an administrator who will happily explain the situation. Our staff does not have the time to publicly justify their every move, and neither could we reasonably expect them to.

Disrespectful commentary toward our staff will not be tolerated and the public posting of PM's, or other personal information, between a user and moderator (as with anyone else) will result in a suspension.

--Warnings and Infractions
A warning or infraction may or may not be issued for violating any of these guidelines. If warnings are sent, it will be delivered through PM’s, the bottom of your thread post in the form of a "Moderation Notation", or in your Closed Thread.

--Bans: Temporary and Permanent
When you have accumulated a substantial amount of warnings, you will be temporarily banned for a period at the discretion of the staff. If you break the rules repeatedly you will be permanently banned, no questions, no excuses. However, depending on the severity of violations, disciplinary measures may vary. If we see any member evading a temporary or permanent ban, i.e. creating another account after being banned or posting on another member's account, this account will be permanently banned with the high possibility of affecting the main account as well.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Final Notations:

- Ban lengths are not necessarily identical for users who commit the same offense, context and the user involved matter. In this case, nobody cares about your website tenure.

- Respect your fellow members, or at least tolerate them publicly. Harassment of any kind will not be tolerated, even if they probably deserve it.

- We are strongly against acts of any forms of sexism. Period.

- We have a Public Discord Server where you can come and chat with us.

- Halo Online chatter is welcome at this forum / in the chat. However, providing links to the download of the game files and/or the Dewrito files is not. Breeching this will result in an immediate suspension.


The interpretation of these rules is at the present Moderator or Admin's sole discretion, and we reserve the right to modify, remove, or append to these rules without prior notice, warning or consent of anyone.

Failure to conform with the rules may result in warnings, chat kicks, temporary chat bans, permanent bans, and possibly some other creative and cruel punishment that we haven't thought of yet. The severity of the punishment depends on the severity of the crime. One thing can be sure, you won't like it. If anyone wishes for us to explain the reason behind a rule, we would be happy to oblige.

<3,
The Project Contingency Moderation Team]]>