Ok, so, here's a long post. I know long posts are annoying to read through, but I think this'll clear up any questions or problems currently.
So, to add new maps (ones that will hopefully bring good gameplay and balance out the rotation of maps), we have to remove maps. We can't just keep infinitely adding more and more; that's what caused the issue in the first place. Too many maps were added so people rarely got to play a few maps. As time progressed, new players never got to play these "unpopular" maps and then proceeded to refuse to play them since they "don't know the map". They feel safer sticking with what they know- the typical sg4, valleyside, breeze, solar frost rotation. This brings around the issue with new maps getting added. When new maps get added, more and more people are reluctant to try them whereas people flipped out and went insane for new maps back in the day. This kinda excludes new maps immediately and shoves them into the "unpopular" maps group. For example, when Vida Cova and Chernobyl 2015 were added, I distinctly remember going to try them out (along with the other maps added with them). I tried voting for them but all I saw in the lobbies every time I joined was either "don't vote for them, vote for sg4 or breeze" or "I played that map already, don't vote for it". People played these maps once and immediately avoided them from that point due to their lack of knowledge on that map. This is completely outrageous! You're not going to learn all of the map the first time you play it. So, this brings it back to having too many maps. If we don't have as many maps, it forces people to play new maps so they can get to know them before they decide if they like it or not. Another thing that helps people play on maps more is chest routes. Tiering the maps is essential. If there are no evident chest routes, people won't like it. This is why it's in my honest belief that only select mods and senior staff should tier the maps and take their time with it. A very good example of this is Icarus (I'm just using it as an example since I know most about it and what went into the stuff behind the scenes). When it was added to a server to set the tiers along with the two or three other maps that were added with it, I was allowed to tier Icarus by myself. While quite a few mods tiered the other maps, I went to work on Icarus. By the time all the other maps were tiered, I was only about half done. I spent a few hours tiering it and, to be honest, I probably delayed the maps being pushed out onto the servers by an hour or two. I went out of my way to create five distinct chest routes because I thought that would provide the best gameplay. There are four main exits out of the middle on that map, each one contains a really good chest route while the top of the main asteroid contains one as well. Due to the map's layout, it would be best to have only certain paths to produce the best gameplay. Every single of these five chest routes is relatively equal so that one doesn't become too "OP". When the map was released, I immediately did a chest route video showcasing one of these routes. Somehow, that video blew up (Kinda, it had about 1000 views in the time span of a few days which is really good in my opinion). So many people did their own videos of a chest route and it happened to be the same one I chose. As that route was spread around, people played the map more often because they truly knew part of it. So, the main point here, is there is wayyy more work besides just building it which a lot of people don't know about. Unfortunately, a lot of map makers don't get to tier their own map even though they know what truly deserves to be a tier two. A lot of mods just rush through tiers so they know where a few are at. So, the tiering process needs to be fixed as well (which I plan to bring up in the next map committee meeting).
Anyways, after rambling on there for a bit, back to the issue of removing maps. The last map committee meeting (about a few weeks ago), we went through a list of every single map on the server and decided either "remove it", "keep it", or, in some cases, "move it to 48 player server". It's very very very (I can't stress this enough) difficult to remove a map from the server because no matter what map is removed, there are quite a few people that like the map. For example, a long time ago, Hungry Hills was removed because people absolutely hated it (the majority of people). Eventually, time passed, and people demanded it be added back. At the time, it was considered the most "unpopular" yet there was a large group of people that loved it. So, whatever we pick to remove, there will be a humongous backlash as usual and, unfortunately, quite a few maps need to be removed. If we were to remove them, it'd be easiest to remove them all at once for convenience purposes (it'd be a pain to go back and remove one every week or something like that). To sum up the issue of needing to remove tons of maps- no matter what the map committee chooses to do, we WILL be hated for it. It's simple enough, it will happen even if we leave all the maps. It'll be like, "They need to remove these crappy maps" but if we remove these said "crappy" maps, then it will instantly switch to another group of people saying "That was my favorite map, I hate the map committee with all my heart". Unfortunately, it's unavoidable. It's impossible to please everyone.
So, let's pretend we removed close to half the maps (the most "unpopular"). What's next?
From then, it's on to choosing the right maps to add. We already have quite a few in mind that the community wants but that's the thing..."Quite a few". The whole reason that people began to lose interest in new maps being added on the servers is because maps began to be added in groups of three, four, or five. When this happens, it doesn't give people adequate time to overplay a new map initially to learn everything about it. Only one map (if lucky) was actually liked by the community when added in groups because people were forced to only choose one to explore at a time. So, unfortunately, we'd need to add only one at a time for the community to actually be able to enjoy it right away and get to know it. This unearths problems with which map to choose.... There are a significant amount of "popular" or "liked" maps on the forums to choose from but whichever one we choose, there will be tons of people that say "Oh, why didn't you choose a different map which is obviously better. You guys are terrible!" (this kinda loops back to the whole "removing maps" issue with such varied interests by the community). Again, another quick example- If we chose to add Sg Venezia (using it as an example because it is very popular at the current moment), there will be people that complain about a different map not being added (for example- Neighborhood). We wouldn't want to add them all at once because we want people to truly explore one map initially, not glance over four or five.
Next topic- Why these maps that are "overplayed" are actually liked by a majority of the community.
I'll quickly list the radius of these maps-
Breeze- 250 but only 50 block radius main island (yes, I counted)
Sg4- 200 (I believe)
Solar Frost- Since it's tunnels, there's no definite radius but it is the smallest of the servers.
Valleyside- 250
So, there seems to be a trend here; extremely small map sizes.... The minimum map size used to be 250. At the time, 250 was considered absolutely puny and 300-350 was the norm. As time progressed, the community became more pvp-centered. To suit this new interest, smaller and smaller maps were made. The newer players that joined recently see a 300+ radius map and they instantly are like "Nope.jpg". This causes only smaller and smaller maps to be made. A similar occurrence happened on a set of servers called "The Fridge" (I'm not advertising, I'm simply using it as an example. Also, those servers kinda died out anyways). They had maps that were around 200 from the beginning. When a 250 map was added, their community flipped out and complained about it being "absolutely way too big"....Think about that... 250? Really? Anyways, this caused them to demand smaller maps and it got to the drastic point where at 150 radius map was added. Yep, you heard right, 150. If the servers continued down that path, it would've continued down that road and became just a small box that serves as a slaughterhouse. A very similar trend seems to happening here... This is why the map committee has put their foot down and said no maps smaller than 200 would be accepted. We simply can't afford to accept maps smaller than that. Due to these "overplayed" maps being so small in the radius, they have insanely short games. This is just what the community wants, simple as that. Unfortunately, bringing new maps with that onto the server raises the issue about which one to pick (refer back to several paragraphs before).
So, uh, 1661 words later, I'm stopping on this subject for this post. I could go on about more issues with the whole subject but I think I might create a thread later on in the week more about the map committee's decisions and what goes into it and all that fun stuff.
TL;DR- Unfortunately, I'm not making one, go read it. Yes, I'm serious, just do it (Nike) :3
If you have any questions pertaining the subject, just ask c:
