even tho my POV is invasion, i think it's a relevant general discussion. maps don't draw people to a server, people draw people.
Many months ago when i got tired of playing the same shitty boxy assault maps on omnipotents, i happened across an rpg invasion server that was fairly full. played for a while. dull. saw another one but "hey look i know that guy from omni" so i joined and played there for a very long time. No shit maps, constant new player flow, etc. even now, after the admin hasn't been seen in months, the server is still popular.
But that server doesn't have The Nest and Chaka's Dome and Dome of Doom and EZKillingMap. It has the entire BP and CBP, and other well known dm maps from around the web, and IIRC a 20 map minimum rotation (it also only takes ~20-30 to play a map which is about 1/3 of what it is on MM server)
why do people vote for the popular horribles? i think it's kinda perpetual motion thing... people vote for those maps cuz they're familiar which introduces noobs to em. it's also a fear of the unknown: how many times have you heard ppl say "i don't like downloading a whole bunch of crap!" it's cuz ppl like what they know, and are "afraid of" anything different.
I also think that they just need to be SHOWN something better. As i've been cranking out INV conversions, people are voting for them. My original goal was to have enuf conversions out that the other maps wouldn't get any airtime. and it's working. people are gravitating towards those maps because we FORCED a handfull of players to play them 1 or 2x... and well, they LIKED em so now they vote for em on their own.
Removing the popular horribles doesn't automatically make it a server where "only the best" maps are listed. It would make it a 'no shitty maps' server. People won't leave the server for lack of horrible maps that get voted all the time. Dare i say that there are plenty of non-shitty maps that people like?
while i personally would like to see ALL the shitty maps get binned, my request is that the worst of them get pulled. there's enuf of these maps that the worst 3-4 can get binned and nobody would care. A good server (low solid ping, little downtime, responsive admins) will attract more people than these maps.
footnote: some of the invasion players are of the school of thought that all the shitty maps be left on because they piss me off enuf to make new maps. While this is sound logic, i don't much like it cuz i'd rather do it cuz i want to, not out of anger (=