billiv15 wrote:
I am not in favor of ever changing the map list pre-Gencon personally. I wasn't in favor of it last year, and never have been. I don't blame Dean for it last year either, so don't think that's what I'm saying. And please appreciate that I recognize I was in favor of a ban of GOWK post-regional and pre-Gencon (no need to point it out as some grand inconsistency in my statements, as it's not, and it's not being overlooked).
The map list we all know has a large impact on the meta. And unless there is a major issue with one of the maps on the list (which we already know is solid in this case, as the restricted list are not new maps in anyway), I would not like to see a change. I don't think doing things to "shake up the meta" is ever the reason to do so in terms of championship play. You do that by changing rules and playing other formats (like mystery map and team tournament). Ideally Regionals - Gencon would become a bit of a competitive season each year, where major changes occur in the off season (Jan 1) and only minor rule tweaks occur on July 1.
And despite the valued opinions here, I don't believe any of the players posting (myself included) has enough experience with enough of the fan made maps to determine inclusion or exclusion. Let us get through Gencon with the restricted list, and then in the fall do some serious playtesting (we could tap a lot of our groups for local testing) on 4-6 of the most highly thought of maps. That may well be what Dean is thinking, I'm just saying it out loud here, and perhaps preaching to the choir on most of this.
I 100% agree.
Adding new maps at this point would be a disaster IMO.
Most players have seen or have played at least once on the 6 restricted list maps, I have no interest in playing on custom maps, and never have. Many people have never seen these custom maps that would attend GenCon/Regionals.
People who are serious about this game have decent sized collections and maybe half the restricted maps +1/-1 of them. You can't expect people to:
A) Know custom maps even exist.
B) Know they are on the Restricted List.
C) Will be used for a national championship.
Somewhere in the neighborhood of 60% or more of the players attending GenCon/Regionals won't know any of that. They'll go look it up on the event calendar a few weeks before, notice a possible entry of a 'Restricted Map List' and then be horrified when they realize 4 maps they have NEVER seen are on a list for the Championship.
They will probably try to buy them and have then shipped out, and maybe have a week or two to prepare, and that is even if they are serious about competing.
I have nothing against custom maps and minis, but having them in a World Championship right after the game has ceased production just isn't a good move.
Not enough people know about Gamers. When HeroClix went down their main website's forums also went down. That left people stranded internet wise. Luckily, HCRealms was there to pick the game back up into a thriving community that a year and half after that game was dead their community was easily 5-10 times the SWM community is now. That's AFTER the game died.
If you want to have a functional game post-2010 trying to push custom maps or minis this early is a mistake. People still haven't played most of their MotF/Dark Times minis yet.
Just woe it down is my advice.
P.S. I have tentative plans to attend GenCon, if custom maps or minis are apart of the Championship I will probably skip it (as in GenCon as a whole). Not a threat, just don't have nearly the time to integrate that much data in less than 4 months time.