Yeah as nevjmac put it above you, I think a good solution would be one that allows niche maps to be played when niche players want to. Right now it's pigeonholing, unless we call going to page 6 as going to a niche map area (HAHA)
The worst part, is that after wasting pmuch all of my summer evenings on it, it's almost finished. All it needs is some items added and spells cooldown to be balanced.
But, I just don't feel like wasting more time for something that I know won't even be played. I personally think if the system was different right now it could be successful, but by the time their supposed fix/update of the custom map system goes live, most of good mappers with big projects will have theirmaps playable... and I just can't keep up with their skills :l
That's not a reason not to finish it.
If it's almost done, then it's a shame not to complete it.
Take your time, finish it over the course of a few weeks or so.
And skill doesn't necessarily have much to do with how fun the map is. There are many badly made maps in Wc3 and even in Sc2 which are still fun to play, and sometimes better than their "high-tech" counterparts.
Publish it here on mapster at least - it might not become a page-1 popular map, but do you really just want it to rot away?
MAPS HAVE MADE IT FROM THE BOTTEM TO THE TOP. QUIT QQ. There is a game that I have legit watched go from page 9 to page 5 followed by THE TOP of page 1. its the tank defence remake from sc1. Honestly, its what THE MAJORITY WANTS.
And it is God-awful, which should say something about how popularity works.
"Don't QQ, make games that the majority will like" doesn't even deserve an answer.
The only reason I bought WC3 was because of the custom maps. I spent a total of about 2 hours out of the 200+ hours I spent playing the game on the first mission or 2 of the campaign and a couple skirmishes. The other 200+ hours were spent playing customs. Customs defined my WC3 experience.
Now, understanding that I value customs immensely, I am going to say this:
Please do not publish your custom maps. Continue making your maps for fun, but do not publish them. I know you can't test them, but if you absolutely need to test them, then just quit map making. If people stop publishing customs altogether in protest of the popularity system, Blizzard WILL change the system. Blizzard values usermade content as can be seen by the fact that they had a custom game presentation at Blizzcon, they made significant improvements to the world editor, and they had a custom map contest. They know that custom content attracts many players to their games and do not want people to stop publishing maps.
So, stop publishing your maps and Blizzard will give in to our requests.
I know that this post is wishful thinking. People will continue to publish maps... maybe if the webmasters of the major map making communities agree to temporarily take their websites offline this will work. Sixen, will you consider it? Take sc2mapster offline for a while and see if Blizzard reacts? (talk to other mapmaking communities and try to get them to take down their sites to as sc2mapster alone isn't enough)
Game's don't make it to the top because they're good, or fun, and anyone who says otherwise is a goddamned retard defending blizzard because they're a fanboy. Almost every map at the top of the list has been there since the beta, and any newcomers get there due to boosting. Do you know WHY this is? Because it's physically impossible to get there legitly, no matter what you say it's simply not possible. Because say a map is really good, and say someone scroll down to page 10 and joins. How many other people will scroll down to page 10 and join that game with you? Oh, that's right, nobody. So you can sit there for hours, never playing the map, and thus it never goes up in the list.
People aren't patient, they come to play, not wait. The only games they can reliably play are at the top of the list, so 99% of people wont even click the 'next page' tab. This isn't because the top games are good, it's because only the top games have people. So seriously, shut the fuck up with your "Hurr maek gud map n it get top!", it doesn't fucking work that way. I could make the shittiest map imaginable and if I boosted it, it'd be number 1. The system is the most fucked up pile of shit, ever, period. And Blizzard's proven just how shit they are for refusing to fix it.
If you want to give up because of the current pop system..... GOOD
RIDDENS SC2 would be better off with out you making your crappy maps
anyways.
Wow, and this comes from someone who failed with a turret defense map?
Pathetic.
Please try creating a map that needs a set amount of players to start,
lasts longer on average, or requires any brain for that matter (we could
name them "niche maps" at this point) and come back to tell us how fun
it is to be on page 10, we will have a nice chat then.
Pathetic is your whining......
And my map wasnt really meant to stay up on the list its not even near complete....
Anyways we all agree for the most part that It could be made much much better. But why complain about it anymore... after 5 months its gotten pretty old. Hell most of us knew what it was like before we bought it.
Pathetic is your whining......
And my map wasnt really meant to stay up on the list its not even near complete....
Anyways we all agree for the most part that It could be made much much better. But why complain about it anymore... after 5 months its gotten pretty old. Hell most of us knew what it was like before we bought it.
Because what are we suppose to do? Our options are to either bend over and let Blizzard continue to fuck us in the ass, or bitch about their shitty system. Dunno bout you, but I like my ass the way it is, so I'll bitch.
Could you guys give it up on the popularity system... Jesus christ you can only beat a dead horse so much..
And the blizzcon answer was correct. Build a private place where you and your testers can communicate.
Theres a couple 1000 people making thier own maps. Even if the game list only new games.. Half of you people crying wouldnt get anybody to join anyways.
Im gonna be a negative nancy here and beat you with your reality stick. If people are not playing your map. Its prolly because its not fun to play.
Ive had my map up towards the top of the list a couple time. I gotta test it with friends till it gets to about 20 plays. People start playing it ... it goes way up on list... 2 days later is at the bottom again with no plays.
I will admit this is because its not much fun.
If you need testers theres a ton of people right here willing to help you test.
You really shouldnt be testing on bnet unless your at a beta stage where the game is playable. Yes it might be hard to get random people. But make use of this community. Make use of your wow /sc2/wc3 friends.
QUIT BEATING A DEAD HORSE.. Im sure we will see changes in the future.
If you want to give up because of the current pop system..... GOOD RIDDENS SC2 would be better off with out you making your crappy maps anyways.
( I mean this in the nicest of ways. But i garentee Ive been playing on Bnet for longer then alot of you is my guess. Its not really that bad.. most of ya are mad nobody joins your map. Understandable. But quit complaining and find people on SC2mapster to test your maps with.)
Idk if you read it but I'm almost halfway serious about being motivated to make a map that both abuses and insults the popularity system.
Game lasts 5 minutes. Every 5 seconds you gain time resource. You can spend it on making the map better, advertising aka attempting a viral campaign, or boosting.
The higher quality the map, the more legit players will play it, but only if its visible. I can't guess what percentage of players searches how deep into the page listings, but its safe to say that its most probably exponentially decreases with each page. Spending time on map quality probably only effects repeat players logarithmically beyond a certain point.
Ofc boosting can work on even a terrible map but with few repeat legit players.
Idk what to think about how effective a viral campaign would be. But I imagine maybe if you save up enough time resources you could spend it on a youtube review and that would get you a lot of plays instantaneously.
Also during the game there would be a blizzard bully that would patrol the different mapster's desks and have a random chance to do something mean like reset popularity or temporarily ban a map for offensive content.
Idk we could have some fun with this after all maybe. :p
We should try to organize all the map makers out there, have everyone make some shitty five minute map where each player starts with a lone marine and is trapped in a box with nothing to do. And then boost the fuck out them all. So the first two pages are nothing but the same shitty map. I'd love to see Blizzard's response to that.
So is there a constructive list of suggestions about the best ways you guys can think of to improve the custom map list/popularity system? I haven't seen one, but maybe I missed it?
If not, why dont we create one here, and create a thread on the official forums and keep it popular?
There are lots of random people that complain about it and bitch about it, but bitching to developers rarely makes them feel like wanting to improve things.
So is there a constructive list of suggestions about the best ways you guys can think of to improve the editor? I haven't seen one, but maybe I missed it?
If not, why dont we create one here, and create a thread on the official forums and keep it popular?
There are lots of random people that complain about it and bitch about it, but bitching to developers rarely makes them feel like wanting to improve things.
The editor isn't the problem, sure it could use a few tweaks and whatnot, but it's relatively solid. What needs work is fucking Bnet, and the popularity system. And the best way of fixing it has been given time and time again "go back to the old way", they had it right the first time. Allowing people to simply go on and host their maps was the pinnacle of perfection. If a map was good and popular, people would join it, if not, they didn't. It was like capitalism, the strong survive and the weak never get played. The popularity system is like .... I wanna say socialism but it's shittier then socialism. The popularity system basically FORCES people to play bad maps, simply because if they go deeper down the list and join a different map, they can guarantee nobody else will join them.
Blizzard needs to get their heads out of their asses and admit that modeling Bnet after xbox live was fucking stupid, and to bring back the way that worked. Make the popularity system and publishing OPTIONAL, if I wanna host my map on blizzard's servers so it gets more views, awesome, but I shouldn't HAVE to do it that way.
We should try to organize all the map makers out there, have everyone make some shitty five minute map where each player starts with a lone marine and is trapped in a box with nothing to do. And then boost the fuck out them all. So the first two pages are nothing but the same shitty map. I'd love to see Blizzard's response to that.
Yes. This would be wonderful and much more doable than shutting down the map-making communities (since some people would continue to publish maps even in the absence of communities). Blizzard can't ignore this though and it only requires a few people making lame 5 minute maps and boosting them to the top. Please do this. Making the maps itself would take no time too so that's a plus =D
We should pool creative ideas for lame maps. Marine trapped in a box is a good one. Hm, what other lame maps can we make? We could give everyone a Nexus with no resources or probes! That would be a fun map too!
Yes. This would be wonderful and much more doable than shutting down the map-making communities (since some people would continue to publish maps even in the absence of communities). Blizzard can't ignore this though and it only requires a few people making lame 5 minute maps and boosting them to the top. Please do this. Making the maps itself would take no time too so that's a plus =D
We should pool creative ideas for lame maps. Marine trapped in a box is a good one. Hm, what other lame maps can we make? We could give everyone a Nexus with no resources or probes! That would be a fun map too!
We should try to organize something, I'd be more then willing to whip up some shitty map if other people got on board. We'd need enough maps and boosters to flood the first, and preferably second page for it to work, though. I mean almost every map maker is pissed at the popularity system, if we just took the effort to try to organize the communities, I could see something like this happening.
Sorry that was a typo, I meant to write best way to improve the popularity system (too used to writing about the editor!)
Personally I think it's better for the community to put a positive effort and offering suggestions, than resorting to the above tactics of a lame 5 minute map. So far all I have seen is random incoherent bitching.
Imo, it's sites like SC2Mapster that should be putting in the effort of getting the communities message accross, we could all work together to keep a thread bumped at the top of the forums (ironic i know).
Off the top of my head we at least need things like:
A search function when joining games (same as when creating one)
A solid list of game categories, allowing you to publish into one of those categories.
I'm not convinced that the popularity system is the actual problem at this stage, more that it's the lack of supporting features for it. Even if we didn't have a popularity system, when there are 1,000 maps on there you still need some way of sorting them.
The problem is any popularity system can be abused, but on the other hand, you still need a popularity system. To eliminate bot boosting you would need to allow people to vote for maps instead. Could still be abused, but would be more difficult.
Sorry that was a typo, I meant to write best way to improve the popularity system (too used to writing about the editor!)
Personally I think it's better for the community to put a positive effort and offering suggestions, than resorting to the above tactics of a lame 5 minute map. So far all I have seen is random incoherent bitching.
Imo, it's sites like SC2Mapster that should be putting in the effort of getting the communities message accross, we could all work together to keep a thread bumped at the top of the forums (ironic i know).
Again, there's only one way to fix it. The popularity system is inherently flawed, nothing we come up with could ever make it work, it's just not a feasable system. The only way to fix it, is to scrap it, or make it optional, and put in the old way of hosting. The communities also said this since the Beta, and Blizzard has done NOTHING, which is why I keep saying they don't give a shit anymore. The community has said so loudly that they hate the popularity system, we've been ignored. So asking them nicely to go back to the old way wont do anything, we need to SHOW them we can't stand it. Flooding the first two pages of the list with shitty 5 minute maps that you can't play, all with descriptions like "we want bnet 1.0 hosting". THAT might get some attention.
have an amazing looking map with beutiful terrain and promising game play, 5 minutes into the game make it fade to a black screen and have it say "too bad I only need you to play this map for 5 minutes for it to be the most popular, blame blizzard" and make everyone lose :P
@KratsAU: Go
The popularity system is inherently flawed, nothing we come up with could ever make it work, it's just not a feasable system.
Absolute nonsense. Popularity systems are common systems and can work. Not having a popularity system will not help anything. How are you going to find the most popular maps out of thousands of maps, without a popularity system? You aren't.
@KratsAU: Go The community has said so loudly that they hate the popularity system, we've been ignored.
Where and what, specifically has the community said? Can you link me to constructive feedback regarding the popularity system? (not a bunch of whiny/bitchy posts)?
Absolute nonsense. Popularity systems are common systems and can work. Not having a popularity system will not help anything. How are you going to find the most popular maps out of thousands of maps, without a popularity system? You aren't.
Where and what, specifically has the community said? Can you link me to constructive feedback regarding the popularity system? (not a bunch of whiny/bitchy posts)?
Popularity systems generally involve "people choose what they want", I mean by definition WC3 and SC ran under a popularity system. Popular maps were hosted and played, unpopular maps weren't. The thing is, when you try to automate and control what's popular and what isn't, then it simply does not work. And that's what this system does.
But you know what, I'll humour you, come up with ideas to fix it and I'll shoot them down, explaining why they wont work. There's only one course of action, ditching this broken system, it can not be saved. And to start, I'll shoot down your original ideas.
A search function when joining games (same as when creating one) - Search for what? For a map? Ok say I wanna play.... LOTR, I search for it, find it, join it.... and nobody else joins. See, I found my map easily, but I coulda found it by cycling through the pages too. People STILL don't know anyones playing it, and STILL don't join.
A solid list of game categories, allowing you to publish into one of those categories. - Ok, so we publish under categories. So I go to the Tug category, my only options are those at the top. I go to the conquest category, my only options are those at the top. All this does is spread the problem out, it doesn't fix it. I'm still FORCED to play the maps at the top of the list, or sit in empty lobbies.
Feel free to come up with more ideas, but I guarantee you, you wont come up with an idea that fixes the system. You need to understand that it's BROKEN, and sometimes you simply can not fucking fix something that's broken. You need to accept that this popularity system is a lost caused, and needs to be abandoned.
Absolute nonsense. Popularity systems are common systems and can work. Not having a popularity system will not help anything. How are you going to find the most popular maps out of thousands of maps, without a popularity system? You aren't.
You could easily find the most popular maps in the old BNet system (WC3). The most popular maps would turn up more often. There were problems with that system too, but overall it worked out much better in that new maps that weren't popular yet would turn up too. Some kind of compromise between the popularity system and the old system would be ideal. What needs to be done is to bring back the old system, and then also allow users to search for specific maps when joining.
You could easily find the most popular maps in the old BNet system (WC3). The most popular maps would turn up more often. There were problems with that system too, but overall it worked out much better in that new maps that weren't popular yet would turn up too. Some kind of compromise between the popularity system and the old system would be ideal. What needs to be done is to bring back the old system, and then also allow users to search for specific maps when joining.
They should just make the popularity system optional, have both the old AND the new. Feeling lazy? Don't wanna look for a map? Wanna just join a quick tug game? Go to the popularity system and play nexus wars. However if you'd like to see a wide array of maps, all of which you KNOW have people playing them, you use the old system. I've said from the moment they mentioned the publishing/popularity system, they need to make it OPTIONAL. I'm sure some people (god knows why) enjoy the new system, many more don't. So making it optional and giving people a choice is the best of both worlds. EVERYONES happy.
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@DeotaAndOrainAtKhazModan: Go
Yeah as nevjmac put it above you, I think a good solution would be one that allows niche maps to be played when niche players want to. Right now it's pigeonholing, unless we call going to page 6 as going to a niche map area (HAHA)
That's not a reason not to finish it.
If it's almost done, then it's a shame not to complete it.
Take your time, finish it over the course of a few weeks or so.
And skill doesn't necessarily have much to do with how fun the map is. There are many badly made maps in Wc3 and even in Sc2 which are still fun to play, and sometimes better than their "high-tech" counterparts.
Publish it here on mapster at least - it might not become a page-1 popular map, but do you really just want it to rot away?
And it is God-awful, which should say something about how popularity works.
"Don't QQ, make games that the majority will like" doesn't even deserve an answer.
The only reason I bought WC3 was because of the custom maps. I spent a total of about 2 hours out of the 200+ hours I spent playing the game on the first mission or 2 of the campaign and a couple skirmishes. The other 200+ hours were spent playing customs. Customs defined my WC3 experience.
Now, understanding that I value customs immensely, I am going to say this:
Please do not publish your custom maps. Continue making your maps for fun, but do not publish them. I know you can't test them, but if you absolutely need to test them, then just quit map making. If people stop publishing customs altogether in protest of the popularity system, Blizzard WILL change the system. Blizzard values usermade content as can be seen by the fact that they had a custom game presentation at Blizzcon, they made significant improvements to the world editor, and they had a custom map contest. They know that custom content attracts many players to their games and do not want people to stop publishing maps.
So, stop publishing your maps and Blizzard will give in to our requests.
I know that this post is wishful thinking. People will continue to publish maps... maybe if the webmasters of the major map making communities agree to temporarily take their websites offline this will work. Sixen, will you consider it? Take sc2mapster offline for a while and see if Blizzard reacts? (talk to other mapmaking communities and try to get them to take down their sites to as sc2mapster alone isn't enough)
Game's don't make it to the top because they're good, or fun, and anyone who says otherwise is a goddamned retard defending blizzard because they're a fanboy. Almost every map at the top of the list has been there since the beta, and any newcomers get there due to boosting. Do you know WHY this is? Because it's physically impossible to get there legitly, no matter what you say it's simply not possible. Because say a map is really good, and say someone scroll down to page 10 and joins. How many other people will scroll down to page 10 and join that game with you? Oh, that's right, nobody. So you can sit there for hours, never playing the map, and thus it never goes up in the list.
People aren't patient, they come to play, not wait. The only games they can reliably play are at the top of the list, so 99% of people wont even click the 'next page' tab. This isn't because the top games are good, it's because only the top games have people. So seriously, shut the fuck up with your "Hurr maek gud map n it get top!", it doesn't fucking work that way. I could make the shittiest map imaginable and if I boosted it, it'd be number 1. The system is the most fucked up pile of shit, ever, period. And Blizzard's proven just how shit they are for refusing to fix it.
Pathetic is your whining......
And my map wasnt really meant to stay up on the list its not even near complete....
Anyways we all agree for the most part that It could be made much much better. But why complain about it anymore... after 5 months its gotten pretty old. Hell most of us knew what it was like before we bought it.
Because what are we suppose to do? Our options are to either bend over and let Blizzard continue to fuck us in the ass, or bitch about their shitty system. Dunno bout you, but I like my ass the way it is, so I'll bitch.
Idk if you read it but I'm almost halfway serious about being motivated to make a map that both abuses and insults the popularity system.
Game lasts 5 minutes. Every 5 seconds you gain time resource. You can spend it on making the map better, advertising aka attempting a viral campaign, or boosting.
The higher quality the map, the more legit players will play it, but only if its visible. I can't guess what percentage of players searches how deep into the page listings, but its safe to say that its most probably exponentially decreases with each page. Spending time on map quality probably only effects repeat players logarithmically beyond a certain point.
Ofc boosting can work on even a terrible map but with few repeat legit players.
Idk what to think about how effective a viral campaign would be. But I imagine maybe if you save up enough time resources you could spend it on a youtube review and that would get you a lot of plays instantaneously.
Also during the game there would be a blizzard bully that would patrol the different mapster's desks and have a random chance to do something mean like reset popularity or temporarily ban a map for offensive content.
Idk we could have some fun with this after all maybe. :p
We should try to organize all the map makers out there, have everyone make some shitty five minute map where each player starts with a lone marine and is trapped in a box with nothing to do. And then boost the fuck out them all. So the first two pages are nothing but the same shitty map. I'd love to see Blizzard's response to that.
So is there a constructive list of suggestions about the best ways you guys can think of to improve the custom map list/popularity system? I haven't seen one, but maybe I missed it?
If not, why dont we create one here, and create a thread on the official forums and keep it popular?
There are lots of random people that complain about it and bitch about it, but bitching to developers rarely makes them feel like wanting to improve things.
The editor isn't the problem, sure it could use a few tweaks and whatnot, but it's relatively solid. What needs work is fucking Bnet, and the popularity system. And the best way of fixing it has been given time and time again "go back to the old way", they had it right the first time. Allowing people to simply go on and host their maps was the pinnacle of perfection. If a map was good and popular, people would join it, if not, they didn't. It was like capitalism, the strong survive and the weak never get played. The popularity system is like .... I wanna say socialism but it's shittier then socialism. The popularity system basically FORCES people to play bad maps, simply because if they go deeper down the list and join a different map, they can guarantee nobody else will join them.
Blizzard needs to get their heads out of their asses and admit that modeling Bnet after xbox live was fucking stupid, and to bring back the way that worked. Make the popularity system and publishing OPTIONAL, if I wanna host my map on blizzard's servers so it gets more views, awesome, but I shouldn't HAVE to do it that way.
Yes. This would be wonderful and much more doable than shutting down the map-making communities (since some people would continue to publish maps even in the absence of communities). Blizzard can't ignore this though and it only requires a few people making lame 5 minute maps and boosting them to the top. Please do this. Making the maps itself would take no time too so that's a plus =D
We should pool creative ideas for lame maps. Marine trapped in a box is a good one. Hm, what other lame maps can we make? We could give everyone a Nexus with no resources or probes! That would be a fun map too!
We should try to organize something, I'd be more then willing to whip up some shitty map if other people got on board. We'd need enough maps and boosters to flood the first, and preferably second page for it to work, though. I mean almost every map maker is pissed at the popularity system, if we just took the effort to try to organize the communities, I could see something like this happening.
Sorry that was a typo, I meant to write best way to improve the popularity system (too used to writing about the editor!)
Personally I think it's better for the community to put a positive effort and offering suggestions, than resorting to the above tactics of a lame 5 minute map. So far all I have seen is random incoherent bitching.
Imo, it's sites like SC2Mapster that should be putting in the effort of getting the communities message accross, we could all work together to keep a thread bumped at the top of the forums (ironic i know).
Off the top of my head we at least need things like:
I'm not convinced that the popularity system is the actual problem at this stage, more that it's the lack of supporting features for it. Even if we didn't have a popularity system, when there are 1,000 maps on there you still need some way of sorting them.
The problem is any popularity system can be abused, but on the other hand, you still need a popularity system. To eliminate bot boosting you would need to allow people to vote for maps instead. Could still be abused, but would be more difficult.
Again, there's only one way to fix it. The popularity system is inherently flawed, nothing we come up with could ever make it work, it's just not a feasable system. The only way to fix it, is to scrap it, or make it optional, and put in the old way of hosting. The communities also said this since the Beta, and Blizzard has done NOTHING, which is why I keep saying they don't give a shit anymore. The community has said so loudly that they hate the popularity system, we've been ignored. So asking them nicely to go back to the old way wont do anything, we need to SHOW them we can't stand it. Flooding the first two pages of the list with shitty 5 minute maps that you can't play, all with descriptions like "we want bnet 1.0 hosting". THAT might get some attention.
have an amazing looking map with beutiful terrain and promising game play, 5 minutes into the game make it fade to a black screen and have it say "too bad I only need you to play this map for 5 minutes for it to be the most popular, blame blizzard" and make everyone lose :P
Absolute nonsense. Popularity systems are common systems and can work. Not having a popularity system will not help anything. How are you going to find the most popular maps out of thousands of maps, without a popularity system? You aren't.
Where and what, specifically has the community said? Can you link me to constructive feedback regarding the popularity system? (not a bunch of whiny/bitchy posts)?
Popularity systems generally involve "people choose what they want", I mean by definition WC3 and SC ran under a popularity system. Popular maps were hosted and played, unpopular maps weren't. The thing is, when you try to automate and control what's popular and what isn't, then it simply does not work. And that's what this system does.
But you know what, I'll humour you, come up with ideas to fix it and I'll shoot them down, explaining why they wont work. There's only one course of action, ditching this broken system, it can not be saved. And to start, I'll shoot down your original ideas.
A search function when joining games (same as when creating one) - Search for what? For a map? Ok say I wanna play.... LOTR, I search for it, find it, join it.... and nobody else joins. See, I found my map easily, but I coulda found it by cycling through the pages too. People STILL don't know anyones playing it, and STILL don't join.
A solid list of game categories, allowing you to publish into one of those categories. - Ok, so we publish under categories. So I go to the Tug category, my only options are those at the top. I go to the conquest category, my only options are those at the top. All this does is spread the problem out, it doesn't fix it. I'm still FORCED to play the maps at the top of the list, or sit in empty lobbies.
Feel free to come up with more ideas, but I guarantee you, you wont come up with an idea that fixes the system. You need to understand that it's BROKEN, and sometimes you simply can not fucking fix something that's broken. You need to accept that this popularity system is a lost caused, and needs to be abandoned.
You could easily find the most popular maps in the old BNet system (WC3). The most popular maps would turn up more often. There were problems with that system too, but overall it worked out much better in that new maps that weren't popular yet would turn up too. Some kind of compromise between the popularity system and the old system would be ideal. What needs to be done is to bring back the old system, and then also allow users to search for specific maps when joining.
They should just make the popularity system optional, have both the old AND the new. Feeling lazy? Don't wanna look for a map? Wanna just join a quick tug game? Go to the popularity system and play nexus wars. However if you'd like to see a wide array of maps, all of which you KNOW have people playing them, you use the old system. I've said from the moment they mentioned the publishing/popularity system, they need to make it OPTIONAL. I'm sure some people (god knows why) enjoy the new system, many more don't. So making it optional and giving people a choice is the best of both worlds. EVERYONES happy.