The only time b.net 2.0 ever really worked well was when it was 'bugged'. Anyone remembered back near launch, the popularity system was bugged and it was not remembering any popularity at all? So page 1 was constantly filled with new maps. A map gets played and quickly forgotten, so another takes its place. If you launch a brand new unknown map, it gets filled up very fast. I've played more maps during those couple days than pretty much any other period of time.
Also during launch, blizzard was resetting server every other day - and brand new maps would pop up during a reset. People immediately jumps to play any new maps. So there was a very strong interest in new maps. (at some point, blizzard 'fixed' a blank reset and starts filling it with the same top 10 maps after a reset...)
In a nutshell, the popularity system killed the Arcade. So a fix is to remove it altogether.
Instead of a top 10 system, remove any 'popularity sorting' system and just have the top 100 show a list of the last 100 most recently played in the order they appear. Popular maps would still show up in this list very often, but no longer in the same top spot. So a new map in this list would pop up and get attention.
This is like the open map listing, but instead of disappearing when it starts, it simply shows up in the browse page replacing the devastating popular browsing system.
The only time b.net 2.0 ever really worked well was when it was 'bugged'. Anyone remembered back near launch, the popularity system was bugged and it was not remembering any popularity at all? So page 1 was constantly filled with new maps. A map gets played and quickly forgotten, so another takes its place. If you launch a brand new unknown map, it gets filled up very fast. I've played more maps during those couple days than pretty much any other period of time.
Also during launch, blizzard was resetting server every other day - and brand new maps would pop up during a reset. People immediately jumps to play any new maps. So there was a very strong interest in new maps. (at some point, blizzard 'fixed' a blank reset and starts filling it with the same top 10 maps after a reset...)
In a nutshell, the popularity system killed the Arcade. So a fix is to remove it altogether.
Instead of a top 10 system, remove any 'popularity sorting' system and just have the top 100 show a list of the last 100 most recently played in the order they appear. Popular maps would still show up in this list very often, but no longer in the same top spot. So a new map in this list would pop up and get attention.
This is like the open map listing, but instead of disappearing when it starts, it simply shows up in the browse page replacing the devastating popular browsing system.