Excellent post, Xile. I wish everybody could put half or even 1/4 of that much thought into their posts. As you suggested, the higher player limits came about to help make larger maps more enjoyable. Brainstorm is just one map that works well with more than 16 players. Palace, NHB, TLC, Anubis, some of DT's maps, and a handful of others support larger player counts. I kicked the server limit up on the EV1 servers with the advent of mapinfo files, intending them to be self balancing. As more people join the servers, the larger maps in rotation will be played. When the player count drops off, smaller maps will be played. Other servers followed suit. It worked well to a degree, but:
a) The connect/disconnect rate on servers seems to have increased dramatically. 10 or more people may join or leave a server within a very short period of time -- too fast for the map rotation/mapinfo system to compensate for.
b) Several maps did not have mapinfo files and thus had no limits, which threw the system off and caused certain maps to be played excessively and beyond their feasible player capacity (shazam33 and barrels, for example). Some servers just updated the executables and not the mapinfo files with new releases as well.
c) Some servers lacked the sufficient range of map sizes to make the system really work, so medium/small maps were cycled even with high player counts.
I can see why admins are reluctant to add the larger maps, since they tend to clear servers out, but they really do help keep things balanced as well as expose new players to other aspects of the game. Every server should have high capacity (16+ player) maps comprising a good 20-30% of the rotation if the player limit is above 16.
Ultimately, I think the best compromise and possibly the best solution in general is to extend the mapinfo files to limit the number of clients who can connect to the server and not just limit the map rotation. That way large maps could be filled, and small maps won't be overcrowded. I suggest everybody involved in this discussion vote for this feature (or suggest a better alternative).
Y2J: You need to stop with the personal attacks. All it's doing is causing people to disregard your opinion, and you're going to get yourself banned (again) if you continue. Picasso and Eiii: you're also walking a thin line. Come on, guys. You're capable of behaving better than this. Lets focus the discussion more on what we can do to help the game play better in relation to player counts and less on what we think about the people making their arguments.
