I would say maps for 64 players are a meatgrinder and etc because of how RS2 was designed in comparison to its predecessors, even though you would like never noticed theese gameplay changes, while they dictate your experience. And perhaps if Vietnam war was fought differently compared to such conflicts as WWII and WWI, doesnt mean level design must be reworked for these purposes.
Not really sure what you're saying here... Are you suggesting that the "meat grinder" aspect is required to make the representation of the Vietnam war more authentic? Development decisions that determine where the line is between "authentic" versus "game" are probably the hardest to make and often splits the community. Some people want a game that plays really well, and in order to do that you have to sacrifice things that would make it more authentic... Health bars versus penetration effects, etc...
As a matter of fact though, level designers have spent their time on such a niche game mode, while they could've created more iconic and enjoyable maps for 64 players rather than create something unappealing for low amount of players.
Calling Skirmish niche is at best just another subjective argument. I'm willing to bet a lot of people never heard of or tried Skirmish in the first place. It wasn't a mode they advertised like they did with the larger 64 player ones. Skirmish certainly had less people playing it, but I don't think that necessarily justifies the discontinuation of it. People were still playing it. There was an interest, and as far as I'm concerned I'm still interested.
The numbers dropped in proportion to the rest of the game. Just look at where we're at now. I'm willing to bet it'd raise just the same.
I havent seen any custom maps created for skirmish either.
Apparently, in this day and age, anything that requires players to spend more than 50 seconds connecting to a server immediately turns them off. Our skirmish server, at one point, tried hosting the larger 64 player mode on custom maps, and suffered horrendously. We could only stay active when hosting default, shipped maps.
Just because no one is developing mods for something this shouldn't then justify the discontinuation of development... And well, if you played Skirmish you'd know there were custom maps in development, they just couldn't attract new players... (Like I mentioned earlier, because people were not joining when required to download stuff, we had to take the custom maps off)
Rules of marketing state "Produce what you can sell, not sell what you can produce" . Same applies here. And I dont see a reason to come up with excuses to shove this game mode into people's throats.
For this exact reason, the industry has fallen from grace. It used to be about developing things that were full of passion and innovation and to no ones surprise there was tons of success in the risks taken. Now we have cookie cutter, copy paste content that attempts to ensure people buy it up. It would seem the importance of marketing has surpassed that of development.
while they could've created more iconic and enjoyable maps for 64 players rather than create something unappealing for low amount of players.
I think this is by far the most conflicting justification... Modding easily solves this. I think the mapping contests were great examples of why it can. I'm not asking for continued improvements / development for Skirmish. I'm asking for more freedom to mod.