A community should be able to criticize the devs and that's the things most are doing now and I think they are right to do so. Blind support is never good, and neither is constant criticism (think Fallout fans). People have been hopping for a big update for a while, they have been throwing ideas here and there (see the numerous WE WANT KING TIGER threads). Now, what they got is 10 maps made by the mappers, edited by the mappers with a few adds by Tripwire (I would like to know what they did in fact), plus 64 slots servers. I can understand their disappointment. They feel like it's over and RO's dying without support
Tripwire does not have the financial means nor the time to continue supporting RO ? Fine but then be honest with it. Or on the contrary they will continue? Well, then show us. But adding custom content is I'm afraid not the best move in this case, there is a high probability, it's going to be taken the wrong way.
Any devs team should know that a hardcore game community hates being taken for a fool (I am not talking of the EA/Console kiddies, may their brains RIP), see Falcon 4.0, Fallout, Thief communities, all great games but ending up quite badly when support to the fanbase failed, ie in most case the community took it to itself to add new content to the game. PR BS does not work well with hardcore fans, they tend to hate it. It works much better with the console kids or EA stuff (BF).
Anyway, back on topic, thanks to the mappers, to the AZH team and to the guys who made the 44 slot servers possible. Thanks to TW to add it to the core game.
But when you look at RO, I see five maps being played, danzig, kaukasus, krasnyi, odessa and basovka. Those maps are really at the core of RO, at least to me, despite me hating some of them. They are straight forward, focus on infantry engagements at different ranges (SMGs in odessa apartments and then rifles in the Tower)... I'm sorry but Berezina, BDJ, Orel, Leningrad are not popular maps despite them being well-crafted maps, they are too big and not adapted for RO gameplay. As a friend of mine says, they are mappers map, not maps meant to be played. Don't take me wrong, I appreciate the work done on those maps, but I am not sure they will be played once officially added to the game. I am afraid they will end up like Barashka and Bondarevo. I am not even sure competitive ladders such as ROLadder will add them to their maplists.
And the 64 players capacity is for me not the brightest idea. Most servers can't handle Arad with 32 players and barely basovka with artillery falling on both sides. 32 players is already a huge mess and with 64, it's just grenade spamming. Chaos and confusion and for me, no fun. It's nice to look at but not my kind of thing to play on. I know some people disagree with this. =)
So, overall, I'm a bit disappointed and hoping for more.
