I really haven't been able to sit down and write down a thought out follow-up to my original post in this topic, due to being ridiculously busy with Real Life. In retrospect, it was probably for the best, since a lot of people ended up echoing my feelings and doing my work for me. There's one more thing I'd like to add and make perfectly clear, which most of you should know by now but so far I haven't seen anyone flat out state it.
Nobody plays standalone map WADs. The hassle of needing everyone to have the same version of a file in order to join the netgame is simply not worth just to play a single map. This is why Mystic Realm became so popular when it first launched, because the overwhelmingly large amount of content far outweighed the minor hassle of the more complicated netgame setup. Due to this, it (and subsequent similarly-spirited level packs) became quite popular, which meant more people had the file, further tipping the scale and essentially making having the wad on your hard drive a requirement.
This is the only reason I occasionally submit a Match, CTF or Circuit map to the OLDC. It's the only reason 90% of the OLDC's participants even exist. They, as well as I, know that the stages will be bundled into a larger pack, and that the levels
will be played. Unless you have the willpower to spend several months working on a collection of maps entirely of your own authorship, or are willing to collaborate with a moderately large group of people, it is the only way to include your work in a map pack, and thus the only way you can assure it will gather a decent amount of play time.
This is why axing the Circuit division in the OLDC is such a step in the wrong direction. Doing so is effectively nipping any penchant of creating more maps for the gametype right in the bud. It's almost as bad as axing the gametype itself, because without incentive to produce maps for the gametype, it will stagnate and fade from the players' interest. Case in point: Tag/Hide and Seek, which never really had a chance to prove themselves.
But the truth is, Mystic, as you've stated so openly, that's exactly what you want to do! You want people to stop making maps for it, you want them to stop playing it, you want everybody to forget about it so you can sweep it under the rug without anyone who used to care about the gametype even batting an eyelid. Unfortunately for us mooks, you're entitled to make that call, because at the end of the day, you're designing the game and we're playing it.
But then what in hell is this?
Again, this is one of my goals in doing this. I'm TRYING to cause this reaction in people who have played circuit, but at the end of the day don't really care about it. While a lot of people object to the idea of what I'm trying to do, if they sat down and thought about it without their internal bias, they'd find they really don't enjoy circuit all that much. A lot of people, myself included, like the CONCEPT of circuit mode, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired.
My goal here is to encourage people to make maps for gametypes that have a future. Honestly, I noticed the problem here several years ago, but neglected to do anything about it, so here we are today after WAY too many people have gotten attached to the existence of a gametype they really don't honestly like all that much.
How the hell can you so very blatantly say you know what people like or not better than they do? The only possible conclusion I can derive from this is that you're simply trolling every single person in this topic. Knowing that, I should have no qualms about posting this rather ironic redaction of a part of your post:
By this logic, we should just kill internet multiplayer Circuit entirely, and leave only LAN Match and splitscreen multiplayer CTF in the game. Obviously we're not going to do that. Just because there are problems in the netcode balance doesn't mean the game gametype is completely unfun because of that and we should give up on it.
Zing!