jrh_cardinal wrote:yes, I saw your previous posts, but why? I mean, it's still the same idea. Take the World Cup Map, it was out for a month. I played it a good deal in the first couple days, then started a couple games the last day or two. In the middle I didn't play anything except the tournament (and an away clan war game). Point is, if it's seasonal for a short time (a week or so), that doesn't help the maps overall popularity, particularly since you CAN'T play it most of the time. If it's seasonal for a long time, that still doesn't help because if people don't like the map in general, they're not going to continue to play it for a month or more. Also, that still doesn't help because the map has a popularity of 0 when it's not in season.
I like the idea of a 'map of the week' since people may play that map during that week, like it, and continue to play it. If the map is seasonal, after that week/month/whatever, you can't keep playing it so for most of the year, the popularity plummets, to 0
For some maps, the popularity has an equivalency of zero because (outside of tournaments that require participation on every map on conquerclub) hardly anyone plays the map. So, if a map is played relatively 0 times (I mean, you really cannot count if it is played less than 300 times in a year, right?) it cannot hurt the map to put it into seasonal.
Your example of World Cup, I believe, helps to understand the concept of the seasonal map and how it would be played more often during those 3 months that it is "in season." You played it when it came out. The buzz created with the "newly opened" map was enough to generate some interest from you. For whatever reason, the map didn't interest you, but you played it when it came out, helping to boost the buzz and frenzy about the map. Then, when you heard it was going to get shelved, you jumped back into it to perhaps get some unique victories on the map, perhaps you realized you liked it, whatever. The buzz and frenzy were both boosted when the announcement came that it was to be shelved again. I think that this kind of "advertisement" of the map will help boost participation on some maps. Also, there were enough postings around the forums from people upset with its shelving and other postings just discussing the map, in general, as a result of it being shelved. Those posts helped generate some attention for the map as well.
Perhaps, as the site grows, if there are maps that are "seasonalized" they will get to a point where (with a new crop of players in 2 to 3 years) there might be enough players who want to play the map "all the time" and the map could move out of seasonal and into "always available."
