The Aloha arena server reconstruction

Ace of Spades
1

Arena top 10 maps → Arena top maps
I will talk about my thoughts on my former favourite server in AoS.

It was a few months ago when players were coming in masses to join the Aloha arena top 10 maps server. The server wasn’t lacking in any aspect of a good arena gameplay. And as far as I know it was the second most popular server after Aloha pinpoint/hallway.
I spent there many hours of gameplay and even if there was “only” 10 maps, the maps were so elaborate that even a repeated play there was still entertaining. The last month of existence of this server may looked like that this server is loosing players, it would’ve been most probably temporary state, but the authors of this server thought that it will need a reconstruction, but the way it was reconstructed, it brought more quantity more than the quality.
Lots of maps there weren’t suitable for arena anymore, lots of former faithful players left or were surprised by this rearrangement, one example of what I remember:

Where is arena top 10 maps
This is arena top maps
Then where are the old maps?
Some players still thought that this is the old arena top 10 maps server, they didn't see any difference. There were different maps beside the original maps and that mix of really nice maps and a few really bad maps didn't help to get more popularity. My opinion is, that the server should be revived to it's original condition. [details=Click for details][b]Maps on former server:[/b] Name --------- Score (personal opinion): -avseafort - 9.5/10 -prisonbreak - 9/10 -nuketown - 8/10 -avsmallfortress - 7/10 -facingworldsarena - 5/10 -minideckarena - 7/10 -avstorage - 6/10 -indiaarena - 8/10 -generator2 - 10/10 -planeassault - 8.5/10

That’s all the top 10.[/details]

2

TBH I don’t think avstorage should be in top maps.
It used to be good but then it was changed so people couldn’t glitch and it just messed up the whole map IMO.

Also why does top maps have 30 maps aaa

3

Well yes not all the maps were the “top maps” but most of them were really good, i think when the rotation was only between the 10 maps it was better.
And yes avstorage wasn’t top, such as facingworlds arena known as “sniper only” map

4

Truthfully I also really miss having only 10 maps on the server. I really liked most of the maps, but now I don’t get to play them nearly as often; and almost never on Aloha’s servers. I hope that izzy listens to us and changes it back.

5

What makes top10s special is a healthy variation of good maps, not too little, not too much. topmaps and allmaps have too many maps that players dont want to play on, and csmaps just have 3 same old maps that get boring and repetetive

6

ah! don’t talk bad about cs maps, there may be only 3 maps but they are the best of all arena maps.
I agree that top10maps was more popular than topmaps, I kinda miss the competition between top10 and csmaps.

Anyway, here are the list of maps from arena all maps, top10 maps and arena top maps (In order) for comparison purposes

Top 10:
avseafort, prisonbreak, nuketown, avsmallfortress, facingworldsarena, minideckarena, avstorage, indiaarena, generator2, planeassault

Top maps:
minideckarena, avstorage, indiaarena, generator2, planeassault, avseafort, prisonbreak, nuketown, avsmallfortress, facingworldsarena, avsides, rigreloaded, ambassyarena, avseafort, alcatrazarena, abordage, castlewars, turvystairs, swamparena, avorder, highrise, abandonedfactory, neotokyo, sixhouses, crossover

All maps:
minideckarena, avstorage, indiaarena, officewars, avsides, generator2, rigreloaded, ambassyarena, planeassault, penthousearena, generator, avseafort, facingworldsarena, avsmallfortress, spacestationarena, dedust2arena, submarinearena, avstoragebig, alcatrazarena, blueresort, abordage, museumarena, spiraltower, csitaly, prison, turvystairs, prisonbreak, nuketown, castlewars, abandonedstronghold, alamoarena, zealot, avrealm1f, casinoarena, townarena, avacid, sherwoodforest, chinatown, avvirtual, volcano, avorder, highrise, abandonedfactory, neotokyo, beaulieuarena, sixhouses, crossover, lostvalleyarena, phases, lostvalleyv2arena, deepspace, swamparena, avdivision, avinsides, avsandtown, avsector1, hijacked_arena, twobunkers

7

Honestly though, I really like all maps because it sometimes makes you play the maps that you aren’t good at or you just don’t like and make you better at it. It also lets you play the new maps that the community has come up with. Same goes to the aloha.pk ToW and CTF Custom maps.

8

Off the topic of arena…how about that CTF server, or that TOW server, eh?

9

  • Apocalyptic: That’s exactly what i wanted to point out, that the top 25 maps server has got many maps that are not suitable even for arena mode. The cs-maps - i like the de_dust most, for me this could be one of the top 10 maps, the cs-office, on the other hand, has too many corridors and the layout is too big.

  • Sniper, yes i could agree even with the competition, nowadays the cs-maps server has no competition, most of the aos players play there.
    And thanks for the top25 list, i want to point out the alcatrazarena - this map has so so many stairs, so many floors that it’s sometimes impossible to play a good game in it, the people spread out everywhere and i don’t really see any conception, any order in this map. It should not be even in “top 100”.

  • Lone_Wolf. Probably you could get better when you play the maps you aren’t familiar with, but that’s not the way i like to play the arena, sure i’m not against experiencing with new maps, but when there is a map that has so many floors and so many corridors it just disgusts me and the excitment from arena action is gone.

10

That is exactly why we need more maps from the community and we’ll get something that is actually fun to play for almost everyone. We will all get bored eventually from playing the same maps over and over. Not saying that Aloha.pk top 10 maps would die out anytime soon, but it will decrease in population eventually. It will not completely die out, but it will decrease in number of people playing in that server. I don’t know if you played all the maps in aloha.pk all maps (which I did), but I will assume that you did. As you might know, there are maps like Abordage, Blue Resort, Town Arena, and even the newest Two Bunkers that are actually fun with lots of people.

11

Well yes when i think about it again, the original top10 would’ve probably not survived anyway. The idea might be, to do some server where the maps are being updated from time to time. Maybe it would be reasonable to do some poll or test the popularity of the maps, then decide which maps should be selected and then put them in the server.

  • I played Abordage but i don’t think that this map deserves to be in top 10 - because it is a bit unbalanced while one team is more covered by the net hanging on the flagpole - this is when people are standing on the deck. (yes i remember playing this map with you, it was kinda fun. But with less people its not appropriate to judge the quality of the map while the conditions are different.)
  • I really don’t know all the maps from the arena - i played about 50% of the “all maps” so maybe i missed some cool and exciting maps, like that Town Arena or Two Bunkers you mentioned, i didn’t play any of those.
    Hopefully i didn’t make any word order mistake, you can correct me if there will be some.
12

I knew this discussion would pop up sooner or later.

Top 10 was my stomping ground and when everyone started talking about change, I wanted as little change as possible, but I did want to spice up the maps in it.

What I originally wanted was to keep most of the maps in top 10 the same, but take maybe 2 of the least played out and rotate other maps in their place, that way we could satisfy most peoples want for the old maps, but also have some new ones in there every couple of weeks.

I just realized how much I actually do miss Top 10. CS maps is ok, but I never really loved any of the maps there. I could play all maps and be happy if there were at least 16 guys on there.

13

I definitely agree with you, Twisted.

14

True, but I still think there is too many maps in the top maps server :confused:

15

Why don’t we reduce it to maybe top 7, and rotate the other 3 every week?

16

the original top 10 config file still exists so it’s only a matter of switching back to that config to revert the server back to the old map cycle… i will probably do that if the population of “top maps” continues to stay low

17

I like that idea! Will it be realised soon? I just want the old good maps back…

18

maybe + 1-3 more maps that deserve to be on it abordage, castlewars, chinatown are my nominations

19

Guys, let’s populate the aloha.pk all maps.

20

thats even worse off than topmaps because it has ALL the maps, whether people like em or not. at least topmaps goes to your fav maps quicker