a brief collection of notes on recent cartography

the effort and time all the cartographers put in is greatly appreciated by the community as a whole. there have been some slightly vindictive and personal attacks recently which seemed to me highly ungrateful in this regard and which i and a number of others found quite distasteful. id like firstly to point out that this is entirely unacceptable.
however...
there is a clear pattern emerging in the development of a great deal of the newer maps, and this sentiment is commonly shared, amongst the upper echelons of players at least. what it basically amounts to is style over substance.
from the outside looking in you are all trying to outdo each other, if not with increasingly flash graphics then with increasingly elabourate playing schemes (i know some really liked AoM, and a little experimentation is of course a good thing, but aside from that an awful lot of the newer maps have weird and quite frankly superfluous shit in them that categorically detracts from the gameplay).
i suppose this is an attempt to bridge the gap between 'us' and 'you'
common line of counter argument being something along the lines of: if you dont like it then dont play it
thats all very well, but i figured i might as well try and post something more constructive and redress the issues that have come to light recently.
knee jerkers please stand clear - lets keep it constructive and on topic. what do we all think of this?
however...
there is a clear pattern emerging in the development of a great deal of the newer maps, and this sentiment is commonly shared, amongst the upper echelons of players at least. what it basically amounts to is style over substance.
from the outside looking in you are all trying to outdo each other, if not with increasingly flash graphics then with increasingly elabourate playing schemes (i know some really liked AoM, and a little experimentation is of course a good thing, but aside from that an awful lot of the newer maps have weird and quite frankly superfluous shit in them that categorically detracts from the gameplay).
i suppose this is an attempt to bridge the gap between 'us' and 'you'
common line of counter argument being something along the lines of: if you dont like it then dont play it
thats all very well, but i figured i might as well try and post something more constructive and redress the issues that have come to light recently.
knee jerkers please stand clear - lets keep it constructive and on topic. what do we all think of this?