Originally posted by Skuzzy
[B It might surprise you to know it is the most requested map to be put back into rotation. [/B]
Isn't it the ONLY map to be permanently removed from the rotation? That would explain why it's the most requested to be returned, it's the only one.
Pizza map had a few problems, individually maybe not map-breaking, but combined made for a generally miserable experience, especially for a fighter jock.
1) The color and pattern, if you aren't epileptic, you will be soon flying close to the ground on pizza map.
2) The bases are generally very far apart.
3) There were not enough CV's and not enough water for those that there were to operate in anything but in a predictable, canal-like path.
4) There were far too many fields, much like Trinity, the fields outnumber the players most of the time. This meant no real concentrations of force aka, no furballs. There was no incentive for those concered with land-grab to actually fight for or contest control of any given field. Much simpler to just move elsewhere as it is impossible to defend all of the fields.
5) The GV aspect was as or more important than the air combat aspect in every repspect, even land grabbing, furthermore the GV portion was strangely seperated from the air combat portion. Most GV bases only spawned to other GV bases for example.
There were some good ideas with pizza map. For example it is one of the few and maybe the only map that did not have a 'reset corner'.That is largely owed to its perfect geometric shape and mirror image field placements. The canyons were fun to some extent, although insanely deep, usually a 'get out of jail free card' for runners. It did use varying field altitudes to really add a nice 3 dimensional aspect to the fields. Like FeserMA the high fields became prized as they gave your team an automatic 'jump' on the competition altitude wise in its area.
But, for the most part, unless you are playing Aces HIGH for the GV game or you enjoy easy field captures it's an example of a map that pleased fewer than it accomodated. While I agree with Skuzzy that it is difficult for a map to please everyone all the time, I think you can get pretty close. FesterMA is the closest I've seen yet.
I've been looking into map design and may try one myself to see if it is in fact possible to please everyone all the time. One thing is guarenteed, it won't be brown, speckled terrain.
Zazen
