Firstly I’d just like to say that I sincerely believe that ET is the best multiplayer game on the net at the moment. The designers seem to have had an uncanny ability to create a game that is fun, rewarding and is able to be played for a very long time with great enjoyment. I believe that ET achieves this by encouraging a style of gameplay where you have to work as a team to win. No one class can win the game by themselves - you need to interact with others to succeed and this is where the true enjoyment comes from whether you realise it or not. The game is still fast paced and action packed but there is so much more of a thrill acting in a team environent towards a comon goal than simply lone rambos.
I do however think that the game is facing a problem. The maps are seriously stagnant by now and we have all been playing the 6 same maps for an entire year. They are all extremely well designed maps (mostly - I still dont really like railgun 
) and for the most part are fair and balanced but quite simply I need a bit more variety to keep up my interest.
So why don’t I download some custom maps and play them you say? Well there are two major issues with this. Firstly the download bug that causes the game to crash EVERY time I download a new custom map from a server drives me nuts. It is even worse when it crashes, I try to reconnect and still can’t get on the server because it didnt download properly . Then I have wasted time and bandwidth (which translates to $$ for me) downloading a map for nothing. This encourages me to stay away from custom maps and servers that run them. This is the single most important issue retarding the growth of ET and needs to be addressed if ET is not to whither and die on the grapevine.
Secondly and on a related note I can download new maps externally to ET and occasionally find a server that is running them but there are usually only a few people playing on the server. Even though I am on DSL I can usually only see about a dozen servers that have a good enough ping on them to play on. Maybe one or two of these servers will have custom maps. Frequently those servers will be underpopulated and therefore unfun to play on so I will just go back to a standard server with the old maps on them. So it is a chicken and the egg thing. Maps arent being distributed properly because of technical issues and so not enough people have the maps to create a critical mass of demand for servers running new maps. Then what happens is people get bored and the game dies. Which would be incredibly sad because the game is so fantastic and unbelievably well designed and Splash Damage went out on an unprecedented limb releasing it for free.
My solution is that Splash Damage release a new patch that fixes the download bug. Also include in this patch is 6 of the best community made maps. Instantly the entire community will have 6 more maps that will do a massive amount to furthering the spread of ET and strenghtening the game for the future. I am assuming that Splash wouldnt have to invest to much time in fixing the download bug and compiling the new maps. They may have to make a few modifications to the best 6 maps but I am assuming that the best community made maps should be good enough for wide release. Unfortunately there is no real financial incentive for Splash to devote to much resources to this and they have alrady got their game of the year publicity etc… but I am hoping that just a little bit of effort will pay off big time and truly make the game one of the greats. I see a lot of potential for ET in the future and if these small but extremely fundamental issues could be fixed Splash Damages greatest creation could stick around for a lot longer. I hope that you guys consider my idea and that any technical/resource issues can be worked out.
Cheers and thx for a great game!!
:chef: