Tank your time as head of maps for EiR was characterized in my opinion as a very good one for EiR.
You greatly encouraged new mapmakers to take up the craft, greatly increased the transparency of how maps were added and removed from the launcher (something that was a severe problem in previous years), provided a great channel for players to submit feedback etc. and even produced two maps of your own. In those respects you were a credit to the mod and a great improver of the state of its maps.
But the reaction you've had to the criticism against this map has not been among those highlights. In fact it has been sad and, to be perfectly honest, completely absurd. I'm not even just talking about the completely unneccessary campaign you launched against Skaffa just because his map (the adaptation of Semois) is hailed by so many to be fantastic. As the first guy who would normally criticize you, i've been pretty supportive of your work on the maps of EiR.
But when it comes to your maps, you have a really, really, really hard time taking criticism. Granted some of it has been unfair and unwarranted, I've witnessed a few people unfairly over-criticizing your maps. Some of that happened in this game on Bolt's part and has happened in the past from others.
But there have been other times when you have flown off the handle in a blind rage at those who have tried to offer legitimate feedback (Skaffa for one, as much as you flamed him for not having played your map everything he said held up to my experiences playing the map and I had played it more perhaps than 99% of the mod at that time).
And in this thread there is a huge problem again. What is it? You have scarecrowed the legitimate feedback into the realm of the absurd by trying to reduce the motives behind it to petty spite and trite attacks. You ask for feedback, indeed even beg for it at times, and then 95% of the time end up flaming the people who give it to you.
Either learn to take people's feedback (good or bad) or for the love of god stop asking for it.Some of the feedback will be good. Some of it will be bad. Both types will sometimes say that you did something incorrectly. But flying off the handle and attacking the giver of that feedback is just plain stupid. It's also going to make the people who try to legitimately give feedback, and who want your maps to succeed, think twice about trying to help.
Hell I know I have no interest in ever, ever giving you any feedback about any of your maps. Instead of hoping to give tips on how I think they might be better and get played more, I just won't play them anymore. Why? Because it's too fucking stressful to have someone lose their shit on you when you're earnestly giving them your thoughts on the map they asked you to test.
So I will take these one by one. First though, let's see the results of the game in question:
Loosing a game because of a shitty company build and shitty game play, then blaming the map for it is probably going to get you some negative comments from me.
Perhaps fail companies of AVRE and CROC spam, blobbed together in the middle of the city was not your best choice.
I would include the replay, but it's just 45 mins of allies getting stomped and then blaming the map.
All of these statements are misguided and inaccurate. We can see that of all the players in the game, the player who was stomped hardest and who played the worst was yourself. Not bolt. Not me. And not even Andy.
In fact, I played well in this game. And given the teams (me and bolt plus Andy who is by no means good at this game) the game actually turned out to be very even. A convincing win for the Axis, but by no means a blowout.
So the first thing we need to stop doing is to try and paint this as a "stomp". It was not. It probably should have been given the teams, but it was not. Allies played very well considering the teams and two of the allies even outplayed their axis counterparts.
Now, I say this all not to agree with boltI think while he made statements that were based in some truth, they were absurdly exagerrated to an unfair degree.
But I did not make unfair remarks.
DDAY is not a popular map in EiR. It is not widely played or widely loved. If you made a map according to your personal tasts and this doesn't bother you, that is perfectly cool. I did the same thing with Rouen: I made a map that I liked and that was very different knowing it would not get played a lot. When it did not get played alot, I understood. I understood why people complained about the city. I did not get mad at them, or rage at them, or tell them it was just because they lost on it and they were jealous/butthurt/stupid. I knew going into Rouen that people would not widely accept a very close-knit, urban city designed to feel clausterphobic and "realistic".
But what you have done is made a map that has very obvious contradictions to EiR gameplay (a giant right flank that has 2-3 extremely narrow chokepoints) and then railed against people who have pointed out that this is a problem IF the main purpose of your map (and you have said that it is) is to get people to play it widely. You even based the design of neuville and have chronicled how you followed neuville/tanteville etc. to try and recreate their success.
This is not a problem. But if you lash out at the guys who try to point out why your map is not as succesful as neuville/tanteville, then there is a big problem.
So in conclusion, no. Just no. I did not criticize DDAY because I lost that game or because I did badly. It's quite objectively verifiable that I did not do badly in that game, and that I in fact did far better than you or anyone else in the game.
Also, we know from repeated documented examples that I am a supporter of your maps. I am one of the few people that I know of who has stuck up for Adaire both on these forums and repeatedly in game despite the fact that it is a map many people disparage and refuse to play.
So we can rule the following things out:
1. I have a grudge against your maps (as I ardently defended Adaire even while arguing with you on other things, that's pretty clear)
2. I was mad because my company failed on your map (my company excelled on your map)
3. I was mad because I lost (I have lost many times on Adaire and many other maps and still love them).
And instead start to entertain this possibility:
1. I gave you feedback because
I believe based on my experience as an EiR player that DDAY is a nice looking map, but does not have good gameplay or design for EiR gameplay.
The sooner you can distinguish between when people are trying to help you with their honest opinion and people who are just out to hassle you, the sooner you can stop treating those former peope with temper tantrums and colossal blow ups when they say things about your map you don't like.