ive sat and spec'ed a bunch of maps on EU1 friday night and saturday afternoon and ive come to realize how big impact maps really have on balance. yes i did know that it have a great impact, but not this much!
pretty much all the maps were won 4-1 or 4-0. then map was changed to arena and PUFF 4-3 all of a sudden. i requested another Arena and i believe it was thomek who was kind enough to accept my humble request. first 3 rounds were even, but then it went apeshit, i think because byz left (they had about 15 players online).
i think that a good MP map is a map where both sides can see where the enemy is, yet designed so that it encourage tactics and strategic thinking/planning. since my english suck, i will show a couple examples:
IMO, this is a very bad MP map and adding fog makes it completely silly
this i think is a fairly nice map, maybe the spawn locations should be tweaked a little bit, no so sure. but both sides know where enemy is and we still have lots of options in terms of tactics and strategy.
