Abridged Arena Array: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

A gaming community's refusal to congregate in any but a few choice arenas for play. Certain levels are played on over and over again without any deviation due to people either knowing a certain stage well or the level requiring a certain amount of skill and knowledge to get around on, which filters out people who never played on that level before. A type of [[Complacent Gaming Syndrome]].

 

For players who looks down on anyone who likes playing on anything but a few set stages, see [["Stop Having Fun!" Guys]].

{{examples}}

== Action Game ==

* Usually in ''[[Bomberman]]'' games, many players prefer the normal battle mode stage.

* The english community in [[Dynasty Warriors|Dynasty Warriors online]] suffers from this. There are (up to 8/12/2011 in the English Version) 30 weapons, roughly 11 maps, 5 vs game modes (excluding showdown, which can be played only at certain times, Campaign, which is Basically 3 of those vs game modes you can normally play but with land at stake, and Defeat commander, which you can only get randomly), and 2 Singleplayer/Co-Op modes. Despite all this, People only play in Confront, use, at most, 6 of those weapons, and only play on plains.

 

== Fighting Games ==

** This is due to the fact that people believe a completely flat stage is the most balanced even though it just gives the advantage to the high-tier characters. This misnomer cause all the pro wannabes to pick the stage thinking it's the most balanced and therefore skill-dependent... for some reason.

*** This may be due to the misconception that a stage that completely flat and devoid of obstacles show a true test of skill between players, even though characters with long range attacks like Fox's Blaster and Pit's arrows get the upper hand since there is nothing blocking their shots.

** Before Slayer, it was Chipp, for the same reasons.

* Due to ''[[Tekken]] 4'''s engine allowing for various forms of weirdness and other game-breaking moments, tournament play was very often restricted to a handful of stages (the Arena being the most common). That didn't stop the possibility of potentially broken combos still being executed even on the most fair of stages.

* The most common stage that you will find yourself playing on in [[Jump Ultimate Stars]] is the [[Yu Yu Hakusho|Demon World Tournament]] arena. The only gimmick on that stage is a moving platform above a regular floor. It is loved for the same reason Final Destination (above) is.

 

* [[Battlefield 3]]: Operation Metro. You will find hundreds of Metro 24/7, 64 player servers, most of which included increased ticket counts for longer games. There appears to be some kind of perverse thrill in playing this map, as it's incredibly small, is incredibly biased in favour of the Russian team and 95% of the players do nothing but camp, launch noob tube bombs, throw grenades and fire RPGs across the map and actively avoided anything that might result in their death or having to use their actual guns.

** Caspian Border is the most popular vehicle map. It contains multiple vehicles, is quite open and has a nice map layout that means games don't end in spawn camps most of the time.

** Some unofficial maps, especially ''fy_iceworld'', ''fy_pool_party'', ''aim_awp'' and ''cs_casa'' also enjoy this status, mostly because quite a bit of them are either very small maps that allow for very fast-paced deathmatches, or maps specially designed to use a certain weapon.

* The ''[[Star Wars: Dark Forces|Jedi Outcast]]'' Italian community plays ''only'' on FFA_Bespin. If you change the map with a vote while there's nobody else on the server, expect choruses of "Boooo! This map sucks! We want FFA_Bespin!" once enough people join. Everybody else just plays FFA_Deathstar.

** The ''Movie Battles II'' mod for ''Jedi Academy''. Every single server running it plays mb2_dotf and '''nothing else'''.

*** The difficulty of winning makes victory all the sweeter.

* ''[[Descent]]'' is based around disorienting full-3D flight. Therefore all multiplayer matches take place on the completely flat "Minerva" and "Ultra-Earthshaker".

* Temple or Facility for the N64 FPS ''[[GoldenEye 007 (1997 video game)|GoldenEye]]''.

* ''[[Halo (series)|Halo]]'' gave us Blood Gulch. On the PC version, after going through the usual server narrowing process (not full, users playing, not passworded) no less than EIGHT of the eleven pages were 24/7 Blood Gulch.

*** And WHY is it so popular? Because the map is so small, there's a VERY high chance that chucking a Semtex two seconds after the match starts will get you a cheap grenade kill (or kills) right off the bat! Also, the easy camping spots (on top of a bed, behind a fence, two houses with one open window) and the constantly-embroiled-in-explosions-and-gunfire Point B on Domination Mode made this place VERY popular.

* If you play ''[[Killzone]] 3'' multiplayer, expect to see Bilgarsk Boulevard pop up more than once. Why? It has miniguns on both ends to defend the boulevard, great sniper positions in the buildings, and the routes around the main road are usually stalemated with grenades and turrets, allowing Marksman and Infiltrators to sneak in and cause havoc. Basically, it appeals to everyone.

* In ''[[America's Army]]'' 2, the vast majority of online servers ran the Bridge map. Possibly because it was a simple map with simple objectives. And on that map, Defense was the preferred team of choice, since all they have to do to win the round is prevent the other team from crossing the (narrow) bridge. Assault, on the other hand, only had a handful of minutes to make it across or they lost.

 

** As of Issue 21, Galaxy City has been destroyed, and serves only as the tutorial zone for both heroes and villains.

* ''[[Final Fantasy XI]]'' has this to the nth degree. Parties seeking experience points always go to the same zone based on their level - and to specific "camps" within that zone are better than others. These are always the easiest and safest places to gain experience, learned through trial and error.

* In Classic ''[[World of Warcraft]]'', the players would always congregate around the high level zones and for awhile, a good 70-90% of the playerbase would hang out in either Orgrimmar or Ironforge, especially in the areas in and between the auction house and the mailbox. However, as for leveling, most players would either hang out around the Barrens (For horde), Westfall (For Alliance), Hillsbrad Foothills, then Stranglethorn Vale, Tanaris, then the Plaguelands and Un'goro, and later on, Silithus. Very ''very'' rarely you'd see somebody in Loch Modan, Wetlands, Silverpine Forest, Feralas, Stonetalon mountains, Azshara, Desolace, or the Hinterlands. Most of the time they were in places like Desolace it was because the only other option was [[Fan Nickname|Ganklethorn Hell, Hellsbrad Foothills, or Ganklestan]] and on a [[PvP]] servers for awhile, you were very ''very'' likely to be ganked. Stranglethorn Vale was a common questing hub because there was just ''so many'' quests for ''both factions'', and they all covered a ''huge range''. Now there are more options, thankfully.

*** It also loses players because since the Firelands patch, you need to go at least halfway through the other zone of choice to unlock the new questline, vendors and daily quests.

*** It also doesn't help that the zone is painfully linear with only occasional quests on the side. Many hated the linearity of Cataclysm but Vashj'ir is probably the most linear. Not helping is that to get around quickly you have to get an underwater mount which while free takes about a dozen quests and at least a half-hour of gameplay to get the mount when the plot hands it to you and you have to repeat this on every character who you want to do anything in Vashj'ir and since there is a faction vendor in Vashj'ir...yeah.

 

== Real Time Strategy ==

** For the competitive players, there's usually one map that sticks out for overuse. First it was [http://www.iccup.com/mapinfo/iccup_lost_temple_2.4.html Lost Temple](so popular it showed up in [[Warcraft|WarCraft III]] as well, and has many [[Guide Dang It|strategy guides]]), then [http://www.iccup.com/mapinfo/iccup_python_1.3.html Python], and now it is [http://www.iccup.com/mapinfo/iccup_destination_1.1.html Destination]. The prevalence of this has led the [http://www.iccup.com/starcraft/ primary competitive server] to make certain maps give [[Rank Inflation|extra points]] for a week, to encourage players to play all the maps.

** Big Game Hunters (BGH) is a popular 8-player map (likely the only 8-player map you'll find being played, besides Fastest Possible maps).

 

== Third Person Shooter ==

** In the first game, there were pages and pages of matches on Gridlock.

*** The Gears 3 Beta had four playable maps, but whenever it was an option Checkout was winning the vote about 80% of the time likely because it's set up really well for [[Player Preferred Pattern|shotgun]] fights.

 

== Other ==

** To recap: Valve noticed this trope in effect and determined there were too many maps, reduced the number of maps to reflect the number that would actually get played, and then got complaints about too few maps. [[Unpleasable Fanbase|Just. Can't. Win.]]

 

[[Category:Audience Reactions]]

[[Category:Videogame Culture]]