They were indeed considered, and they don't meet the criteria that Nickname drew up for the Restricted map list over a year ago. Offworld Shipping Center and Swampcaves both missed on something major. Offworld Cargo Docks was another one, try playing a huge on it, and you'll see right away why it missed. Try playing double lancers on Swamp, and you'll see. I don't personally know what it was for the Shipping Center, but it was something like the above. One major abusable aspect, and a map has to be off the restricted list.

With that said, we only use the restricted list for Regionals and the Gencon Championship. I can certainly understand Chris' feelings on it, it was not an easy decision to not put any of his recent maps on the restricted list. But it must be noted that for all general SWMs play that uses the Standard list, most of his maps made it.

I haven't really seen much discussion about Offworld Shipping Center.

It's important to understand that some of the elements in applying the criteria can be fairly subjective. OSC made my list (completely "unofficial" personal list that is), but for whatever reason didn't make it through the process from Brad to Dean this time. The biggest weakness I see (left side advantage for shooters) is very similar to Jabba's Palace which made the list. So we both applied the same critieria and got different answers: subjective.

The others MM ones that made my list have clearly understandable weaknesses. I might have tried one, but the conservative nature of the choice makes their unfortunate loss easy to grasp.

The switch to 200 for the champs has brought new life to double lancer and pawned lancer builds. These builds are proven to work well on maps with few doors, and it's no stretch to guess they might work even better on a no-door map. So while this wasn't a significant issue when Swamp Caves was created, it's become one fairly recently, and the similarity of Badlands puts it right in the same box. If the champs were still at 150, more likely they're in, but evolution doesn't happen in a vaccuum.

And then Cargo Docks is simple. If you want huges to be viable, you can't include it. It looks like Dean made the call that huges must remain viable. It was no sure thing that he would make the call one way or the other. But it's a perfectly reasonable call. Case closed on Cargo Docks. It would have been a really neat addition had the other call been made, but there's no doubt it would have had signficant repercussions including but not limited to complaints about killing Luke's Snowspeeder as a metagame piece.

Ultimately, I could see the metagame making room for OSC, Swamp Caves and Badlands in the future. DotF includes some significant Lancer hate which bodes well--I thought maybe enough to bump Swamp Caves into a test run this time, but didn't turn out to be the case with the powers that be.

That is saying it gently. Maps must have some doors (and places to keep commanders safe).

very good points NN,

In the end I erred on the side of caution and will continue to do so on maps for restricted play. Playtesting beared out the choices made. I think that is a huge point to consider. Brad and Weeks did a ton of playtesting just for the sake of these maps to be added. This was an unprecedented step and I think should be paid attention to.

A lot of folks have spoken about what they thought or what they hoped. None of these folks chose to participate in the playtesting of these maps (which again Brad practically begged people to help). As is done with stat design in the v-sets, playtesting will overshadow people opinions. Playtesting is solid evidence of performance. I know back in the days of Gowk... Playtesting was worth way more than statements of I have no problem killing Gowk. Those statements were never backed up with how it occurred and in the end we fell back on playtesting and the math of it.

The same goes here. I look forward to putting any map on the restricted list that will stand up to Brad and my battery of tests. The more the better. But this round we feel as though we got it right and I felt it was better to be cautious than have the lancer rule everything.

Feel free to help in the playtesting next time.

One other thing that I keep hearing is the protected gambit. That is nice but the criteria goes past that. Safe starting areas and barriers to prevent movement breakers from destroying a squad are some other factors to consider. As well as balance for melee and shooters being as close to equal as possible.

Theed Palace MP 1 will change later (once its shipped) to Theed Palace League Kit 1. There are slight differences and JC asked the new one be the legal map. The old one has been called Theed for years, but JC can't legally sell it as that.

The layout of some of the stairs was fixed.