Not to hate on ya, but that just seems like stamping writ large.
I know, I know, I should be here bringing solutions rather than shooting down other people's suggestions. But here's something I said in that DiM thread that 44 so graciously dug up: the foundry has become a victim of its own success. It's as true now as it was then. There have never been this many maps in production, ever. Naturally public sentiment is going to be spread much more thinly, though new people have come in and provided welcome new voices (like the aforementioned 44).
I've always thought of mapmakers like Stephensonian Dwarves, people who toil in darkness and obscurity making objects of great beauty (anyone who's read Cryptonomicon will know what I'm talking about). The fact is that the vast majority of CCers simply have no interest in or curiosity about the maps they play on. New maps are brought by the stork, and the best time to raise objections is
after a map's been loaded for live play.
The amazing thing is that there are still thousands (if not millions) of potential killer map ideas out there, from the oft-attempted Japan to the Battle of Sekigahara, from a baseball stadium to a cartographic representation of "how a bill becomes a law". Hell, cairns is doing a map of a bloody family tree, all of whom have been dead for two thousand years, and I can't wait to play it. There are niches aplenty that need filling, I was bemoaning to cairns the lack of a legitimate huge classic-gameplay map to compete with 2.1. Larger maps in general would be nice (personally, I think we could institute a 6-month moratorium on maps with fewer than 30 terits save in case of extremely bitching gameplay, but that's neither here nor there). More complex maps would be fantastic. New gameplay features *hint hint lack* would be the absolute shiznit, as the kids are calling it these days.
Of course, the bar gets raised higher and higher, perhaps too high for some people. Maybe it's time to institute some sort of Extreme Sanction, a three-member Supreme Court (to tag along with oak's jury concept) that decides the fate of a map, perhaps when it's time to move from the drafting room to the main foundry, or when it's time to stamp a map with advanced drafts. This Supreme Court would deliberate and give their final judgment on whether or not a map was good enough to proceed. Only if they reach unanimity can a map essentially be killed off. "But Inc, that's so unfair to the mapmaker!" I hear people saying. But is it really? Wouldn't it be kinder to basically pull the person aside and say, "Look, we appreciate the work you've put in, but this simply isn't going to cut it in its present form" than let the damn thing rot in the drafting room until the person eventually loses interest?
I'm not even sure this is a good idea, just kinda weakly lobbing it in everyone's general direction.
