Kuiper and I played the "not-it" game to determine who writes this article and I somehow lost... so yeah: we have been tapped as the heads of the new Official CommFT Map Testing Team. Jinn gave us orders to make an article announcing what we'll be doing and basically justify our existence. So here it goes:
In Starcraft, which is hands-down without argument the most successful e-Sport ever, there is an organization called KeSPA. Think of them as the FIFA of Starcraft... or if you're an American, the NFL/NBA/MLB of Starcraft. Within KeSPA, there is a department that determines, playtests, and creates the maps that will be played for the coming seasons, regardless of the individual league. This department works to evolve the way that Starcraft is played by the pros, while providing new, fresh environments for them to do battle and entertain the spectators. What Kuiper and I will be in charge of doing is essentially what that department does, except we won't make a business of it, create two cable television stations for the masses, and enjoy millions of dollars of profit... and its for Team Fortress 2.
The head of CEVO, who just so happens to be the head of this website, decided that his map pool for the coming CEVO Season 5 will come from our choice of maps. Looking beyond just CEVO, though, our larger goal with this program is to introduce — on an official level — new maps to the competitive community and encourage the leagues other than CEVO, such as ESEA and TWL, to make use of our map pool choices.
For every map pool choice that we make, we intend to write an article as fully detailed as possible to explain our decision in welcoming said map into the competitive pool. After we have chosen the maps for the next season of CEVO, we will be reviewing as many maps as we can to evaluate their usefulness in competitive play and properly introduce the TF2 community to them. The head of CEVO summed it up as "the Supreme Court for competitive maps".
As for determining which specific maps to choose... well... that's G-14 classified for now.
Here is a link to the thread that Kuiper and I will try to use for keeping up with everything that we do.
