[IGN] StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm Scheduled for First Half of 2013 - Page 7

Originally Posted by zephiK 

It still isn't a perfect system at all. I go in Snipers Pro mod and sit there for like 10 minutes without a game happening and it is featured.

Originally Posted by Falknir 

People are not going to play a custom map in droves just because it's featured, especially if it's not appealing to them. They cannot really make the custom game interface much better then it already is without forcing people to play new maps. However, I have been playing new maps, which before the interface change was virtually impossible.

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Originally Posted by zephiK 

How would it not appeal to them if they never played it? Hence they have a section for "Up-and-coming." I'm not saying that the old Battle.net for SC1/WC3 system was perfect but it was definitely a lot easier to have a new map to become popular. There are elements of the new Battle.net that I really like as well. If Battle.net could find a middle point between the two, it'd be great.
In HotS they changed the Arcade system slightly, but it still could use some revamping.

Originally Posted by Falknir 

They will not play a game that does not appeal to them or they never heard about, just like how a customer walks into a brick-and-mortar and browses for games on the shelf that they never heard of -- by the cover art, stylized title, and the information on it. Just cause someone puts a bunch of stand-outs and posters all-over the store does not mean people are going to run-over and buy it or even bother to really look at it. It takes some rare gems to break onto the top page, especially in popularity.
They can improve the system by featuring maps with brief video highlights and trying to get people hooked onto other maps, which is far better then a static picture to get people interested in something new. At best, we might see the up-and-coming list made more efficient in terms of screen real-estate on the home hub in the coming months, which may allow another short-list.
Also, the reason the same maps are still popular even after the arcade upgrade is due to bandwagon effect, group mentalities, and familiarity. Not to mention, they have tried to wipe the popular map list on various occasions and resulted in little difference as players would quickly return to playing the same maps. This issue was pretty dominate in Warcraft 3 with a scrolling custom game list. The extreme bulk of players played DOTA and various other smaller groups of players generally stuck to a general map parent/genre/sub-genres (Line Wars, Mauls, Maul Wars, Tower Defense, Battleships, Frenzy, etc.) regardless of what reiteration it was in. Sometimes an irregular occurrence or necessity (lack of hosts) would happen and they would venture out to try other things. The rest of the players would just about play anything that popped up in the list due to impatience, wanderlust, or whatnot. Trying to get people to play maps not easily associated to one of those map parents was fairly difficult even if it was sitting on the first two pages.