Stats as of Sept 3, 10am

17185    65%    3000
50053    62%    2300
56545    61%    2200
56916    62%    2400
57270    68%    2400
66976    67%    1700
73039    67%    1800
75929    66%    1600
80199    -permanent-
80434    -dead-    800

80434 was at 60% when I checked a few minutes ago--then I rechecked and it was gone. Everyone's maps are slowly dying. I don't think the rating system is working.

I reuploaded The Claw. I doubt it will do better this time, but we'll see.

A draft of a letter:

Death of the Shaman

One thing that's hard to not notice over the last few weeks is how little the shaman has been needed. The map editor is great and it's fun to play many of the user-created levels, but they are designed mostly as races. If the shaman's required, it's in a very basic way, to stop a block from moving or to help trapped mice. I would like to see more shaman-centric maps. This is the reason why I (and some of my friends) play: for the shaman. To be creative, to come up with new solutions or new inventions.

So what can be done? I think the simplest idea would be to have a few designated rooms (e.g. shaman_01, shaman_02, etc.) where only shaman-centric maps are played. I made a list of these below--they're the ones where the shaman has a lot of room to be creative. Depending on how popular these rooms are, more steps could be taken, such as including user-made shaman-centric maps in the rotation. But I think what I've suggested here is a simple first step that would bring joy to a lot of the players who fear that Tranformice is moving in the wrong direction.

Maps:

0    Discovery
2    Castle
3    Vacuum
4    Cheese Examined
5    Double Vacuum
10    Zoo
16    Stairs
19    Peak Cheese
36    Pool Ball
40    Cheese Saute
46    Absolute Void
47    The Right Fromagere
48    Cube Cheese
50    All Down!
53    Leap of Faith
68    The Funnel
72    Beautiful Glaciers
75    Dominos
76    The Iceberg
90    Over Your Head
91    Ladder to Heaven
93    Cliff
98    Upside Down Cone
100    Pitfall