History Main / AbridgedArenaArray

* Well over 50% of the custom map ''{{Warcraft}} III'' games on Battle.net are for ''[=~Defense of the Ancients: All-Stars~=]''. This ''map'' is so popular it's inspired several seperate VideoGames (''HeroesOfNewerth'', ''{{Demigod}}'', ''LeagueOfLegends'') and its own theme song ("Vi sitter i ventrilo och spelar [=DotA=]" by Basshunter).
** There are some people who got Warcraft III just to play the custom maps and have never touched the unmodded game.
* ''{{Warcraft}} II''. Garden of War.
* In ''GearsOfWar'', get used to playing on Blood Drive, Security and Jacinto. River gets voted on a lot too, though [[BrokenBase the jury's still out on whether this is actually desirable.]]
** In the first game, there were pages and pages of matches on Gridlock.
* In ''{{Everquest}}'', out of the many dozens of zones, only a couple see much action. For example, players in their teens and early 20s, level wise, hunt in Paludal Caverns. Period.
* Usually in ''{{Bomberman}}'' games, many players prefer the normal battle mode stage.
* ValveSoftware, developers of ''TeamFortress2, CounterStrike'', and ''DayOfDefeat'', recognized this trope coming into play in these games' original incarnations, where of the plethora of maps they packed with the game, only one map would see play on over half of the servers, with maybe two or three others rotating on some of the others, and custom maps taking up the rest. As a result, the one repeated professional criticism of their multiplayer games since ''{{Half-Life}} 2'' has been the [[UnpleasableFanbase low number of included maps]].

* Dustbowl, Goldrush and Gravel Pit are the most commonly seen "24/7" server maps in ''TeamFortress2''. But at any given time, listing available servers will show 2fort to have the most entries at any given time, despite a large segment of the playerbase [[LoveItOrHateIt hating its guts]].
** And at the other end of the spectrum is Hydro. Ironically, one of Hydro's commentary nodes specifically lays out Valve's anticipation of this trope influencing the focus on this map as the big map that would provide enough content and variety to withstand people playing it all the time. [[http://steampowered.com/status/tf2/tf2_stats.php Unfortunately, nobody ended up wanting to play it]], due to the actual ''gameplay'' on the map resulting in every round ending in Sudden Death.
*** Well, gameplay plus a respawn-time bug that was left unpatched, and possibly even uncaught, until ''2010''. In a catch-22 scenario, the lack of play may have actually ''contributed'' to the bug not being caught.
** Also ironically, this trope's use in Team Fortress Classic is the only reason that maps like 2Fort and Well were remade, even though their gameplay and layout isn't as refined as their contemporaries.
** Valve also recognized the rise of custom maps over the built-in ones, and struck deals with the creators of several popular and/or (in their opinion) well-made ones to add them to the game officially.

* ''MarioKart'' players tend to pick the basic "straight" courses in order to [[GameBreaker Snake]] easily. Baby Park as well. The Wii version included bikes, which resulted in most people in always picking bikes over karts since bikes could wheelie almost anywhere to get a boost while karts can only boost from power sliding.
** Mario Kart (as well as other games that allow you to pick where you want to play in) also suffered from people who would refuse to play any track other than the ones they keep voting for. Rainbow Road (DS and Wii), Grumble Volcano, Figure-8 Circuit, Sky Garden and GCN DK Mountain are some of the the most voted tracks online due to them either being easy to snake on, have lots of straight roads so bike users can spam their wheelie ability, or is difficult for the general gaming public. What makes it worse is that while the game does pick a track someone voted for randomly, if more people vote for the same track, the chances of it being picked are higher. It is quite common to play a few rounds and see the same tracks always being voted for.
* In ''{{Starcraft}}'', various versions of Fastest Map Possible, hacked maps that place whole stacks of resources mere pixels away from the start points.
** For the competitive players, there's usually one map that sticks out for overuse. First it was [[http://www.iccup.com/mapinfo/iccup_lost_temple_2.4.html Lost Temple]](so popular it showed up in [[WarCraft WarCraft III]] as well, and has many [[GuideDangIt strategy guides]]), then [[http://www.iccup.com/mapinfo/iccup_python_1.3.html Python]], and now it is [[http://www.iccup.com/mapinfo/iccup_destination_1.1.html Destination]]. The prevalence of this has led the [[http://www.iccup.com/starcraft/ primary competitive server]] to make certain maps give [[RankInflation extra points]] for a week, to encourage players to play all the maps.
** Big Game Hunters (BGH) is a popular 8-player map (likely the only 8-player map you'll find being played, besides Fastest Possible maps).
* Temple or Facility for the N64 FPS ''Game/GoldenEye''.
* The ''[[DarkForcesSaga Jedi Outcast]]'' Italian community plays ''only'' on FFA_Bespin. If you change the map with a vote while there's nobody else on the server, expect choruses of "Boooo! This map sucks! We want FFA_Bespin!" once enough people join.
* Several courses in ''{{Albatross 18}}''/''PangYa'' got whored out at some point; North Wiz and Ice Cannon are two such examples. Both courses had plenty of icy shortcuts to gain lots of overdrive Pang from; a single 18-hole round of Ice Cannon can easily net you over 1,000 Pang in a single round.
** Newest courses Lost Seaway and Ice Spa now hold this role, partly because they're easy to generate pang on, partly because they're the two easiest courses to start getting very low scores (less than, say, -22) on.
** On the other hand, because of the way Season 4 calculates XP gain (giving bonus XP for playing on harder courses), four-player three-hole VS. games on Deep Inferno are now very popular.
* This is also seen in ''{{GunZ}}''. A good 70-75% of all fights take place in the "Mansion" Arena.
* In ''{{Metroid}} [[MetroidPrime Prime]]: Hunters'', Combat Hall is also the only level anyone seems to play on since it's small and you can't hide from other players, [[GameBreaker save for one glitch]].
* In ''CityOfHeroes'', you can start in one of two zones: Atlas Park or Galaxy City. The marble block under Atlas always has at least 20 Level 1 characters hanging out underneath it, while Galaxy City is a dead zone. Even the addition of the Arena in Galaxy didn't help (and if anything hurt the adoption of Arena Mode). ''City of Villains'' seems to have recognized this, with everybody starting in the same spot (with an alternate starting contact 500 feet away patched in later), and the Rogue Isles' Arenas are ''literally'' abandoned, falling apart from disuse.
** As a result, a surprising number of players start in Galaxy for some peace and quiet.
* By far, the most popular maps in ''UnrealTournament'' are "DM-Morpheus" and "CTF-Face", both of them being quite small and simple (no running around through mazes trying to find each other). Also Deck16][.
** CTF-Face was so popular, it was included in UT 2004 as Face Classic. After not being included in UT 3, it was later added in the ''[[ExpansionPack Titan]] [[DownloadableContent Pack]]''.
** Besides CTF-Face, CTF-Clarion, CTF-[=CivilWar=] (and its smaller variant) and CTF-[=McSwartzly=] are usually the most-frequently played maps on Siege servers. A few other maps are played regularly, and you're a noob if you vote for anything else.
** In ''Unreal Tournament 2004'' and ''Unreal Tournament III'', expect a lot of DM-Rankin and DM-Sentinel online.
** And for that matter, full conversion Red Orchestra, haven't seen any new maps created for a looooong time. Everyone seems to acknowledge nothing else will be played, ever.
* ''BattleForWesnoth'': Isar's Cross. The map is very popular despite being very unbalanced, even when the developers wanted to remove it in version 1.6, they just can't, because of its popularity.

* In ''SupremeCommander'' virtually all 4v4 games are played on Seton's Clutch; likewise almost all 2v2 games are played on Fields of Isis.
* In ''[[BattlefieldSeries Battlefield 2]]'' is Strike at Karkand. [[ComplacentGamingSyndrome Curiously, everyone wants to play this almost infantry-exclusive map on a game whose main gimmick are vehicles]].
* ''{{Descent}}'' is based around disorienting full-3D flight. Therefore all multiplayer matches take place on the completely flat "Minerva" and "Ultra-Earthshaker".
* ''{{Halo}}'' gave us Blood Gulch. On the PC version, after going through the usual server narrowing process (not full, users playing, not passworded) no less than EIGHT of the eleven pages were 24/7 Blood Gulch.
** The popularity is probably the reason ''RedVsBlue'' is set on that map.
* On ''InitialD Arcade Stage Ver. 2'', few multiplayer races were played on courses other than Irohazaka.

* In the fan patched netplay version of ''[[GuiltyGear Guilty Gear X2 Reload]]'', a lot of players tend to choose Slayer's stage even though stages really have no impact on gameplay in this game. To elaborate, Slayer's stage is a large open cathedral-looking area with a gigantic bearded skeleton wearing armour in the background. It is likely because they want to hear [[CrowningMusicOfAwesome Slayer's admittedly cool theme tune]]
* This has happened at least as far back as ''{{Doom}}'', where the first map of the compilation dwango5 (otherwise known as [=D5M1=], a derivative of an older map called [=SS-MAP1.WAD=]) overshadowed basically every other level in online play at the time. There's even [[http://d5m1.com/ a website dedicated to it]].

* Due to ''{{Tekken}} 4'''s engine allowing for various forms of weirdness and other game-breaking moments, tournament play was very often restricted to a handful of stages (the Arena being the most common). That didn't stop the possibility of potentially broken combos still being executed even on the most fair of stages.

*** This is due to the fact that people believe it is balanced even though many players know that it turns the match into a projectile spam and camping. This misnomer cause all the pro wannabe to pick the stage.

*** ...to the point where Final Destination in and of itself probably should have its own page. Many players of various games hear "Final Destination", have never played any Smash Bros. at all, and still know they are about to play on the most boring stage with the most [[strike:noob]] [[StopHavingFunGuys insufferably-competitive-prick]] friendly options available.
*** The fact that some people call it completely balanced (It's not - all sorts of problems relating to speed and projectiles interfere) just annoys further.
** [[{{MemeticMutation}} NO ITEMS. FOX ONLY. FINAL DESTINATION.]]

*** In Versus, corner camping. When you're the infected, expect to see all survivor players camp in wall corners during crescendos and finales so that you will never be able to touch them.
*** Valve has gone out of its way to change this for the sequel, including new infected like the Spitter which will force players to leave their closets, and the Charger who will run them the hell over if they don't move.
** Don't forget that in the original L4D players only ever want to play the first campaign, No Mercy. Part of this is because at launch, only the first and fourth campaigns featured versus mode; since then though all four campaigns have been released, and people rarely choose anything other than No Mercy over and over.

** [[{{MemeticMutation}} FINAL DESTINATION. NO ITEMS. FOX ONLY.]]

** And from the original Quake-based ''TeamFortress'', 2fort5 (which inspired TeamFortress2 [=CTF_2Fort=]) and well6 (which has pretty much nothing to do with TeamFortress2 CP_Well/CTF_Well).

** Big Game Hunters (BGH) is a popular 8-player map (likely the only 8-player map you'll find being played).

* This has happened at least as far back as {{Doom}}, where the first map of the compilation dwango5 (otherwise known as [=D5M1=], a derivative of an older map called [=SS-MAP1.WAD=]) overshadowed basically every other level in online play at the time. There's even [[http://d5m1.com/ a website dedicated to it]].

* This has happened at least as far back as {{Doom}}, where MAP01 of the compilation dwango5 (otherwise known as D5M1, a derivative of an older map called SS-MAP1.WAD) overshadowed basically every other level in online play at the time. There's even [[http://d5m1.com/ a website dedicated to it]].

* Dustbowl, Goldrush and Gravelpit are the most commonly seen "24/7" server maps in ''TeamFortress2''.
** Hydro doesn't see much love. Ironically, one of Hydro's commentary nodes specifically lays out Valve's anticipation of this trope influencing the focus on this map as the big map that would provide enough content and variety to withstand people playing it all the time. [[http://steampowered.com/status/tf2/tf2_stats.php Unfortunately, nobody ended up wanting to play it]], due to the actual ''gameplay'' on the map resulting in every round ending in Sudden Death.

** Valve also recognized the rise of custom maps over the built-in ones, and struck deals with the creators of the most popular maps to buy the rights to their sources, clean them up, and publish them with the game.

**** Ironically, everyone, regardless of whether they play competitively or not, chooses Final Destination on-line. This is proven through the fact that taunt parties and item battles happen almost always here, as stages are chosen by majority favor. This troper has had several cases where he would choose other stages and would end up playing Final Destination 95% of the time. Recently, tournament players have been using Battlefield, Yoshi's Island, and Smashville just as much as Final Destination was in the old days, meaning they finally learned that Final Destination isn't the most balanced stage out there. In the case of Brawl, everyone is to blame.

**** Ironically, everyone, regardless of whether they play competitively or not, chooses Final Destination on-line. This is proven through the fact that taunt parties and item battles happen almost always here, as stages are chosen by majority favor. This troper has had several cases where he would choose other stages and would end up playing Final Destination 95% of the time. In the case of Brawl, everyone is to blame for this.Recently, tournament players have been using Battlefield, Yoshi's Island, and Smashville just as much as Final Destination was in the old days, meaning they finally learned that Final Destination isn't the most balanced stage out there. In the case of Brawl, everyone is to blame.

**** Ironically, everyone, regardless of whether they play competitively or not, chooses Final Destination on-line. This is proven through the fact that taunt parties and item battles happen almost always here, as stages are chosen by majority favor. Recently, tournament players have been using Battlefield, Yoshi's Island, and Smashville just as much as Final Destination was in the old days, meaning they finally learned that FInal Destination isn't the most balanced stage out there. In the case of Brawl, everyone is to blame.

**** Ironically, everyone, regardless of whether they play competitively or not, chooses Final Destination on-line. This is proven through the fact that taunt parties and item battles happen almost always here, as stages are chosen by majority favor. Recently, tournament players have been using Battlefield, Yoshi's Island, and Smashville just as much as Final Destination was in the old days, meaning they finally learned that FInal Destination isn't the most balanced stage out there.

** Tournament experts are so used to Final Destination that it's possible to defeat them by changing to Battlefield - basically, the same stage with three more platforms.
*** Funnily enough one of the [[ForgottenRealms Drizzt]] novels delivered a condemnation of this mentality, if by accident. Jarlaxle set up a duel between Drizzt and Entreri so the latter could finally prove he was the better fighter. He created a room of multiple levels and obstacles, on the basis that a measure of a true fighter was their ability to be creative and respond to their surroundings.

* Several courses in ''[=Albatross18=]''/''[=PangYa=]'' got whored out at some point; North Wiz and Ice Cannon are two such examples. Both courses had plenty of icy shortcuts to gain lots of overdrive Pang from; a single 18-hole round of Ice Cannon can easily net you over 1,000 Pang in a single round.

* FinalFantasyXI has this to the nth degree. Parties seeking experience points always go to the same zone based on their level - and to specific "camps" within that zone are better than others.