Not a promotion per se, however, I do think it’s something we could talk about.
I left a comment on the video, I’ll post it here for convenience.
As a curated map maker (worked on Rio de Janeiro) I hear what you’re saying, and I wish the Curated map maker community could do more to create interesting concepts. I’d love to create a map with a section that is on fire, like you suggested, however, the reason why stuff like this hasn’t been added is due to Unturned being closed source. Modders cannot add any code to the game, and Nelson doesn’t want to add any more content. Modders are forced to work with the same tools that we’ve always been working with. We can ask Nelson for some new minor features (which he usually adds after 2 or 3 months, that’s what the majority of the last updates have been) but he won’t go so far as to add new game mechanics like you’re asking for. To give you an idea of what modders can actually add. Resources, (Bushes, Trees, Metal Nodes) Clothing, Guns, Ambience, (Background sounds), Animals, (This does not mean zombies) Objects and Effects. (Particle Effects, though also some sounds) As you can see, it’s rather limited. We can definitely get creative, and a lot of people try to break the norm, but part of this lack of creativity is due to Nelson, some of the more outlandish maps (Like Candyland) are “Featured”, and not actually officially supported. Nelson tries to keep the core game experience close to the Vanilla maps, Dango is so far the only exception.
Curated maps are the only thing that is keeping Unturned alive at the moment, and we’re trying to do the best we can to keep the experience at least somewhat interesting. For most of us, the creative process is what we enjoy most, not the gameplay of the map. Most mapmakers don’t want to pump a load of time into a project that’s not going to be played, even if that’s not their primary motivation to make a project.
As for your concepts; Metropila is interesting but ultimately flawed, a map like this might as well be an Arena map, as that is the only kind of gameplay this kind of map will ever receive. Most New players will be gunned down in an instant due to not being able to gain the necessary equipment to survive, due to early birds camping all the loot spots. Highway 51 shares the same problem, except it wastes space even more and exacerbates the problems I outlined with Metropila.
Isles of Agony is very interesting, I think given the right execution this map could actually work, however, I highly doubt this due to how most players like to play the game. Most people would camp one island, and never move. They’d have all the resources they’d ever need, and very quickly get bored of exploration. It would become the ultimate base raiding simulator due to that being the only thing left to do besides getting shot.
Water World shows the most potential, as gameplay like Subnautica could be introduced, however, it is not possible to make this map interesting without Nelson adding more content to the game. Animals currently cannot swim, meaning no aquatic animals could be added. No new zombies will ever be added to 3.x, meaning the player can just fly over them in the water. Some maps are looking into adding more underwater content in order to give the map a more lively feel, however, I don’t think a map set purely underwater could be plausible/fun, most players would probably quit relatively fast.
Worlds Apart would run into the same problem that the Driftless ran into, players would have no incentive or will to travel back to the other side of the map once they’ve crossed the sea, as they have everything they need on that side of the map. I’m assuming each side would have Civilian and Military loot? If so then that would cause players to never leave either side, if one side didn’t have this loot then it would immediately put all players on that side at a disadvantage and would give players on the other side no reason to travel to that side of the map. When was the last time you headed further south than Moscow when playing Russia?
