It seems crazy not to have at least one permanent room set up. I bet it fills up just fine. If I remember correctly, SMG starts were 90% of Halo 2 multiplayer for years. That's the real game. The nuts and bolts, old school, no gimmicks, essence of Halo 2 strategy. BRs is fun and everything, but the FFA is a bit of a chaotic shitshow. It's not the original thing and it's a pretty different type of head game. There is no way to know what the demand is like without a room obviously.
Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if there are people joining the community, finding the experience not the same as it used to be and then leaving without saying anything or really knowing why it's different. That's what people do a lot of the time--they'll just silently go away without really analyzing it.
And I'd beg to differ that power weapons are any more of an advantage against an SMG start than a BR start. IMO, an SMG Pistol combo is the quickest kill in the game (aside from rockets, sniper, etc) from a lot longer distance than you'd think--and as of now, there is no way to even have that combo at all in any of the servers except for the very very few that have pistol secondary (in which case you have to drop the pistol, pick up smg, then repickup pistol to get the pistol in your left hand).
We're soooo close to being back in the day. The game is set up for it and everything, but there's not one room available out of like thirty five. At least one of the Team Slayer rooms is completely empty at all times, not to mention 5 to 10 to 15 of the other ones. All the rockets, swords, stuff is gimmicky stuff for people who don't want to actually play the game. I don't think it can really hurt to throw in one FFA with default settings and one Team. I have absolutely no idea how it works, or what it would take, or if there's anything I can do on my end, but it'd be really really awesome--probably for a bunch of people who aren't me also.
Cheers!
