Is Pines the real issue?

[Santaliz]

The change is not permanent, it is a mitigation stage until the actual Pines map creator can provide a solution. The Development team is looking into the current issues to see if there is anything on our side and will release information as soon as possible.

As for hearsay on both the 'Pines & V2D lot' there should be none. No mistakes were made, we didn't change due to any community pressures it was simply something that had to be done. In the end the final decision on all levels will be made by SoulRipper. Everyone else including staff can only influence the decision that is made.

it should be a permanent change to be honest, the server has a very high playercount right now, filling the server most days

As much as I admire your enthusiasm for V2D, the player count hasn't really improved.
It's the same as with Pines - so I imagine just a general improvement because of new maps being tried, not related to a specific one of them.