Amusing things to be found in Rottenburg

Rotternburg is a beautiful map. Unlike the sad, concrete lump that is Mannhatten, which unfortunately fails to be particularly Mannhatten-y, Rotternburg fills its expectations of being a pretty village in the middle of nowhere. But there’s a lot more to Rotternburg than meets the eye…

Let’s start off with the spawn area. First thing you’ll notice is that there’s a giant hole with an iron grill over it rather than the normal ugly metal plates.

Interestingly, there’s a large painted wall just outside the resupply/spawn area. The sign implies what Rotternburg is famous for. Mad science, Australium and methane of all things. Not sure about the other two, but Australium is quite valuable in TF2 lore, so this might be why Gray Mann is attacking Rotternburg in the first place.

I don’t know why, but I liked this spot. There’s water down there where that gap in the wall is, but jumping down there kills you with a trigger_hurt. It’d be quite nice to have somewhere to swim, but oh well. Oddly, behind those large metal doors, there’s a trigger_hurt there too, as I discovered when I no-clipped through it. Same with the similar door near the bomb hatch.

This shop has always caught my eye. The sign offers the service of turning Australium to Gold, ‘while you wait’. Maybe Australium is just irradiated gold or something?

Another amusing detail about Rotternburg is that there’s a lot of signs with unusual text on them. The sign above can be found opposite the forward Upgrade Station, and there’s even more signs below, oddly all relating to Medic, despite the fact that Rotternburg seems to despise crazy scientists. References include the Kritzkrieg, the baboon heart in Medic’s fridge in Meet the Medic and the fact that Mann Co. might be selling alcohol around here.

 

Last but not least, one of the more unusual things about Rotternburg is the fact that it has an extra Upgrade Station near the front. I’m not quite sure why they did this, because Big Rock is apparently bigger but lacks a forward Upgrade Station. Unfortunately, it took a few days for people to realise this was here, but this Upgrade Station is a real time saver. It also lessens the need for an Engineer, who, up until now, like Scouts, was a necessity in winning. Of course, having an Engineer still helps.

I’ll finish this off with a little Easter Egg that I found. You can find it opposite the bottomless pit under the large, white tower, labeled as a Disposal Shaft. It’s actually not a bad spot for sentries if they happen to go that way, but from what I’ve seen, they don’t really. The sign apparently says Sour Milk Dairy. Maybe it actually is milk in that Mad Milk? Either way, it’s a nice little thing to find that adds just a tiny bit more depth to a map.