2fort could be saved, yet somehow we still haven’t managed it

Note: I wrote this on my mobile. You should be impressed. Do you know how many variations of 2fort there are? Tons of them. Far more than any other official map. You don’t see them on the TF2 map workshop because Valve nor us want them there, the workshop is for brand new stuff, not fixes and modifications. Valve will do their modifications in their own time, and you can always sell map stamps with new maps – community fixes are harder to make money from. But you visit tf2maps.net or gamebanana, the 2fort variations will flood you.

2fort night, 2fort desert, 2fort_event, cp_2fort, 2fort arena, so many types. Then there are variations of those types – one of the best matches I ever played was on arena_2fort_night, where I played Pyro and won a 1v3 fight. Although nothing beats the ass-kicking I gave out as Pyro on Offblast during the SPUF Arena Respawn event. There’s even 2fort upside down, which is only playable as sodapopper Scout or with grappling hooks enabled.

But a lot of these maps are just gimmicks. Some try to fix the dreaded map. Most of them fail. Maybe we can fix 2fort, everyone’s first map? Let’s try.

Before we do anything though, we need to move those spawn rooms. The biggest issue on 2fort apart from its size is the fact that you need to fight PAST the enemy’s spawn room. You kill three people on your way to the intel, three more will respawn literally a few meters away. That’s just stupid. The intel should always be between or perpendicular to the spawn rooms. Look at Turbine, often cited as the best ctf map – the intel is somewhat far away from the spawn rooms. If someone can get past the wall of sentries, they can get out before the freshly respawned cavalry can arrive. Alright, still, wall of sentries, but that is a class limits issue and most maps will break if you stack Engineers.

So once we’ve swapped the locations of the intel and the spawn rooms, we need about three more paths to get to them, minimum. Even Turbine struggles here, you either go up the top via the vents, walk past their spawn or go through the other side. 2fort has the bridge, the battlements or the sewer and they are all a pain in the backside. The battlements route over the bridge is also only accessible via advanced movement and is covered with Snipers and the bridge route has little cover from the Sniper swarms once you pass it. The sewer is a genuinely good side path, but even that is tight and full of Pyrahnas when news picks up that people are using that route.

Speaking of the sewer, it REALLY needs a second way of getting out of the water. Some variations actually drain the water out, leaving an empty pit that can be explosive-jumped out of, but I like the water, it’s nice to have a different form of combat from time to time. A simple ramp up each side would do the job.

But 2fort overall is a very small map. It’s tiny and narrow, something that doesn’t bode well in our beloved spammy shooter. It makes me want to just upsize it by 20-30%.

After all of this, something has occurred to me. All this effort spent fixing 2fort, we might as well make a whole new map.

Oh well.