Fort

Work in Progress Despite its infamous removal, Fort is a fan favorite map, and quite possibly the most complex of the Trinket Wars maps.

Stats

• Map file: tw_fort (formerly pvk_fort and hg_fort)
• Mode: Trinket Wars
• Author: Skjalg, Ubermann (Beta 2.3 re-release)
• Release Date: Beta 1.0 (January 2007)
• Theme: Medieval
• Pick-ups: Food (x ), Armor (x ), and Ammo (x )
• Stage Hazards: None

Overview

Compared to most official Trinket Wars maps, such as Frostbite or Tortuga, Fort's level design is more complex; despite the amounth of paths and corridors, the map has specific areas that make the level more dynamic.

History

Fort was one of the five maps from the first release of Pirates, Vikings and Knights II, and alongside Saints both were the first maps build originally for the mod, whereas the other three maps are remakes of maps from the original GoldSrc mod. While most of the map looks and plays similarly to the current version, this version has corridors that lead to dead ends and the gates in the cannon room are open, letting players to walk at the shore. A later patch made the players able to swim on the water, though it drained the player's health, similar to the piranha pond in Tortuga. Players also spawned in indoor areas.

On Beta 2.1 Fort was given the Holy Grail mode. The following update a new path was added and the spawn points were updated to add priority ones. An exploit regarding the grail being thrown in unreachable places was also issued.

Fort saw its removal on the Beta 2.4 release of the mod, due to its level design being unfeasible for Holy Grail and Trinket Wars. The map was painstakingly improved by Ubermann, removing all kinds of dead ends, making the rooms wider and several visual upgrades were made, giving lots of details and enrich the environments. The map was eventually re-released on Beta 2.6, nearly three years after its removal.

To promote the Beta 2.6 update, a trailer dedicated to the map was released named The Return of Tw_Fort, which was at the time the first official trailer to be produced in Valve's Source Filmmaker.

Trivia

• A model seen in Cara's 3D skybox happens to be Fort's very own castle;
• Playing the version of the map in the Beta 1.0 build of the mod you'll get some models in wireframe rather than having textures. That's because these specific models use a shader that is either unrecognized by the 2006 build of the Source Engine (the one used until Beta 2.3) or even obsolete. Some props are seen with the wireframes in the mod's teaser trailer.