Fort

Despite its infamous removal, Fort is a fan favorite map, and quite possibly the most complex of the Trinket Wars mode. A Team Deathmatch version was introduced over nine years after the original release.

Stats

• Map file: tw_fort (formerly pvk_fort and hg_fort), dm_fort
• Mode: Trinket Wars, Team Deathmatch
• Author: Skjalg, Ubermann (Beta 2.3 re-release)
• Release Date: Beta 1.0 (January 2007), Beta 3.4 (Team Deathmatch, June 2016)
• Theme: Medieval
• Pick-ups: Food (x ), Armor (x ), and Ammo (x )
• Stage Hazards: suspended keg

Overview

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

The Courtyard

Possibly the most well known landmark, the courtyard is occupied by a big roundabout that makes evasions easier to implement. It has four exits that lead to the other main areas of the map.

The Balcony

It takes place right between the courtyard and the archway. It has two floors which are connected by a small stone staircase.

The Archway

This outdoor area takes place on the other side of the map. It has two entrances that lead to the main staircase and the balcony.

The Keg Room

A rather big room with a closed gate which in the earliest version of the map it used to be open. It has a second floor that can be accessed via the spiral staircase or the exit to the archway. Players can jump onto the lower floor for a surprise attack or practicing their ranged attacks. The suspended keg is the main attraction, which can be released by cutting the rope in the second floor. The room gets blown away by its explosion. Originally a cannon was the prop suspended in the room, until the development team changed it into a keg with a bigger explosion radius.

The Dining Room

This small room was added later in the map's life and it is located near the spiral staircase. The room has two exits: one that leads to the courtyard and the other that leads to the balcony near the cliff.

The Staircases

The main staircase leads to the vast majority of areas in Fort. From the bottom to the top floror, the staircase leads the player to the keg room, the exit between the courtyard and the archway, the spiral staircase, the lower side of the balcony and finally the top area of said place.

The spiral staircase, albeit smaller than the main one, gives players access to both floors of the keg room and the dining room.

Presentation

Being being inside a coastal hill with a view to the deep blue sea, its rough terrain can make any clumsy player slip into the courtyard and break his legs. Despite its bright sun lighting the place in the morning, the interior of the fort still needs the help of a handful of candles and torches to light up the path. Some interactive props give life to this piece of architecture, such as breakable vases that can hurt someone in the head, or the keg that cleans up the room with the gate that forbids players to grant access to the ocean.

History

Fort was one of the five original 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 similarly to the current version, this version's level design is vastly different, with very limited paths and claustrophobic maze-like corridors with ladders that lead to other areas; the dinning room didn't exist back then and the gates in the keg room (back then with a suspended cannon) were 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. However the entrance was closed on Beta 2.0. In said update the map received a couple of changes, including slightly wider corridors and a hazier look. Fort has also become a Booty Tag map, a game mode that was until then exclusive to Temple.

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. On Beta 2.3 the map's aesthetics were slightly changed to match with the Knights' blue shade used to represent the team.

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, simplifying the map's layout, removing all kinds of dead ends and ladders, making the rooms wider and several visual upgrades were made, giving lots of details and enrich the environments, such as the new roundabout in the courtyard and breakable vases. 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.

Team Deathmatch version

A version of Fort using the Team Deathmatch game mode was released on the second patch of the Beta 3.4 update, on July 29th 2016. It's notable for being the first official Team Deathmatch map since the release of Arena, back in 2008, and to date the only official map using said game mode, since Arena was migrated to Last Team Standing shortly after its original release. The development team used Fort to test out the major overhaul of the game mode, and due to the similarities between it and the Trinket Wars version in terms of gameplay, there are no differences between both versions in terms of visuals and level design.

Trivia

• A model seen in Cara's 3D skybox happens to be Fort's very own castle, albeit with different rooftiles;
• Alongside Tortuga, both are the only maps to date built for two distinct game modes;
• Due to the issues of running the Beta 1.0 build on a modern computer, that particular version of Fort is plagued with missing textures and material shaders that render other textures with wireframe. The wireframe issue can be seen briefly in the first teaser trailer of the mod;
• Running the version in the Beta 2.0 build on modern systems might give you an extremely thick fog in the entire map, and as a result some entities like props and ropes will render black or cast black shadows;
• The wiki's description of the map back when it was removed claims that the fort was the Knights' property.[1] However, Fort's description on Beta 2.6.'s changelog says that the fort is abandoned;[2]

Gallery

Beta 1.0

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  The missing textures seen in the cannon room.
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  The wireframe bug.

Beta 2.0

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  Fort's loading screen (Booty Tag)
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  The extreme fog seen in the cannon room, as well the black ropes and shadows.

Beta 2.1

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  Fort's loading screen (Holy Grail)