Favorite spawnrooms

Aki

L4: Comfortable Member
Nov 2, 2009
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Anyone want to give a shoutout to their favorite respawn rooms either from custom maps or Valve maps... Or complain about the worst ( ::cough:: ::cough:: 2fort ::cough:: ) ones.
 

tyler

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Sep 11, 2013
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Coldfront, first/last spawnroom
Foundry, first spawn room
Manor, both spawns
Lakeside
Badwater, blu spawn room
Thunder Mountain, all of them
Upward, first blu spawn
 

YM

LVL100 YM
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Dec 5, 2007
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You like manor's? :D Personally I'm disappointed with blu's, red's has the life-extender machine so I couldn't hate that. Blu's just has nothing going for it.

I'm struggling to remember spawnrooms now...

Badwater's Blu is good, as is Goldrush's Blu (both Dario's) They have some neat spytech areas going on.
Upwards is pretty rad too, the cablecar lift thing is neat.
I really like Blu's in Gravelpit. It's got nothing flash, but it's just nice.
Viaduct's make the cut for a top-list, I like the balcony.

Yukon's has a nice aesthetic, but it feels more like a corridor than a room, so it doesn't quite make the top-list.
 

Freyja

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Jul 31, 2009
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Trying to remember...

I like Gravelpit blue's too.
Mountainlab blue spawn is nice, I like the creek/river thing.
Nucleus's whole aesthetic is nice, spawnroom included.

The rest have already been said.
 

tyler

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Sep 11, 2013
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Forgot about Mtn Lab because I'm dumb.

Yeah, I do like Manor's blu spawn. You can see the clocktower through the roof and it's falling apart. I dunno, I have always liked it.
 

C00Kies

L3: Member
Sep 20, 2009
132
58
Frontier - Blu's 3'd spawn. (when they capped B in the little cave thing) For some reason that spawn amazes me. I like the carbonate on the hand truck.
Vector - All the spawns I think.
Harrp has some cool spawns too if I recall...

Rest, as i recall, are already said.
(I strongly agree with upward's first blu spawn XD)
 

TMP

Ancient Pyro Main
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Aug 11, 2008
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My single favorite spawn in the entire game is 5gorge's attacking last spawn. It's subtly gorgeous.
 

YM

LVL100 YM
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Dec 5, 2007
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My single favorite spawn in the entire game is 5gorge's attacking last spawn. It's subtly gorgeous.
15392024.jpg
 

Fruity Snacks

Creator of blackholes & memes. Destroyer of forums
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Sep 5, 2010
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I feel like this is a wonderful thread about favorite spawn rooms, that you might try and emulate in your own map.

... but no one is giving reasons WHY they like spawn rooms, or why they are good. You should really try and understand what makes a spawn room good.


Example, my favorite is coldfronts final (the spawn exits, and that whole yard). Why? Because, while they open up directly onto the battlefield (which is usually bad), the angle/distance that they make relative to the point means that you can't fire from spawn directly to the point. Also, their position with the other details/barriers in the room make it so you can't camp from spawn onto the entrances into the final area. It's really eloquent really, the whole area just flows really well.



...but yea, should learn some of this stuff. just sayin.
 

tyler

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Sep 11, 2013
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All of mine are favorites because the seemingly tell a story or point to a story really well or really vividly or something. Or they take what a spawn room is and reinvent it so that it's something else that happens to be where you spawn.

I forgot about Junction. Blu's spawn on Junction is fantastic. Gorge's first Blu spawn is a shitty ripoff of Junction's amazing spawn.
 

Deodorant

L6: Sharp Member
Oct 31, 2011
263
214
Aesthetically, I like the spawn houses on Sawmill. They are pretty safe and functional, but they still manage to feel very open and vulnerable in a way that ties in neatly with the general mood of the map. I think it would have been better without the spytech theme of the innermost rooms and the random hay on the floor, though.

Tangentially related; What the hell is up with this layout? It feels inherently flawed to me, but it's used by a lot of spawns. Sawmill, lakeside, viaduct..
kdmT.png


The main purpose of giving a spawn room multiple exits is to lessen the effectiveness of spawncamping, right? Then why make them all lead directly into the same open area? Why not just throw in a divider somewhere to give one spawn exit relatively shielded access to one route into the rest of the map?
 

Kiddnils

L3: Member
Sep 2, 2011
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Why don't you guys like the spawns at 2fort? The spawns aren't placed very well but they look good. The vents look really gorgeous.
 

LeSwordfish

semi-trained quasi-professional
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Aug 8, 2010
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Tangentially related; What the hell is up with this layout? It feels inherently flawed to me, but it's used by a lot of spawns. Sawmill, lakeside, viaduct..

It actually isn't. The idea is to create a "Buffer" zone between combat areas and spawnrooms, for teleporters, building charge, and adding a bit of run distance.

The constant wave of new troops means you have to push a lot of people through generally narrow, easy-to-defend passages before you can reach the buffer area. How often do you actually get spawncamped there? As compared to, say, Dustbowl 1. where the three exits are spread out, but directly open onto a combat area. (Dustbowl 2 and 3 also use this buffer zone, same as goldrush 2 and 3, (goldrush 3 is even in a height disadvantage!), Mann Manor (a particularly small one, but you see the principle at work), and pretty much any map with a space to build ubers in. They're near enough mandatory on a/d maps to avoid spawncamping from second one.)

All those three spawns you cite are also well-designed so the doors face away from each other- it's awkward to see both at once.

As for good spawns, Upward Blue, for the story, and the feeling of fresh air, all three Thundermountain Blue, for the story and the cool detailing, and Mountainlab Blue for the airboat and the little cove.
 

Deodorant

L6: Sharp Member
Oct 31, 2011
263
214
It actually isn't. The idea is to create a "Buffer" zone between combat areas and spawnrooms, for teleporters, building charge, and adding a bit of run distance.

The constant wave of new troops means you have to push a lot of people through generally narrow, easy-to-defend passages before you can reach the buffer area. How often do you actually get spawncamped there? As compared to, say, Dustbowl 1. where the three exits are spread out, but directly open onto a combat area. (Dustbowl 2 and 3 also use this buffer zone, same as goldrush 2 and 3, (goldrush 3 is even in a height disadvantage!), Mann Manor (a particularly small one, but you see the principle at work), and pretty much any map with a space to build ubers in. They're near enough mandatory on a/d maps to avoid spawncamping from second one.)

All those three spawns you cite are also well-designed so the doors face away from each other- it's awkward to see both at once.

As for good spawns, Upward Blue, for the story, and the feeling of fresh air, all three Thundermountain Blue, for the story and the cool detailing, and Mountainlab Blue for the airboat and the little cove.
The idea of buffer areas is nice, but I don't see why there can't be two exits leading into a buffer area and one exit bypassing it. In my experience harvest tends to be spawncamped pretty heavily, and lakeside and viaduct also get briefly blocked up by pocket pairs fairly frequently.

What's the story in thunder mountain, by the way? I've never noticed it.