Why does valve make their maps wrap?

I'd imagine there's some kind of efficiency to it. For one thing, it makes a 3D skybox much easier to build since, if everything's in a big square area, the skybox can surround that square rather than snaking out into wherever. Beyond that I'm sure there are more reasons that mean a lot more, but I can't come up with any specifics at the moment...

It makes optimizing things easier, more corners means more places to slap down hint brushes. A map in a straight line won't have as many things blocking visibility as a map with plenty of corners that the player can't see around.

Shmitz explains this well here.

Additionally, the spiral makes it easy to place a central landmark. Valve's design philosophy relies on them, and having it visible from all around makes it apparent where players are. It also reduces walk times.

Plus it makes logical sense building-wise. Instead of a long route consisting of what seems to be a single building (uncommon in real life), it centres round a square complex.

It's much easier to design interesting layouts when the map naturally curves. I had to make haarp a straight line so the cliff would work, and not being able to curve the map became a big hindrance. It doesn't necessarily mean it has to spiral in on itself, but that's one way to do it.

The hammer grid was a lot smaller back in GoldSRC (TFC, hl1), so for (then) ctf_dustbowl, making it wrap around itself was the only way to fit all three stages.. the design carried over for the tf2 version.

You also get a smaller plane lump since lots more brushes can be aligned on the same plane.

I'm guessing dustbowl was built in a spiral because of goldsrc limitations of the original.

Goldrush is the same, because it basically takes the basic concept of dustbowl and applies it to a new game-type.

Badwater spirals so that RED can have a forward spawn without actually needing a forward spawn room. It helps with spawn camping, and helping players learn the final part of the map before the fighting starts.

You'll notice that Thunder Mountain does not spiral around itself, nor does Gorge. Mountain Lab does it a little differently, and Upward is done for it's mountain peak theme.

Hoodoo and Egypt are not spirals as well, and they play perfectly fine (actually pretty popular, especially Egypt)

Everything said, do whatever suits you the most. Just make sure your map is optimized well enough. Trying to copy other maps too much will make yours feel like yet another clone.

Icarus said:

Hoodoo and Egypt are not spirals as well, and they play perfectly fine (actually pretty popular, especially Egypt).

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I beg to differ, but that's just a matter of opinion.

Hoodoo is too tiny and each area is so small that gameplay isn't fluid. Even YM acknowledges this, there's no need to be polite and say it plays perfectly fine when really the only map the community can say that about is badwater. Hoodoo doesn't spiral, but then it doesn't need to because it's a set of corridors. I wont even get into egypt since it has issues all over the place, least of which the lack of a spiral layout plays a part in.

The map doesn't have to spiral but there are certain advantages to having it do so. All of which have been listed already and/or explained in the linked tutorials. Gorge is a tiny 3cp map, there's no need for it to wrap on itself. But an |_|¯|_|¯ shape would probably work just fine if you design it effectively. If it's strictly linear you'll find yourself repeating the same doorways/LoS blocking techniques that you can't really pull off more than a couple times before they feel repetative and unimaginative.

grazr said:

Gorge is a tiny 3cp map

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Gorge is 2CP.

The best reason to wrap maps around is simply optimisation, as mentioned before. That plus corners block sightlines well (if done right).