Back in December most of us were too busy grinding away kills for the Demo vs. Soldier War update to bother caring about the two maps Valve included. One of those maps cp_gorge, was recently played in the CEVO Season 5 preseason as a way to generate competitive feedback from the community.
Of course, when I was trying to figure out who I could ask for their opinions I found (as many of us already knew) that the Professional division teams decided since it was preseason it wasn't worth their time. As a result, top level players weren't much of an option and instead I approached Aristotle, Dave_AC, and HoppyPotty to get an idea for how cp_gorge performed in match form. Enjoy the following interview:
Q: If you could, take a second and introduce yourself to everyone who reads the Community Fortress.
Aristotle: Hi I'm Aristotle, from the team Inertia. I've been playing comp since around Cal/Cevo season 2 and even though I'm not that great for the amount of time I've played I still love this game and love to see it expand. You may see me on here doing mentor things and such.
Dave_AC: Hey, I'm Dave__AC and I play for Team Notalent.
HoppyPotty: My name is HoppyPotty. I recently played demo with Harmonic/Detox Gaming for 2 seasons in ESEA-O. I am now playing scout for Target Practice in CEVO and TWL.
Q: What were your first thoughts about cp_gorge being put into the CEVO pre season?
Aristotle: Well my team and I definitely had similar opinions on the map and I will just quote Okas and Master on this question and add my two cents. “Why is this pub map being even considered” – Okas “I thought they could have used a better map then cp_gorge. Perhaps a five point capture map.” – Master. Personally, I would rather see something else be done just because this map just didn't have a good flow to it like Gravelpit does and it was difficult to play for us.
Dave_AC: Well when I first saw it in the pre season I just thought what everyone else thought, that it wasn't going to be a good map, but after playing it a bit I realized that it actually was a fun map to play.
HoppyPotty: I forgot what map it was, and thought it was some random custom map. When I actually realized what map it was I thought it would be a good opportunity to test out the potential for a relatively new, unused official map released from Valve. Kind of like what ESEA did last season with koth_viaduct.
Q: Having played it recently, what are your thoughts on its potential in competitive play?
Aristotle: Well, I like seeing more and more maps being introduced into the competitive scene to shake things up a bit and make it so it’s not a muscle memory map like Badlands/Granary. Something where you can do new and creative strats for a change. This map though from the time we scrimmed it to the time of the match just seemed like I was playing a pub at times. It's somewhat fast paced and not really exciting like a new map cp_mainline was to me. There's only one way to get into B which makes it kind of a nightmare to push. So in conclusion no I don’t think this map will get much play time, though our teammate montty from the other side of the Atlantic said it is played in the euro competitive scene so who knows I could be proven wrong.
Dave_AC: Well I couldn't really say whether it has potential or not, I've only played Gorge about 3 times, I've enjoyed it every time I played it though.
HoppyPotty: I like this map. I feel like it is another map that breaks from the normal 5 CP strategy's, and the class limits. It's always fun to see teams create their own unique strategies and off class. All of that, stacked on with the fact that there are some regularly used maps that the community generally doesn't like, gives this map a hearty potential for competitive play.
Q: Did you and/or your team feel any parts of the map needed major adjustments or that any sections were really enjoyable and worth pointing out? if so explain...
Aristotle: Again I’m going to quote my teammates on some of this because they definitely had some different perspectives on the map. “Point A is too wide open and point B needs another path” –Okas “This map is very narrow to the point where a good sniper can kill everyone. It feels very crowded with useless props and flanking is not an option. It's very similar to Gravelpit where you just have to camp and wait for the enemy to die one by one.” – Master. I generally just felt it was hard to keep morale up on this map and keep your mind into it. It reminded of the days when we used to do Dustbowl and pushing on the last point in the third part of the map - it just became a standoff where you would just become frustrated and overwhelmed.
Dave_AC: So far no, I haven't noticed any big problems with the map.
HoppyPotty: The last point is extremely hard to take. I feel like most people would be inclined to say that the last point needed a bit of work to get rid of the grind a little bit, but you have to remember that it's an A/D map. You get plenty of time on the clock to capture if you get the first point in a decent time, and you need to have a little defending. The last point almost forces the offense to switch from the standard load out to capture the point. My team actually used a legitimate offensive engineer, for the level 3 teleporter and were successful in taking the last point.
Q: Overall how do you feel about A/D maps and their place in comp tf2? How does gorge compare to gpit?
Aristotle: I honestly would love to see more A/D maps in the community and the competitive scene but I’m not going to just accept every map out there. I hope though that map makers will take a lot of the advice or opinions from what people have to say about Gorge into consideration before making an A/D map. And again I love seeing new maps and testing them out but it’s all about quality and the potential for teams to actually take a new map, practice it and come up with interesting ways to play on it. But that only happens with a good quality map and this map just doesn’t seem to make the cut. Again it’s just my opinion but with Gpit your team’s DM could be amazing, but it takes a team that works together to actually win on Gpit not just raw DMing. Lastly I feel there should be a third point for Gorge, new paths need to be opened up and A needs to be less open and not so far from the spawn as it is now.
Dave_AC: Well, I've always enjoyed playing A/D maps as they allow a wide variety of classes and strategies. I would have to say that Gpit is the better map, or that may just be because I'm more familiar with it, but I would say Gorge has potential to be played as much as Gpit does one day.
HoppyPotty: I'm a huge fan of Gravelpit and in comp TF2. I feel like they are the most exciting, and creative maps where teamwork really shines, but it can be too long sometimes still. Therefore I'm a fan of Gorge. It's a mix of Gravelpit and Dustbowl. It's not as awesome as Gravelpit, but not as bad as Dustbowl.
Q: Give us a coupla shout outs!
Aristotle: Shout out to my team and a few others like Grieve for helping out annuit, dj and all the guys at Commft for trying to get this community in the right direction :) oh and one other shout out to clazzi for playing all the way from Australia with a 250 ping :)
Dave_AC : Shout out to Team Notalent, SteveC, CtrlFMuffin, Chimp Feet, Postal, Vertigo, Wood, wakozy and boulder (for being the gayest person in the tf2 community)
HoppyPotty: gdub, pMb, seanbud, mesr, buddah, unik, and Target Practice
After playing cp_gorge in a couple of Euro PUGs I think it's going to be interesting to see how the competitive scene in NA treats Gorge. There is definitely a difference in mindsets when it comes to this map which is seemingly playing into the mixed feelings on this side of the Atlantic.
Whether or not Gorge becomes a another forgotten map or a regular season regular is far from figure out, but it seems evident that there's a large demand for more A/D maps and with the current CTF marathon of map making going on its possible we'll see an even more mixed bag rotation in future seasons.
What do you guys think of Gorge? Did your team take the match seriously or did you guys just walk on into the match waiting to see what you'd come up with?
Originally published on CommunityFortress on Sunday, 04 April 2010 23:24 by DoABarrelRoll.
Archived from cp_gorge: In Review as part of tf2esports.com's preservation of CommunityFortress's TF2 coverage. All rights remain with the original author and CommunityFortress; reposted for historical reference.