Is it Difficult to create new Maps?

Umm yea? It takes months to plan out the map (concept art, wallrunning spaces, Titan + pilot lanes must synchronize, out of bounds must be thought out, make sure it flows with CTF and hardpoint, attrition drop pods, bounty hunt banks etc) then comes the part of optimizing the textures (which might be already done with the engine), and if during play tests you find a glitch/bug/exploit, you have to fix those. Most games DLC's are already planned and in at least a late beta/testing phase when the game is released.

 

I just want to preface this by saying that for the most part I am trying keep my claws in and cut Respawn some slack, because I am extremely pleased they are putting out the Titan Brawl mode and if it is available as a permanent normal mode immediately after it moves out of the Featured mode spot, then I think we will be good and the claws won't come out too much for awhile.

With that being said though, the maps are one area where I am sorry, but there is no slack to be given there.

Good question Derrame.

I believe you are correct OG and this is exactly why they deserve ZERO slack in the map department. With that in mind, let's lay out some facts here:

1) 10/22/14 - this was the last day any work was done or released for TF1.
2) Respawn knew they were going to make a TF2.
3) Respawn knew that regardless of whether DLC was going to be paid or free that players had a reasonable expectation to receive the same number of maps (15 at release and 9 through DLC or approximately 24 total maps).
4) Respawn knew that the latest they were going to be allowed to release TF2 was 3/31/17.
5) TF2 actually released on 10/28/16. (so they had 2 years to work exclusively on TF2)

So, now, when you look at what OG said which I believe is accurate, that most DLC's are already planned and in testing by game release, when you consider that we are now almost an entire month beyond what was probably their original target date of 3/31/17, how many maps did they have planned for TF2 for release and DLCs? I would argue that they only had 9 planned and that's it. Why do I say that? What have we seen as far as maps for titan modes since release? 2 TF1 maps that each take 2 months to put a new coat of paint on and 1 map that uses pieces and mirroring of "The Gauntlet" training area. And, what is on the horizon? 1 more TF1 map that will have taken 2 months to put a new coat of paint on. I would argue that these TF1 maps and "The Guantlet" hybrid map are the result of, "Oh crap, we have no creations in the can, because we didn't plan to make any. What are we going to do?"

My other serious problem with all of this is that if you knew you were going to spend an enormous amount of time creating a Single Player Campaign, then it was irresponsible to also unnecessarily change every core functionality of the multiplayer game. There was nothing wrong with the mechanics of TF1. They still function in a far superior way to the mechanics of TF2. But by unnecessarily and irresponsibly taking on the workload of changing every core functionality to specifically appease the traditional FPS crowd, now you've made it an enormous amount of work to utilize a TF1 map in the TF2 game. If you had left the superior mechanics of TF1 as is, then even if you got swamped with the Single Player Campaign, and even if EA moved up the release date on you, you would have been able to much more easily, smoothly and almost seamlessly provide us with 24 maps virtually instantly.