Have you ever wanted to construct battle arenas where mercenaries fight to the death over important global issues, but found you would rather shoot people in those arenas instead of riveting things that need riveted? We’ve got a position for you! Now is your chance to boss around the little guy as you stand on the ground floor of cutting edge environment construction! We need volunteers that are capable of putting these spaces through the wringer. We want to make sure they stand the test of time for future generations of mercenaries, so they may also enjoy the simple things in life, such as detonating explosive ordinance, setting men on fire and conga dancing. This is your chance to help guide the direction of TF2. You will get to participate in the development process as we cycle through different iterations of gameplay, based on your feedback. FAQ: How do I participate? Click on Play Multiplayer, enable Play Beta Maps checkbox, and then choose a mode to play. Why are you running a maps Beta? We would like to include the community early in the development process to gather feedback as we try variations in the map layout and game play mechanics. What sorts of things can I do to help the development process? Continually playing the maps is one of the biggest ways you can help us develop. Having servers full of users interacting with each other quickly points out problems with the gameplay that need to be addressed. How do I submit feedback? To help gather feedback, send us links to discussions happening on your favorite community forum. Or you can write us directly to express your thoughts. We will also be joining servers to play alongside you, shooting down enemies for the greater benefit of the team. Will the maps be changing a lot? Yes. There will be times when a change will be needed. That change may be as small as moving a health kit to a different room or it may be a larger change, such as reworking an entire section of the layout. Are the game mode rules final? No. We may see drastic swings in rule sets to make comparisons to previous versions. We may change the rule set one update only to find the previous iteration was better. Are there Beta map servers? Can we host our own? Yes and Yes. We're running a set of official Valve Beta servers using quick play matchmaking. Community server owners are welcome to host beta maps. More...
Shitty screen I took of pl_cactusyard here The maps are really alpha, lacking textures and props everywhere. There's also a ton of map boundaries missing, so you can walk straight into the void if you so desire.