MVGA - Mental Video Game Addicts

I recently e-mailed Robin Walker, a major designer of Team Fortress 2, on the subject of Instant-Respawn in TF2. I asked Robin what his beliefs on Instant-Respawn were. This is his response:

"We’re big fans of respawn waves, for a variety of reasons, and wouldn’t have put them in at all if we didn’t think they were an overall positive impact on the game. All the TF2 maps were balanced with them in mind, which is one of the main reasons why instant respawn servers are so heavily weighted towards the defenders in maps like Dustbowl & Goldrush.

Robin."

The vibe I'm getting from his e-mail is that he dislikes Instant-Respawn, quite a bit. Robin does have a point though.

"[we] wouldn’t have put them in at all if we didn’t think they were an overall positive impact on the game."

I'm not a big fan of Instant-Respawn myself, which is what led to the initial e-mail.

"All the TF2 maps were balanced with them in mind, which is one of the main reasons why instant respawn servers are so heavily weighted towards the defenders in maps like Dustbowl & Goldrush."

I highly agree with the defensive dominance of the setting. Robin has a good point. From people's perspective, they simply don't want to wait 10-20 seconds to jump back into a game, but why does sacrificing patience from a game make it immediately better? I think more people should take heed to this subject.