When you look at ideas and/or layouts for new maps, what is your process?  Like what sort of goals or guidelines do you set for each map?

Like the Creep Rock City map, awesome idea to buying the bloom-spawn.  What was the design process for that map?

Our process is really driven by an idea someone has. CRC is my map. For that one, I just did the standard thing of "let's have you do something you normally cannot". We also had some folks asking for that specific feature (buying units you couldn't directly control) for a while. And then it got a jokey riff on an old song name (not sure that's staying, though).

There are other factors, too. PvP maps need to be fair, etc. (well, the potential to be fair once balanced). Co-op wants players to generally be together (so they can help defend when needed). That sort of stuff. Plus, we're still figuring out what fun co-op maps are in this model.

Once we have an idea, design roughs out the map quickly. We just use representative textures and whitebox stuff. CRC, for example, had all the buildings roughed out with 11 or 12 boxes. If the idea is clear, that's a couple of hours. The it goes into the build and we play and iterate the map. We played CRC until the "city" felt right and things were positioned where we wanted (corridors tight enough to remind you of a city, but not too tight as to be annoying). The bloomspawn stuff isn't balanced yet, but we didn't sweat that because we know we can balance it over time. At some point (generally denoted by the amount of hootin' and hollerin' that goes on in playtest), we decide/realize that a map is fun. Once that happens and we feel like the layout of the map is set, it goes to art to make it look good.

We don't actually have any maps that we'd consider finished yet. Some are close on the basic terrain paint, but they're all missing objects and doodads to really sweeten them up.

Had another scenario thought:

________________________________________________________________________________

|                                                           ________                                                     

|          Bloom-Wells to                               Player 1                 Bloom-Wells to                 

|         either side of base                         _________             either side of base              

|                                                                                                                             

|          Creeps, many creeps                   ________               Creeps, many creeps         

|        to either side of temple                   Temple                to either side of temple                                 

|                                                        _________                                                       

|                                                                                                                             

|                                                           ________                                                     

|          Bloom-Wells to                               Player 1                 Bloom-Wells to                 

|         either side of base                         _________             either side of base               

|                                                                                                                             

|_______________________________________________________________________________

• Open map, say a grassy plain.
• Bloom-spawn start out hostile toward the players and there are so many that trying to walk an army up the sides of the map would be suicide.
• The temple in the center makes the bloom-spawn neutral toward the player who gains control of it and holds it.

The player who holds the temple has a great freedom to move their armies anywhere on the map, and attack the other players bloom-wells and economy.  This would create an enormous meat grinder on the temple grounds, make it a very difficult place to hold (perhaps make it so you can't drop in turrets near it).

The bloom-spawn in this map serve two purposes, an obvious one and a not-so-obvious one.  The obvious one is to block avenues of attack to the player who does not hold the temple. 

The not-so-obvious one is extra resources through bounty.  Perhaps make it so the player that does NOT hold the temple gets a greater income through bounty to make it harder for the OTHER player to hold the temple for an extended period.

Edit: Another thought hit me after I hit save: If neither player holds the temple for 1 or 2 minutes straight, the bloom-spawn go berserk and attack both players... The player who would win in that case would be the one who survives the longest.

Cool. I like the center temple idea!