After 1500+ brushes, a week of work and getting burned out doing TRIM ALMOST EVERYHWERE:

What I Learned
- people prefer tighter maps (also offers better r_speeds)
- big FFA and team matches aren't as popular these days, so why cater to them
- breaking up walls is good
- for me, a rough layout first with feedback then progression works well
- nailgun can easily be dodged, use super nailgun
- 2 rocket launchers in bigger DM's is better than 1
- good flow is essential, but not too many shortcuts as some strategy is required
- people hate crates, at least 2x normal size
- clip where necessary - also add clip per step to reduce jitter
- details are good, but don't go too overboard (I think I kinda did) 

rather nice and clean map :)
must be good for 2-4. 

For helping too, very appreciated.

I just noticed a misaligned tex on the top surface of a crate, no biggy but will correct later. ^_^ 

I reccomend you remove file and beta test more...you had a lot of work to do since I last looked at it only a day ago. I haven't even gone back through it yet. Be patient FFS. Already you've found you have a misaligned texture -- dude people aren't gonna play 6 different versions for every time you find a new error.

I strongly urge you to beta test some more before you release it. 

who cares about misaligned texture 

not bad but i already got a file with that name in my quake/qw/maps directory...and the map is also made bye you...eheheh but complitaly diferent!!! 

The spawn on the level above the YA, below the top SSG is facing the wall. Surely it should face the room?

Nice map though. Very appealing visuals. 

Are obligatory. 

Are you joking ?? 

Two complaints:

1. using minlight alone to light certain areas
2. using a shootable button texture on anything other than a shootable button 

I fixed the misaligned tex and the spawnpoint direction.

Metl:

- minlight: is this what you might regard as a flat area? There's some of those.
- shootable button texture: I kinda thought this might be a bit confusing too, but I put them there for a little effect, something to kinda get that ceiling bit to stand out some. In earlier stages I used a couple textures that people wouldn't agree with either, but I was trying to find a new way to use them. But in pretty much every case with people, it just doesn't work. I guess that's what to expect when everyone has known a button as a button and nothing else :) 

While I think this version is a ton better, there's still problems with it. I would take Blitz' advice because it is shaping to be quite interesting.

I have 3 problems though.
1) The upper area rocket launcher is horribly designed. It is incredibly easy to camp. You only have one way up there, and one one-way teleport into the area at the top of the stairs (the other way into the area being the stairs themselves.) But, it wouldn't be too hard to fix. If you add a two-way teleport, or change the one-way teleport to a two-way teleport on the catwalk you recently added it would be a lot better. You couldn't be able to camp it nearly as easily.

2) The YA room used to have 4 exits, now it only has 3, which I suppose isn't a real problem, it just seems like a teleport where the 4th exit was would be appropriate for a small room. (It is easy to get caught and have no where to run, because all the exits are on the same side.)

3) General dead-ends. Possibly except for the Quad, dead-ends should be closer to the route so if they spawn right in front of a player they don't get caught as easily. There are 2 dead-ends I can think of off the top of my head which would be easy to move onto the route, 3 if you count the ammo by the stairs in the YA room.

Other than that, it looks a lot better than the previous version I tested and is shaping up very very nicely. 

That has to be the cleanest looking Quake map I have ever seen. Great work! 

Has a crate ever been more slanted without a robust physics engine...?!?!

http://kell.spawnpoint.org/screenshots/ss-ph8dm2.jpg

I mean really, how long did you spend on the texture alignment? Now I know why you profess to be a perfectionist ;) 

...I'm not much of a DM player, but I like to test the maps in DMSP... when I tried to unzip the map to the appropriate folder, I found another map with the same name, went to check and found out it was yours(at least I think so, don't remember where I got the other)!!!! Maybe the biggest bug is the name? ;P Anyway, good map thank you! 

looks nice, don't know 'bout the gameplay, but visually it's much better than all your previous work 

Things i think you should have worked on:

- Lighting. Spend more time on it, this looks like a 30 mins job. And DONT use minlight, use delay 3 lights if you want to give areas a minlight value (this creates interesting shadows as well!).

- Visblockers. To decreare r_speeds and to improve design (it feels weird not to have some sort of hallway between two big areas).

- The blue metal and brownish floor textures look odd. You should have replaced them with some more suitable ones with tiles.

- The ladders aren't very pretty. You should have integrated them better into the design.

- Layout wise it is interesting, but sometimes flow is bad (quite a few dead ends).

These are some of the obvious flaws i spotted. Apart from that it shows promise! It is much much better than your previous map.

Sorry for this long comment, i was bored :) 

I actually didn't notice it was slanted in TWO directions!!

BEST MAP EVAR!!11!!!1 

Kell: I mean really, how long did you spend on the texture alignment? Now I know why you profess to be a perfectionist ;)
Heheh... most little things I really texed/aligned out but I admit to a few little spots not being 'perfect'. I knew I could get too carried away with looks over layout. This time I cared more about layout although there seems to be problems noted.

Gibbie: - Lighting. Spend more time on it, this looks like a 30 mins job. And DONT use minlight, use delay 3 lights if you want to give areas a minlight value (this creates interesting shadows as well!).
If minlight is also 'ambient light', I think this was set at 55. I know its better to have some ambient light rather than pitch black areas all over, but then you need to balance flat-lit areas.

- Visblockers. To decreare r_speeds and to improve design (it feels weird not to have some sort of hallway between two big areas).
I knew this was a problem once I nearly finished, but couldn't think of any decent ways to implement some changes. I bet down the road some good ideas will pop in my head. If anything I know what to be more careful about next time.

- Layout wise it is interesting, but sometimes flow is bad (quite a few dead ends).
This could also be due to the 2 rooms I removed, but they were kinda taking up dead air... I couldn't think much of anything interesting to do with them, and it made the entire layout seem bigger as it is.

The Silent: ...I'm not much of a DM player, but I like to test the maps in DMSP... when I tried to unzip the map to the appropriate folder, I found another map with the same name
I'm not surprised, this might be one of those OLD maps I had from before I joined the community over 2 years ago. But I encourage you to overwite it and delete anything above ph8dm2!

Zwiffle: 1) The upper area rocket launcher is horribly designed. It is incredibly easy to camp. You only have one way up there, and one one-way teleport into the area at the top of the stairs (the other way into the area being the stairs themselves.)
I completely forgot about doing 2-way teleport designs, I had this idea as I got into the rough layout.

Panzer: That has to be the cleanest looking Quake map I have ever seen. Great work!
I tried. :)

Thanks for all the replies especially the ones noting new problems. I'll see what I can do and have an update. Also sorry if it looks like I overlooked more than 1 reply, I haven't but couldn't think of anything to reply with just yet.

I have definitely learned alot though. 

I know its better to have some ambient light rather than pitch black areas all over...

That's quite subjective, really. could.bsp has no minlight and there are black areas all over. I quite liked the high-contrast effect.

And then rpgsp1 has a faint minlight, but I placed low-intensity lights everywhere. This achieved a brighter effect, but it still allowed for darker areas that were away from sourced lights. 

Would contribute to lighting all over to some degrees, they're pretty bright. But then there aren't walkways everywhere either. 

More about light: download ritual by tyrann and take a look at how it is lit. It is one of the best lit maps i know. Look at how he uses 'wait' and 'delay' keys for quicker light fade for spotlights which creates much more dramatic lighting. If you use 'wait' and 'delay' and no minlight (use a couple of delay 3 lights instead of minlight!) there will be much more variation in light intensity thoughout the map and it will look a lot better :)

Also: 2 health packs are in the void... 

2. using a shootable button texture on anything other than a shootable button
agreed! I was expecting shooting them both to have that sideways door open to reveal a pent or ring or something.

Pretty cool little map. I like the layout and seems like it has a good roomy size for some fun battles. Random thoughts:
- weird erotic func_train things. o_0
- i didnt run around very long but i didn't notice if there were any ambient sounds.
- odd choice of texturing in places, esp floor textures. You did have the idbase mega-wad file that I among others use for base maps, right?
- not alot of variety in the details: computer panel things look pretty samey... and what? no half-sized crates? The panel off of the wall was cool though.
- clipping on some of the stairs is weird, with the railings. should be illusionary imo or just clip the whole thing into a slope.

Good map, keep at it. 

I mean really, how long did you spend on the texture alignment? Now I know why you profess to be a perfectionist ;)

You know, you can use hammer (3+ i think) and use the rotational-texture lock and compile using riot's compiler (maybe aguire's supports this now?) and it will keep the texture as it appears in editor so you dont have to align them for hours? Not sure if this is what phait did, but its cool nonetheless. 

Reminds me of one of Q-Fraggel's Q3 maps. Good job, you =-D