Can't make anything out because of the low resolution. 

Looks good, feels like an elder structure.

Random thoughts;

Is it going to be a void map?

Be sure to break up the floor with different levels.

Moving that giant spike as part of the level progression would be cool.

Lava for contrast and +elder look? 

Great texture selection there. 

Those killpixel shots have some great detailing. They look a bit crampy though.

An extra 64 units of height and width would make a big difference to play and looks.

Still probably going to steal some ideas from them though :) 

Maybe change those bricks for some from the Knave set.

Those rune (?) bricks always looked scaled to me.

And hey, maybe it'll bring back your interest enough to make the final push and finish it...

Don't think it's necessary to say, but you know everyone here wants to see the thing finished. 

I agree with ijed about the rune "bricks" but it's not just the scale, it's the huge contrast differences in the palette.

As for my blue map I was contemplating exactly all the points you made (yes all of them), making it a void map but not completely, more like an underground cavern fortress. If I have the willpower (I probably don't), maybe having a reverse episode (starting in elder world and ending in a base map), I mean... how the hell does Ranger escape from shubs lair anyway?! 

You're right about the floor too, the reason I put in a flat floor was so I could ensure the scaling was ok. 

looks awesome and MUST be explored more! Keep going with this. 

Here's what I have decided: no changes to any textures; I will finish the lighting in the last two rooms, but no other tweaks; leave the monsters as they are; full vis and release it.

The original map was 25K brushes, which I split into a 7K brush map that was released as FMB_BDG. I have just split this other section into two - I realised that there was a natural break between above and below ground. I have dumped the final arena battle as this was the least complete section and the last gold key door becomes the exit.

I will full vis and level 4 light all three sections, and that will take around 200 hours on my Pentium4 machine. It's a compromise but it will see the light of day during March. 

birds eye layout http://www.mediafire.com/conv/0afac108f986454f4d6b79576fc2a5ca43dbed7cb1dc8e524b4ea1f9865f61906g.jpg
main atrium http://www.mediafire.com/conv/5deef9410e838333748ae48fb7e8414bca7eea659d2c7c059d40a89414ccc9d86g.jpg
mega http://www.mediafire.com/conv/f93561c9748fb66318aa56c92680df2ccd2655ffab3affcaf97870308b656a766g.jpg
ra http://www.mediafire.com/conv/8a7a965ccfe03e66525db4b511e162ea7f60213b6de1126c9b87df17d0d192166g.jpg
ya http://www.mediafire.com/conv/b66a41592a313402d71b1e77bae441a2b40106c581fe7b67b773d40755d389d36g.jpg

download exilea2r1.bsp http://www.mediafire.com/file/lr4z4ool532zsq8/exilea2r1.bsp

I know this is a singleplayer mostly level design board but I've always been posting my multiplayer maps here anyway as I know some of you have dabbled in multiplayer maps before. It's a competitive 1on1/2on2 tourney level layout that's in alpha stages with just developer textures (an idea stolen from golden_boy) sorry eyecandy hunters.

I've gotten some feedback that the mega room is a bit boring and also that the ya-rocketlauncher to mega path connectivity needs to be changed. I'm a bit stumped at what to do for that, any ideas? I'm open to any ideas to make the connectivity more interesting/exciting. I'm also not afraid to completely rework rooms to make the map better as a whole since i have no work at all put into the textures or details. Cheers. 

Can't say I've ever drawn up a layout in orange textures before detailing the level properly. Maybe that's why I rarely finish my levels. The one thing that strikes me as not great is having the mega-health and rocket launcher in close proximity. One of the things I always hated about DM6 when I played league games was the rocket launcher / red armour room. Seemed like an obvious place to turtle (and it usually was).
Only advice I can part with is that you should never have 2 powerful items together unless it's in a high-risk area (lava jump red armour and megahealth area in DM2, hardly anyone turtles here because the quad is in a different place) 

My 2 cents: Get it on a server ASAP for live testing. Also try to make the different entrances/exits look clearly different (size, shape of doorways, special textures or lighting) so it's easy to "get" the map.

Provide 1 or 2 more cover/ambush possibilities? It's very open. 

Cool that you're testing it with bare textures etc, but I suggest you put a different colour on the ceiling/floor. The Valve system was orange for walls and gray for floors iirc, which makes geometry stand out very well.

Also agree on not placing powerful items next to each other. 

I was intrigued by the orange textures that valve used... I tried to emulate them a little better. I've painted myself into a corner with my level so I'm going to flesh out the layout in orange first (in addition to my grid paper drawings).

http://25.media.tumblr.com/9867c768459a284b2f6f3ceba2e72982/tumblr_mikryv2oEs1rrpymyo1_250.png

http://25.media.tumblr.com/74903748e7dc77eecc7eac9d0032bc17/tumblr_mikryv2oEs1rrpymyo2_250.png

In case those links don't work, direct link to my tumblr post -
http://fifthelephant.tumblr.com/post/43645609379/orange-texture-maps-for-quake 

http://www.quaddicted.com/reviews/whiteroom.html 

 

It is possible to stuck beneath the staircase near the YA 

I'm having a lot of trouble getting vertices to line up properly in the BSP procedure. In the editor it's fine but in-game it's screwed up... any ideas??

Before
http://s14.postimage.org/gwnamj4u9/Image1.jpg

After
http://s11.postimage.org/72k9jf3rn/Quake0000.jpg 

I'm having a lot of trouble getting vertices to line up properly in the BSP procedure. In the editor it's fine but in-game it's screwed up... any ideas??

Before
http://s14.postimage.org/gwnamj4u9/Image1.jpg

After
http://s11.postimage.org/72k9jf3rn/Quake0000.jpg 

Have you tried just deleting that brush and remaking it? 

I have, but I think it may be the vertices that are the problem or the way I split the faces possibly. 

To answer your question, yes I have tried deleting and remaking the brushes. 

so it always compiles wrong even when making it from scratch? what if you change the shape, is it still incorrect? 

Yeah I changed the vertices a bit and got a compile that worked. I still don't understand why the others didn't work, I thought splitting the face of the cube into triangles would have avoided any weird geometry problems.
I really wanted to get a lot more done today but instead I've spent the last few hours dealing with crashes and bsp errors. And I thought UED was stressful! 

it's hard to tell from that image exactly what is being done but i tried recreating it and when i move one of the verts out of line so it appears the same as your x/z & x/y views, it looks different to how yours does in the y/z view (i don't get clean 'X' cuts) which makes me think you cut the brush up differently

i have a 'vertex block' prefab saved which i made manually using six 3-sided spike brushes. not sure if that's how you did it? i can normally bend it any way i want though; it churns out compiler warnings if it's on too small a scale but generally works ok in-game