Study all of the existing levels you can get your hands on. I recommend the 100 Brush competition. It comes with source maps. I called attention to it one of the maps from it earlier.

Find the things in the source maps that appeal to you as a player, isolate those things even to the point of getting rid of all other unrelated brushes, and recreate the effect or brush work from hand as an excercise.

For example, on the map I have laboured on over the past few weeks I wanted to create a set of doors that appeared to be contolled by hydralic pipes.

Looking back on my experience as a gamer, I recalled there was a similar effect in a map by Rick Lipsey called the Well of Wishes.
I did exactly as I recomended, I isolated the effect than I recreated it.

There are plenty of map file sources you can find on CZG's and DaMaul's personal sites that you can spend days of gruitful research taking a part as well. 

You can also get the source files for all of my maps at http://rpg.spawnpoint.org 

don't make water on the same level as the surrounding solids as it is totaly ghay

don't argue about things you didn't cheque out(i think)
with all respect, I finnished this first 6pack of maps, but I haven't had much feedback to this experiment.

If you like, you can look at the betalevel, but it was one of the faint irragularities necros tried to tell me (i think).

read all this above and stop believing ever to make a map that widthstands id standards (i think) 

id's maps may look dated visually, but their gameplay and map flow is excellent. that is what we should study. 

I agree that that is the most rational starting point. A few months ago I redid e1m6 from scratch in the same vein and it was a decent learning experience (releasing it would be about as rational as making a scene by scene and nearly frame by frame remake of Psycho). 

Here's a link I just found, it has some bits from Tim Willits and others:

http://www.telefragged.com/teamtk/learning/teovgld-b1.htm 

Gamasutra
http://www.gamasutra.com/features/19990416/level_design_01.htm 

DON'T make tunnel/hall corners that the player
can't walk past.
the oblique brush junction bug, if you do make a corner with oblique brushes, clip it, or
better still make the inside of the corner out of one brush.

DO clip around stuff the player will get stuck on (clip little stuff, leave big stuff to run into).

DON'T make brushes that overlap edges/vertexes should touch, but not overlap, this is important, I didn't know this when I started and had to scrap alot of maps before I figured it out/was told, the compiler will be your enemy after several hundred brushes. 

DON'T make brushes that overlap edges/vertexes should touch, but not overlap, this is important, I didn't know this when I started and had to scrap alot of maps before I figured it out/was told, the compiler will be your enemy after several hundred brushes.

Bah, I disagree 

Don't place ammo or health on the player's path, forcing them to pick it up unless you don't want to allow them to save it for later.

Don't put monster spawn teleporters (used for monster traps) too close to the player space. I've been replaying old SP maps and I get annoyed if I hear a teleport and it turns out to be nothing that I can use. This is more of a nuisance for players like me who might assume the sound is coming from a secret teleport. Place your trap teleporters out of audible range.

If you have a long path in your map that loops back and over/upon itself, take into account the possibility that if the player falls from a height onto a previously visited area, they need to get back without too much retracing. Doors, steps, lifts or teleports that create shortcuts only after the player has made the journey once are nice courtesies. 

'This is more of a nuisance for players like me who might assume the sound is coming from a secret teleport. Place your trap teleporters out of audible range.'


That is just too delicate for words. Since you are describing a factor that exist in most maps and a situation you are certainly familiar with what are you doing making assumptions about the nature of the teleport? A simple rule, if Marcus Dromowicz did it, it is not really a bad practice; if Matt Sefton never touched on it as a problem in his reviews, we are beginning to split too many hairs. 

I'm not trying to pick a fight. You are good peeps in my book, I just happen to disagree with that point. 

to change your name from Scragbait to Scragbiatch, and just didn't finish? Oh yeah Don't make your maps too dark. Was that mentioned already? I'm sure I saw something about lighting... 

Don't put monster spawn teleporters (used for monster traps) too close to the player space. I've been replaying old SP maps and I get annoyed if I hear a teleport and it turns out to be nothing that I can use. This is more of a nuisance for players like me who might assume the sound is coming from a secret teleport. Place your trap teleporters out of audible range.

alternativly, just give those triggers the "silent" flag, so they don't make the noise...