The map looks good, but the layout is too small and narrow for sauer.

First of all, nice idea! I was actually planning to do the same once :P.

Theming
- There isn't appearing one. The map seems to consist out of a lot of bricks walls, but It doesn't have a theme yet. Be sure to take a theme. The original has a castle-ish theme, but I wouldn't recomment to go for that because it's very unoriginal.

Texturing
- Could be better to me. It's very plain textured. There aren't any areas where you would think "here has been putted a lot of effort in texturing this place". Be sure to add more contrast in the textures, but don't let them split! Make the contrast go smooth from area to area.
- Another advice is to add dirt on the lower floors (just like the original map in Quake Live) and use textureblending for a more realistic
feeling.

Geometry
- It's very basic and straight. When you play it's original, you see all curves are way smoother and aren't in contrast with each other. Also, you never noticed the stairways in Quake Live and even in Quake 3 Arena are way smoother and round that your showing here? It's part of the eye candy in the map, use it.
- When you take textures which show of that the place is "ruined", put a mark on that and use the geometry to really show areas are ruined. This makes the map looks way more realistic.

Lighting
- The lighting is also plain (just too white and way too less contrast actually) and makes the atmosphere boring. Be sure to also add more contrast here, like the lights more blue or green, while the daylight is a bit more yellowish.
- There aren't many lighting bugs in the map, but probably just because of the geometry which is low quality.

Detailing
- If you try to use rain particles, be sure they aren't running trough walls or ceilings. This really kills the atmoshpere and is very unrealistic.
- There isn't any other detail at all, exept the bridge, which could be textured better.
- Also add trimmings on wall, edges, etc, to show that it's an end of a platform or area.
- Be sure to make the curves around the vents really round, instead of some weird oval shape. Another advice is to use the bigger rears which should be
somewhere in the "models" folder (can't find now, sorry).

Clipping/Noclipping
- The player can't get out of the map, but can get stuck in doorways or have access to the small roofs above the highest platforms. Be sure to fix this.
- If you copy-paste geometry which you noclipped in 1 intire selection, the selected cubes which have no geometry at all (but do have material such as noclip or clip) will dissapear. This creates a cleaner look in edit-mode and works easier when your working nearby.

Flow
- It isn't great. Be sure to create a (very) similar flow if you make a map from another game. Also make sure the space is fitting the flow, so you don't bump into walls, pillars etc.
I've also made some remakes of Quake maps (Arena of Death, Final Instinct) and even based a map on it (scedm5) and I know how hard it is to convert the strafe-jumping set up of Quake, into the flow of Sauerbraten. My advice is to take 1 jump in Sauerbraten (which has been accelerated before) equal to a strafe-jump of Quakelive (starting from standing still). This seemed to help me creating a fine flow for all those maps.

Gameplay
- The pickups aren't placed well and are placed in a way too low number. Be sure to add more shells in such closed map, for a better and less predictable gameplay. I would recommend to delete 1 of the bullets where originally would spawn a lighting gun. Put the bullets somewhere else instead.
- Technically the pickups aren't placed that bad (like the grenades close to the teleporter which leads players on the bridge), but there just aren't enough.
- Be sure to check out the tactical positions of the original map, because you missed some of them.
- I like the small "sewer-like" hole on 1 of the upper floors, where you can spam grenades to a lower floor or just the opposite way.

This map is far from finished and still needs a lot of improvements. I won't rate it yet.

Nice map.

In my grand opinion, the layout is NOT to tight or too small for sauer. It's just that most people think that fast movement means large corridors. This is not true at all. I like the style of the map overall, and it strikes me as something fresh.

This map should be great for 1 on 1 or 2v2.

Hey,

Thanks for the detailed comments! I quickly fixed some of the easiest problems for now, the others will take a bit more time.

I do intend for the geometry to feel restrictive in many places, for example the metal pillars in the lower path from YA to health boost room make it hard to go really fast through there, which I hope makes the spam vent Suicizer mentioned more effective. My thought is that there should be three main routes that can be easily taken at full forward-jumping speed:
- Through the CG hallway, all the way to upper RL
- Down the 'backbone' of the map, from upper GL to the mouth of the CG hallway overlooking YA
- Down the bridge from the rocket jump tube to overlooking YA

This way the player in control of items can get around on the top of the map quickly to survey the major areas, with most access to YA and health boost and somewhat less access to lower GA, but the other player can hear where he's going and make a solid guess at which of those routes is being taken based on positional sounds and number of jumps heard.

Now, that being said, I am definitely willing to smooth out certain areas, I just need to think about it a bit :). Like the stairs, you're right, they should be more curved. Originally when I was doing the big stairs under the health boost, I thought I would have them be more angular so I could replace the +5hp bubbles from the original map with a +25hp bubble, but have it require more commitment and time to get to and pick up. I think I can have the same effect by curving the stairwell and moving the bubble all the way to the very end of the curve. Then the others can be made rounder since there won't be an inconsistency of style, if you know what I'm trying to say. This will probably require some reworking of the platform above though.

Right now I'm using only the 'akaritori' texture set. I have all the lights set to be very slightly bluish white, but the skylight is the same way. I'll play with changing the skylight to be yellow or perhaps even a bit orange (maybe using a different skybox). I might also bring in some other textures in the cfg so that I can break up the monotony of the grey brick texture, especially on the high parts of the walls/decorative arches (notice for example in the health boost room, the wall texture is varied a bit up to the top floor, but really plain from there on up). Then I can try having some lights that aren't plain fluorescent white, too.

In the updated zip so far, I have made some little changes to the usage of rain particles - I made most of the existing ones smaller, and tried to fill out the gaps with even smaller ones. I also added extra particles up high, so that it doesn't look like it's not raining when you look up at the arches. One problem I have now is that reducing the size of the particles too much makes the increased density really obvious, so it ends up looking like there's heavy storms in tight areas and light drizzle elsewhere. Is there a way to force a small piece of rain to have a lower density?

edit: Forgot item placement - I added one extra SG in a little alcove. I really wish I could place weapons and ammo separately, because for example I do think there's a shortage of RL ammo overall, but I don't want there to be any extra places that a player could initially acquire the RL. That's also why I did the CG pickups the way they are now: since it's a very powerful weapon it should be available in just one spot so players can exercise a little control over it, but at 20 shots per pickup it'd be almost irrelevant if there was just one there.

Really nice map, i'm don't know this map on quake so it's hard to me to understand. But i can say this map look nice for a 1vs 1 Effic.
Good Job :D