Well, I had fun playtesting your map with yourself, Riven and the other two random guys.
I think Riven bought up alot of good points. You certainly want to create clip brushes in various forms so that players don't get stuck on geometry, you really want the players to "glide" through the map, you don't want them getting stuck and bumping into ledges and things. Also you may want to remove the collisions on some of the models aswell so players aren't bumping into them.
You mentioned that you considered adding doors, nuh, I don't think its a good idea. Your just slowing things down and creating extra bottle necks.
You have nice use of height variation in some most areas, but and Riven bought this up, there are some spots lacking or have no present wall height variation, you don't want just floor height variation, but wall height variation in those exterior spaces are good for aesthetics purposes.
And you must remember to remove the shadows on alot of those models, they really aren't necessary.
Anyway, I feel you have a pretty solid layout. I was impressed with the transitions between the original de_dust and de_dust 2, one minute I'm walking in the original dust, then suddenly I'm in de_dust 2 than I'm walking through thinking, I don't remember any of this, only to realize that this isn't actually remade from the dust maps its new stuff. The transitions felt smooth and not forced and it seemed like they worked together interms of gameplay.
I think that once your done tweaking the layout, its time to start fleshing out the spaces. Just be sure you keep to a very particular visual theme, don't start to get side tracked, you want the composition as a whole to look good and fairly consistent, you'll notice that the dust maps have a very strict visual theme. I recommend you change the skybox (no clouds), make the sun slightly more yellowish, add an env_sun (a fairly large one), and add fog to the map if you want to achieve the feel of the old dust maps. Or perhaps you could do a "reimagination" where perhaps the environment is more run down, or something catastrophic has happened. Or perhaps its overgrown with vines and various other foliage. Or perhaps its just raining and there are puddles and pools of water everywhere, I don't know, I think I'm getting carried away here now.
Riven also bought this up, you want to build this level always thinking how it would behave it it where real life. You shouldn't just go around adding windows to break up the walls and such, you need to say, ok these are apartments, or shops or whatnot. Riven bought up those big double doors with another pathway in close proximity behind it, no not all players are going to notice this, but its still something you should think about. I didn't mention it in game but the double doors where also situated on a slope, so the left hand side of the door it was only a small gap between the door and the sloped ground, but the right hand side of the door, it was a fairly large gab between the floor and the bottom of the door, and certainly this wouldn't occur in real life.
Anyway, I like this map, keep us updated!
Aaron's Stuff
