New Project: Aty3dm5

[kaustic]

I'm trying something different approach on this map(different to me). Instead of building rooms and then connecting them with passages
I'm basicly going from the inside out. There is no outer hull at this point. Came up with a partial layout and basic design. For the last week
or so I've been working in one small section trying out different things and textures. I've decided to use Lunaran's Lun3dm2 texture set.
And heres a couple of Screenshot from the editor (the section with a ceiling is in the pk3) - http://www.flickr.com/photos/kaustic/83 ... hotostream
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kaustic/83 ... hotostream


Edit:04/28/2013- This is the Final .pk3 for those of you that would rather just D/L it and not have to go to the end of the thread to get it
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?ucxzpj45rxql57q



04/23/2013- Some info on the map(part of the Readme).
*********************************************************************************************
aty3dm5 :For Quake III Arena
by Anthony Tullo "AKA Kaustic"

=============================================================================================
STORY

Europa Station, Once a peaceful scientific observation station. Scientist from Earth came to
study Jupiter's moon Europa. Little did they know that during construction of the station they
had built it on top of a highly toxic gas pocket trapped in the ice.One day there was a
Moon Quake that fractured the ice and cracking the foundations permitting the gas to leak into
the station.The occupants, completely unaware of the gas began to become delusional. After
several hours of exposure to the gas people began to hallucinate. Seeing danger lurking in
every corner and from everyone. Soon people were killing their once friends and families.
Finally the lone survivor died from exposure to the gas. The station was abandoned and
forgotten. Years later the station was discovered By the Vadrigar who repaired the foundations
and contained the gas, converted the station into an arena.

Now let the games begin.


=============================================================================================
Title: Europa Station
Filenames: aty3dm5.pk3, aty3dm5 Readme
File size:12 Mb +/-
Author: Anthony Tullo (Kaustic)
Address: kaustic3@ptd.net

Description:Small/Medium map ,2 to 10 players.

Started sometime in the 2008/9 timeframe ,original concept dumped and restarted 27 Aug 2012.
Dec 2012/Jan 2013 map concept changed again.After looking at allot of custom maps in my
collection I was inspired by Lun3DM2 Lets Drink Beer and Shoot Things.I particularly like
the textures and brushwork in the map.I decided I needed to change how I had been doing
things. Aty3Dm5 in its final incarnation- Europa Station.

(spell check on this site is wonderful. Apparently my spelling sucks )

[obsidian]

Instead of building rooms and then connecting them with passages...

Yup, as I mentioned in your other thread, you don't want to do this. Corridor cancer kills good maps so your new layout technique is paying off already.

Your new layout looks a little more promising. Try thinking a little more in 3D though and open up the atriums more to the floors below. Right now, you have little holes to drop down to, open them up so that the players can actually shoot back at each other, travel up and down, etc. You can think of those little holes like vertical corridors and should probably be avoided. Good start though.

[cityy]

Your screenshots look good, the scale looks pretty nice and so does the layout. You could try extending it a bit on the vertical side of things; pretty much what obsidian says. Q3 gameplay involves so many weapons and each of them has its favor depending on the geometry of the map (i.e. you'd wanna use a LG in open spaces where people got plenty of space to dodge while using a RL in corridors -- or another example: RG on long distance, LG on mid distance, RL/SG on closer ranges).
What you want to try to achieve with a map is having a good balance between weapons; not only regarding their placement but also regarding their usage. For example in a map with a lot of narrow corners and no vertical differences people will mostly be successful using the rocket launcher only.

On a side note, I think you should work a bit on your thread formatting and writing; give the posting guidelines a shot.
Keep it up!

[kaustic]

I am very thankful for your comments.Old habits die hard. They say you cant teach an old dog new tricks but I believe
that is not so(probably one of the older mappers around, being 52).Yes City I can understand your point on format and will be
more mindfull in the futer.

Also here are some progress screenshots -
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kaustic/84 ... hotostream
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kaustic/84 ... hotostream
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kaustic/84 ... hotostream
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kaustic/84 ... hotostream

[obsidian]

They say you cant teach an old dog new tricks but I believe that is not so(probably one of the older mappers around, being 52).

You're hardly the oldest person to have graced this forum, but cheers to you all the same for hanging out with us "kids". In contrast, I'm pretty sure cityy doesn't yet have pubic hair.

[kaustic]

I knew a guy in the (KEA) Clan (Kill Em All) back 2000/2002 time frame that was in his Sixties. I started gaming back in 1995 when Doom2 was new.
One of my shipmates had installed it on a few computers on the ship and when I seen someone playing it I had to get in on the action. Later on after
I retired from The Navy I finaly bought a computer and when I was having my internet setup at my house The man doing the setup told me about Quake.
Of course I went out and bought it and Iv'e been a Quaker ever since.

More on topic ,does anyone know where I can get my hands on a glass texture with accompanying shader that actully acts/looks like real glass?

[cityy]

The Edge Of Forever by sock has a nice glass texture/shader and so does Kamasutra by thefury. Be sure to credit the guys in your readme file if you rerelase their assets.

[Theftbot]

also fKd's experimental ctf map

[kaustic]

Thank you, thank you very much .

[kaustic]

Ok, finally have an Alfa available.
A little info about the map - This is my smallest map to date. I would say 2 to 6 players will work nicely.
The only patches in the map are used for scrolling fx because it wasnt possible to make the textures
align properly on a prizm brush and get it to look right. At the moment there are no weapons/items.
I used 6 ,12 sided prizms for the blue beams in the one area and I can see sparkles in the vertical edges
so I have to resolve that issue.
Edit:See newest post for updated file D/L

[AEon]

A few things I can mention without needing to take screenshots:

• I wandered around a bit and vis does not seem to work at *all*. Meaning you see all of the map all of the time. Are all your "inner" walls detail? Might need to look into this to bring down the needless "overdraw" behind your walls.
• On the upper floor there are several glass plates in the floor, set into metal frames. IMO it would look better to bring down the glass brush by 4u or so on both sides, to avoid making glass and floor flush. You might then add some player clip to fill in the gap the glass left to keep the floor level and avoid a potential step, though.
• One of your JPs in a corner actually catapults you backwards from the lower floor to the upper, this is very confusing. Try ramping the JP somewhat to give the player a hint where he will be tossed.
• Another JP catapults you to the upper floor through an octagonal hole (not the one with the glass on the upper floor) in the upper floor. I ran into the JP on the lower floor but kept bumping into the ceiling, not making it through the hole. Either make the hole larger or the trigger brush for the JP about half as large, to help the player actually get to the upper floor.
• Above this JP you cut into the ceiling, adding some ceiling decoration showing sky. It would be nice if you continued to cut up the ceilings all over the place. I like your present windows in walls already.
• In the room with the huge glass ceiling, all your glass brushes are flush with the metal framing up there, again making the glass less thick, 4u indent, would make the windows look more convincing. Presently the glass looks like it might fall out of the framing up there.
• Following a certain design style, not only streamlines the overall look, avoiding randomness, but it can be problematic when it leads to visual repetitiveness of some "aggressive" texture. IMO, you have this problem with the light textures used on *every* step in the map. When you look at them from the upper floor that is OK, and adds nice lighting, but on the ground floor you seen excessive amounts of white stripes. A "easy" fix would be to use the lights on the steps only for every *other* step, and some other non-lit texture for the other 50% of them.
• Another octagonal hole in the upper floor is surrounded by a glass frame all around. You might want to break that glass ring into 4 or so segments using metal "spokes" to give the glass some more plausible stability. Presently it looks as if the glass would simply fall through the metal frame. Just a design idea.

I like the TP in the curved stair wall, nifty. Hope you can add weapons, items and a bot navigation file next time, to let us better test the layout. So far it looks interesting.

Hope the feedback helps.

[kaustic]

Thank you for your input AEon. Ya the jump pad thru the hole is annoying.I ment to fix that befor I uploaded it.Was kinda late when I packed it up
(or early depending how you want to look at it). Yes, all the interior is detail.With 2747 brushes in the map I left it all detail to avoid some errors
so I could compile and get a look at it in game. I did notice what you mentioned about the stairs.Its almost blinding at certian angles.I think I'm going
to knock down the brightness a bit too.

[kaustic]

Added Clips,did all the things AEon suggested ,finished some brush work,added weapons,ammo and items all of
which are subject to change. Also now has an aas for bot support. There are only 7 info playerdeathmatch locations
at this time.
Edit: Map updated -See latest post.

[AEon]

I have been running around in the map for some time now (previous version), so testing the map with bots should really help. I love it when things happen and get done .

[AEon]

A few things I noted, about the changes:

• "Indenting" the glass in floors and ceilings etc. definitely looks better.
• So do the spokes for the glass ring, IMO.
• I also like all the additional skylights (openings in the ceilings) you added.
• Nice skybox, I think I actually had that used for AEdm7 in the very beginning... .
• Steps with lighting for every other step also seems to have reduced the visual impact, making the stairs less eye-poking. A good thing.
• Items, Weapons and bot file definitely help testing.

You might want to suggest some bots in the .arena file. Here the temp fix I used (though 5 bots it probably a bit much, 4 should do, you might also add location markers for a small 2on2 team arena):

Code: Select all

{
map	 "aty3dm5"
longname "aty3dm5"
bots	 "doom tankjr major klesk anarki"
fraglimit 30
type	 "ffa team"
}

General thoughts, on what might be looked into...

• The biggest issue (if one actually wants to call it so), is the lighting on the lower level. The windows (that I like) simply do not let enough light into the lower level, making many areas, e.g. around the PG, RG, and YA too dark, i.e. the player models are barely visible. The lighting shaders do not seem to generate enough light, so you may well have to resort to using light entities. (Yes, I hate having to do that too.)
• It occurred to me that you might like to put a small weapon respawn pad in the middle of the glass window in the floor next to the LG, and put the LG on that pad, i.e. add thin metal spokes to "hold up" the pad. That way the LG could be seen from below, maybe.
• Generally I feel that the upper floor 3 glass windows in the floor are interesting, but do not really help the gameflow up here. I keep on seeing action on the lower level, where the PG is (i.e. coming from the RL) and trying to get down there more quickly, but the glass will not let me do so. And having to either go to the glass ring/JP or jump down to the angled JP are both very roundabout ways to get to the PG. Might be worth removing the glass above the PG as a test.
• A connection, between RG and upper floor, glass in floor maybe, might not only get some light from the skybox to the RG but also let the player see what is going on down at the RG.
• Even though I like the design of your TPs... I still cannot quite remember where they lead, though the TP destinations seem to be cleverly placed. Personally I think the fewer TPs a map has the better, so you might think about dropping one TP... but only if you also agree it improves the map, not because of my suggestion.
• A third level? This is slightly value, but ever since I started running around your map I felt that certain areas where kind of large, i.e. it took too long to get through those areas, i.e. the RG area and the upper floor above the PG. This may have to do with lack of vertical layout, making the areas slightly boring. Presently the map is basically two pretty much flat levels, so when you run the upper floor, you stay on the same height level most (if not all) the time)... raising the floor/ceiling in several areas (creating more med-levels) on both the lower and upper floor IMO could help make the map even more interesting to navigate. I strongly feel this would give the map a strong final "finish" in gameflow and layout. I could try to suggest something, but I feel it is better if you think about this yourself, should you agree the to the comment, and come up with something surprising. Presently the map very much reminded me of Quake II maps and gameflow (not bad per se, slightly less interesting though).
• You use quite a few of the energy sparkle shaders (rising up glass tubes). Presently they are all in sync, making them look sterile and improbable. You might want to create 4-5 shader clones that have different (if possible random, Obsidian would know) offsets in time. Adding more unpredictability to them. One trick would be to use different speeds for the shader movement.
• A possible fun thing: I tried several times with the RG to shoot straight through the glue glass corners, to get at the bots that just passed that corner. I think it should be possible to make a special glass shader that lets you shoot through it in this case.
• I like the cuts in the ceilings, please add more of those, e.g. in the GL room and other areas.
• I still felt that the vertical fighting could be improved on, presently one tends to stay on one level and the interaction with the level above/below is minimal. The two stairs work very well already, but the glass in the floors prohibits additional fighting. Standing around the PG I never actually looked up through the glass on the upper floor. Mainly for laziness reasons, but also because you are pretty much safe from above on the lower floor.

Regarding 5 Hardcore bots in the map (some things to maybe keep in mind):

• The biggest issue with the bots is presently (may have to do with item placement and the location of the spawn points) that they tend to hang around the lower level almost exclusively. Thus the upper level is pretty much dead. Maybe adding more spawn points on the upper floor could help. And maybe another yellow armour. Or other items/weapons they go for.
• Another thing I noted is that the bots do not seem to use the JPs at all, to be honest I don't use them much either. Normally I spawn on the upper floor to then get down to the lower floor as quickly as possible. I am guessing that there simply is nothing the bots care about "enough" on the upper floor to want them to use a JP. Or they may have some problem navigating the JPs. I noted TankJr actually climbing the stairs to get to the RL though.
• The TPs are another thing the bots almost never seem to use. When attacking a bot, and the bot tries to evade the attack I did see them escape via TP, maybe that was just splash damage though. Strange, normally bots do tend to like TPs. Again, I am guessing the TP destinations may not lead to something they are about, though one TP exit was next to the RL IIRC.
• I think the bots go for the Haste, so they seem to be able to reach the platform with the Haste on it. And they also seem to be able to reach the 50Hs. Anyway, if you should not have done so yet, using some slim botclip steps might make it easier for bots to get at anything that would require jumping of sorts.

Hope that helps.

[kaustic]

You know I was wanting to make a way down from the upper level to the lower in the area were the Plasma Gun is
and couldnt decide on how I was going to do it. I didnt want it to take up too much floor space but at the same time
I wanted to allow for some fragging action.

Its kinda weird that when I was playing the map last night ,the bots were jumping into the teleporters all the time.
Particularly the one on the lower level buy the stairs that lead to the Haste item. It transports you to the small room
outside the stairs were the Rocket Launcher is. Also they used the one in the Grenade Launcher Area quite a bit.
Most of them would collect the GL and head strait for the Tel.

Teleporters: TP in stair well below RL TP's to- Upper level in raised area buy the glass arch facing towards the stairs
were the Haste is.
TP in Area by the GL TP's to- Area were the Plasma Gun is facing towards the JP buy the windows.
TP in Area between RG and Stairs TP's to- The small room outside the stairs were the Rocket Launcher is
facing towards the stairs

Jumping Bots- You mentioned(AEon) about making it easier for them to get to things via botclip stairs instead of having to
jump(which I hadnt thought of). Anyway I seen Sarge shortcut the corner on the upper level of the central
open area. From the LG side heading towards the RL above the JP. The Trims on the triangular upright arent
clipped and he jumped from the center of the opening to the center of the trim to the small opening between
the uprights. Sometimes bots do things you just dont expect.
I ran the map a few times with bots.I believe I used Sarge,Xaero,Lucy,Phobos,Daemia,Anarchy,Bones,Razor,
Hossman,Tank Jr.

Tubes in in corners/dividers (I like the archways as is)I used the ZapScroll texture and shader with some minor modifications.
I'm no shader expert thats for sure.The only way I can think of that would make them appear random is to take the texture
copy it several times renaming each one then do the same with the shader changing the rate at which the scroll repeats.
Then apply the textures in a random fashion.

Anyway I now have some food for thought and I most sincerely appreciate all of your comments. Will work on the map as
my real job will allow(12 hour shifts with rotating days off in 2 week cycle- work mon/tue , off wed/thur , work fri/sat/sun
off mon/tue , work wed/thur , off fri/sat/sun ,7:00 PM to 7:00 AM or 1900 to 0700).

[AEon]

I played the map some more using

Code: Select all

bots	 "tankjr sarge klesk anarki"

that worked rather well.

Bots started to use the TPs more, when a battle started on the upper floor the other bots would also rush there. Sarge seems to be a really good bot for the map.

Will be interesting to see what you come up with .

[kaustic]

Ok I got to do some work on this Project -
- Added some frame brushes to the large windows in the ceiling. I think it looks better.
-Removed the tubes from the corners around the central area and the glass will allow ammo to pass through.
-Opened up the wall between the central area and PG area.
-Added some more weapons and ammo,and Red Armor.
-There are now 16 Spawn locations throughout the map.
-Made some minor changes to the floor hight in a few locations.
-Moved the 4 triangular windows from the previous location to above the central area.When looking up through
the glass floor above the PG there was some hom going on in the windows in the upper level ceiling.This also
happened when I tried to put a glass floor in the passage from the GL area to the Haiste area.Along with the
hom I was getting disappearing brushes at curtain angles. A solid floor fixed the issue .
-Added some colored lighting in the areas where there are windows to give a more natural/warmer look.
-Added some texture lights around the map.
The bots seem play it well,especially if you put 15 set to hardcore in the map.

[KittenIgnition]

The clipping around the doorways is really bad, and I dislike the glass(?) around them anyway - it's deceptive and just plain ugly. The glass on the floors also looks bad. It looks like it's just randomly thrown in here and there, without any real cohesion or pattern.

I really liked where I thought the map would go from the first version, but now I really hate the theme

[kaustic]

So much for creative criticism. The map is still what I'm considering an Alpha and is not completely clipped off.
Why waist my time clipping everything when its not completely ready for Beta testing. Sorry you dont like it but
I was hoping for creative input from people not a slamfest.

"The glass on the floors also looks bad. It looks like it's just randomly thrown in here and there, without any real cohesion or pattern."

I fail to understand that statement - http://www.flickr.com/photos/kaustic/85 ... hotostream

[AEon]

Some thoughts:

• Removing the energy-surge tubes on the corners was a bit of a surprise, it might work to randomly keep one per corner. It certainly helped to avoid the issue with the using the very same surge shader on 3-5 of the tubes per corner, IIRC. Not sure what the best path here is though. Presently the overall visual noise is lower so that is a plus.
• It might be time to think about spawn pads for weapons and armour (and haste), to better anchor these items to their locations in the map. I noted that you use blue/glowing tiles on several areas of the floor, e.g. near the RG. That glow floor texture could be used as a "weapon spawn pad", maybe. The pad you used for the RL is OK as it is, but might not be the choice all over the map, IMO.
• The RG area, i.e. the 3-4 step indentation in the floor IMO presently is going too far in size. Especially on the side towards the middle of the map, the edge with RG ammo on has become too narrow, this also happens on the PG side. On the RG side, it might look better to drop the floor to 8 steps down, and to have steps on 3 sides, but not on the window side (pull down the window here, i.e. make it taller), to break the "ring of steps" look.
• Bots use the JP under the glass ring now a lot, and the RA and SG on the upper floor seem to work for the bots. Much more fighting on the upper floor.
• The GL JP still does not seem to be used though... personally I found that 8-sided hole in the floor confusing, when approaching it e.g. from the RA. The steps upward always made me think I could JP upward in some way, whereas you actually drop down instead. It might be worth trying to make the steps run downward, again maybe not in a complete ring. Also using only 2-3 steps down, and making the hole in the floor larger may help the bots use the JP.
• The passage for the RA works pretty well, since it now is a special place for a powerful pick-up. You sloped the edges of the floor on 4 sides around the RA. When you run from the GL to the RA, though, the sloping brush in the floor near the doorway cannot be seen, not until you are pretty much on top of it. When running towards the doorway you always have the feeling you are not seeing geometry or missing it. Nitpicking... but it did disturb me every time.
• Able to shoot through corners with glass is kinda fun, but may have turned out gimmicky. Well at least in my last game run I never could really use it. Up to you if you like it keep it, if not not.
• The new connection from the central JP to the PG helps. There is a slight danger of another dreaded map feature, the "Swiss cheese" effect of having too many holes/connections all over the place. Note this may yet not be the case in the map, but it is something to keep in mind. A few well placed blocked off paths can be good for interesting gameflow. In my AEdm7 map I struggled with that issue a long time, and ended up blocking a few paths just to enforce a certain, IMO, better gameflow.
• The stairs are still the best areas of vertical fighting in the map IMO. To make more use of this already working good feature, you may consider making the stair well up to the RL larger, moving the TP wall outwards by 32u-64u, just to give the players a bit more gameplay area here. Enlarging the haste steps area might also be something to think about. But without needlessly bloating the map. I was thinking of making the steps wider, but pulling them into the map middle more, but that idea could be totally off.
• LG and SG on the glass need a weapon pad of some sort, IMO.
• I still feel the map could use more "radical" height variation, in the region of at least 8 step heights.

I am becoming more and more aware that my suggestions are starting to meddle into you original vision. So please take any suggestion with a grain of salt and only implement what you really feel is an improvement. Testing suggestions may be a good thing, but only if you are "brave" enough to revert some of them if they do not work as well as expected. Another thing I learned in AEdm7.

Anyway hope the above is of some use.

[kaustic]

My Original idea for those tubes I had in the corners is what I still want to have there.I was trying out that effect just for the sake
of trying something and the more I looked at it the less I liked it.Mostly because of what you had mentioned and I had been thinking
,that they were in sync and definitly way to busy and hard on the eyes. I'm sure I could ask someone how to get the effect I'm looking
for for the tubes but I'm not ready to give up on figuring it out for myself yet. As for the rest, its going to take some time.Ive already
completed a couple of things you suggested ,like pushing the walls out in the stairs by the RL.I figured thats an easy one I could get done
with quickly.I moved them 64 units.Now I'm working on the JP area by the GL(both levels) and the RG area.

[AEon]

Looking forward to testing the changes.

I played a few more games, and found that the vertical fighting is working well on both stairs and also the central JP pit...

Playing against "tankjr sarge klesk anarki" seems to be enough "action" bot-wise I am finding.

[kaustic]

Well here is an update-
- Opened up the JP area near the GL
-Dropped the floor in the RG area, pushed the wall's/window out, widened the floor by arch to central area
-Did some work to the Ceiling windows above the JP's and central area
-Pushed the wall out in the PG area and widened the floor by the central area, change the floor somewhat
-As mentioned in earlier post pushed the walls out in RL area
-Added Weapon/Armor markers
I tried a couple of things on the 2nd level area where the glass floors are and they didn't work out, so for now
there is minimal change to that area. I did notice however that you can receive splash damage through the
glass floors(from rockets of course). I was playing Xaero 1v1 and he was shooting at me through the glass.
EDIT: New pk3 in latest post.

[AEon]

General thoughts about "expanding" maps (in size etc.) from reading your change log (before testing):

• The idea is to enforce/encourage as many significant paths as possible, remove all the irrelevant/redundant paths, in the smallest space possible (to avoid needless running around = bloat). So making parts of the map larger can be good, but could start to make your map bloated. That was the reason I was suggesting to keep the overall size (probably did not state it clearly enough) but to work with it differently. E.g. keep the overall size of the map, but make stairs wider, in this case it would mean to move the "inner side" of the stairs more towards the centre of the map. Expanding outward is easier, but needs to be done carefully.
  
  And as always, if you do not like how suggested idea are working out, make sure to go the path you like the most, not what you perceive others may like. You should always be the person who is happiest with the map you are creating. Some of my maps where I did not really know where I was going, listening to external suggestions, did those changes, are among the maps I like least. Ideally external suggestions point out bugs, and gameflow issues, etc... not overall large layout changes.

After running through the map I am happy to say all your expansion look "natural" and good, and IMO really made the map look nicer. Some thoughts:

• The stairs leading up to the "glass ring JP" look cut off at the corner towards the PG. Instead of a more of less square layout under the JP, the step edge could be angled off at the corner with the two blue light textures you added.
• Spawn pads for weapons and armour are minimalistic but work. Tip: if you use a brush with all sides covered with nodraw, but for the top side, to turn the spawn pads into decals (special option in the shader for that, to let you place the brush flush on the floor but keep it swimming above any floor textures), you could save a few triangles and not need to cut up the floor brushwork. (OK this is nitpicking, but I thought I'd mention the idea).
• I like the wider stairs near the RL.
• I also like the way the RG area turned out. Now looks much more interesting, same is true for the PG area. Both are now a long way away from boring flat floors.
• Lower floor, IMO, could still use more light... around RG and PG, and near the TP under the Haste.
• On the upper floor the GL room floor could still use some "unflattening" to make it more interesting.
• The GL hole in the floor makes navigation a lot more interesting now. Maybe the hole is slightly too large, though. I still think it might be nifty to have the edge of the hole (from the upper floor) drop by at least 1 step, to make the hole's edge less flat and more interesting.
• Maybe add a spawn pad under the Haste.
• Your map was not showing in the game's menu, seems to be the "single" option under type in the .arena file. Using this:

  Code: Select all

  type    "ffa team"

  let me play the map again via menu.
• The bots are now using all JPs, especially the one near the GL, rarely though.
• I was always a bit in doubt about your glass floors but I use both of the larger glass areas to see what is going on on the the lower floor, so that seems to work.
• Combat around the Haste on the stairs can become quite intense now, that is good I think.
• On my Quadcore rig (maxfps 125), I seem to be beginning to notice slight input device lags because the map uses no line of sight blocking, i.e. everything is detail. You may want to start creating a caulk hull for the map, to reduce some of the geometry overdraw. At present it is not yet really an issue, but the more geometric detail you add, the worse it will get. We all like to play crisp / very responsive maps .
• Weapons and item placement seem to work pretty well. Nothing really obvious I would change... though I am a Quad fan. Switching between Quad and Haste might be nifty.
• Note sure anything can be done, but a bit more verticality on the upper floor would be interesting.

Shaping up nicely your map. I like playing the bots.