Well, not quite a newb (made a TFC map many moons ago) but definitely not experienced and always learning new things.

Anyhoo - I've started a journal of what's going on with my map, what I'm learning as I go, what setbacks I have etc etc.

I doubt many people will be interested but here's the link in case anyone wants to take a nosey:

http://greebomaps.livejournal.com/

Aww come on, from one newb to another...this is great. Puttin' that sucker in my faves.

That's neat. Who knows, it could both be inspiring and/or informational for other beginner mappers.

It's interesting because I've experienced many of the things you've discussed. I didn't release my first map either (in fact, I never finished it). Harvest was my second attempt. The important lesson there was learning about optimization... the hard way. I was too stubborn to compromise my vision despite the warnings of open maps in Source... eventually I broke down and ended up adding fog too when it became apparent that the layout in and of itself was just beyond conventional optimization.

It's all a learning experience though.

To be honest my fps problem is fundamentally down to the layout I've used - I could try and change it in the future but it's probably not worth it.

As I said in the journal - I'll release when I've done what I can and see what people say - that'll be the most useful part of this map I think.

I'm glad people think this'll be interesting/useful - I'll be updating it as often as I can (if nothing else it's useful for me to keep track of what the hell I've been doing).