So you just made your 1st (or 20th) custom map. Now you want to release it to the public and share your hard work...but hold on a sec buckaroo, let's think about this for a second! Let's make sure things are properly set up to make things easy for server operators and get more exposure for your map.

Did you do an overview for your map? If not perhaps you should, if you don't know how look here http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Overview

Did you zip all the files into the bsp, including custom content? This is very helpful to server operators as they won't require a res file to distribute the map. If you aren't sure how try pakrat, it's a great tool for doing this.
http://www.geocities.com/cofrdrbob/pakrat.html

If you added custom content are all directories and file names in lower case? This is a big help to linux server operators. For example if you used custom sounds and added them from a directory called Sounds/ on a linux server this will require a new Sounds/ directory under dod. The server folder is lowercase, sounds/.

Have you properly tested your map in multiplayer? If not you may miss some bugs or exploits. There are communities out there who are very willing to test maps including:

www.sunlitgames.net
www.dod-federation.com

there are also other communities willing to test maps, contact these people and they would glady help you out to test.

These are just a few ideas to make things a little better for server operators. If anyone has anything to add please do.

I say this thread is going to get all sticky :) Thx for the reminder to everyone

I also changed the thread name to try and get more attention from readers. Hope you don't mind. I can always change it back

Originally posted by Furyo
I also changed the thread name to try and get more attention from readers. Hope you don't mind. I can always change it back

Nah good call. Good sticky too.

Great tutorial, but is this dod:s specific? i have recently learnt map making for 1.3 and all is rosey, and i want to make the all important finishes. I have followed the link to overviews but none of the commands work, which is what lead me to belive this was for source. Any help on overviews for dod 1.3 would be very much appreciated.

Yes that overview link is for Source. Anything on the wiki is for Source. It may happen some things work the same way in goldsrc, but it's not the main target of the wiki.

Thx for the speedy reply. I have found an ideal method. http://www.dayofdefeat.net/forums/showthread.php?t=44613&highlight=overview
I now have the overview i wanted for my map, http://tckg.selfip.net/mapping/dod_tc-watertower.bmp

Its not perfect but it works, it was a first attempt, as is the map, guess its all a learning curve. Ill find the appropriate place and ill link download my map, overview and sturmbot waypoints.