I play tested my map with the TF2 Mapping community and got some pretty valuable feedback. Play testing revealed a lack of focus in the design. Players felt the outside area was too large while the inside was too cramped. In a payload race game the only way a team wins is by pushing their cart to the end before the other team, but people tended not to focus on pushing their carts as a team. What happened instead was that usually one person would push the cart at a time while others would just shoot at each other outside, and without any strong choke points rounds could be won easily simply because of the neglect for the cart.
plr_sidetracked's old design
I’m redesigning it so that the outside areas will be smaller and can only be accessed by going through the center building. Closing off the sides will make the map feel less like a sandbox and will encourage a more direct linear movement through the map. That's not to say there won't be passages for flanking but these will be more auxiliary and choke points will be added. Dividing the areas into more specific territories is something I actually wanted to avoid because of the story line—that is, neither teams are native to this area and are both just passing through—but, as somebody suggested, adherence to the story should not be so strict as to hurt the gameplay. Besides I can still keep the back-story and change the layout to improve gameplay. Changes will make it so that either side of the building feels more like it belongs to one of the teams. This would make the starting area feel safer for the players and would add more balance to the game; instead of having everywhere in the game be dangerous, whichever side the player starts on will be relatively safe, the center building they travel through will be chaotic and dangerous, and the last area can be even more dangerous because it belongs to the enemy.
The new layout moves everything closer to the rail station (center building), expands the sides of the building to separate the RED and BLU bases and direct game flow through the building, opens up the interior of the center building and adds a choke point inside to encourage teamplay
