[RELEASE] pl_Toast - The massively belated release thread!
Yeah i know, took me long enough to get this thread made but anyway, here it is, my first released portal map.
dload.php?action=file&file_id=170
Enjoy
Note: This map uses Common Prefabs 4 Portal(CP4P)
V1.5 update!
fixes:
the camera at the start now falls off the wall when portal'd
the indicator strip on the first button is now working
fixed backwards checkmark on the fling ramp in the third room
changes:
the lift now goes a bit faster
Rate and comment please 
Hmm, a decent map, considering it's your first try. Keep working, and you'll get better with time; not that this is a bad map, but I see a lot of potential that you just aren't practiced enough to use. Here are a few of the problems I found:
- In the room with the tube along the floor, where GLaDOS uses the "broken test chamber" quotes, she talked far too frequently. By the time I'd actually start to figure it out, she'd start yapping again and I'd lose my train of thought. Make the pause between quotes two or three times longer.
- When the turrets shoot the glass, they leave no bullet marks. Fix this, it doesn't look right.
- Turrets would keep talking even after they had started firing. The would shoot at me through the glass, which is fine, but they would say their greeting lines constantly. Annoying.
- The fling in the "broken room" was a bit too hard - I always wound up hitting the wall above the doorway. Either move the angled plane down, or the doorway up.
- The timer on the fling seemed a bit short. Not really hard, just a bit more unforgiving than I like.
- The anti-gravity thing. The word hate cannot begin to describe this. First, you throw in a new mechanic with absolutely no tutorial - I had to just guess what that fizzy green field did. Second, no matter what I did, the cube would not stay on the button. Seriously, I spend a good five minutes, over and over trying to line it up, arc it perfectly, and land it on the button, only to watch helplessly as it slid off. Sometimes it would stay on for ten seconds or so, and then apparently decide that I just wasn't good enough. The fact that the anti-gravity field only went half way to the ground didn't help. One of the contest winners a while back, by MrCow, used a similar mechanic, but he always had the fields extend to the floor so that we could "drop" the cube straight up onto the button. Seriously, this needs to be fixed.
- The entire room with the energy ball and the three gates. What in hell was I supposed to do here? I saw only two energy strips, one to allow me to put a portal in the path of the energy orb, and the other leading to the anti-gravity field. Nothing to suggest how to make ball and socket meet, nor any explanation for the dot-sign number system. After ten minutes of wandering around, I was forced to noclip.
I know this may sound harsh, but believe me, I have only the best intentions. You have some cool ideas - I'd love to see what you can do with a behind-the-scenes area, as your room-under-maintenance looked really nice. This was a good first map - just work at learning some of the finer details, and maybe think up some new ideas, and you could put out some really first-rate stuff.
Best of luck with your future work! 
This map was alright, but maybe a bit too easy. It might be my monitor but the lighting seemed really harsh in some areas. This map has exactly the same problem as Tigger's Orientation had, I refer to that thread:
This occurs in the
Otherwise I hope you continue to map, good luck!
Well, it's not the map's problem if you suck at it
I agree with you entirely; if I was unable to complete the map because I just wasn't any good at Portal, then fine, my error. Here, however, that was not the case. Take the official maps, or even some of the better third party ones, like the PMK pack or Logic Portals, for example. Most often, it's pretty clear what needs to be done. Indicator strips tell you what you have to do to clear certain obstacles; concordantly, such obstacles are in turn identified with their own indicator strips, which tell the player what skills are required, and most importantly, where to apply them. This room did not do that. Was I supposed to move the glass out of the way of the sockets? If so, why was there no indicator strip leading to the glass? Was I supposed to break the glass? If so, why was this not made more apparent? Was I supposed to backtrack and find something I missed? If so, why was I not given more of a clue that that something might be important in the long run?
Some people enjoy just being put in a room, with no clear idea of what they even have to do, nor even what they can do, and just monkeying around until they find something that works. I do not. But then, that's my opinion. 
i had no problem understanding what to do in your map, i played the orriginal though and this one seems about the same, maybe a little cleaner and shinyer (for sure) but i do see how some of cyclones points might be the case. but to me everything seemed to make sense right off the bat,
however there is one spot/glitch that you can get stuck (there might be more but i found this one (the hard way))
oh crap
ill get to fixing the doors after i finish up zeta
thanks for comments
also, cyclone, im not to sure what you mean about the turrets that keep talking, they seem to work fine for me.
and, did you even look thru the glass at the orb catchers?
you have to
I have to second the opinion that in the room with the energy ball and the button on the ceiling, I had absolutely no clue what to do until I watched a walkthrough video.
ill get to fixing the doors after i finish up zeta
thanks for comments
also, cyclone, im not to sure what you mean about the turrets that keep talking, they seem to work fine for me.
and, did you even look thru the glass at the orb catchers?
you have to
For the turrets thing, yes, that only happened once for me - the turret was shooting at me, but it still kept talking. Hasn't happened since, so I guess it's nothing to worry about.
And the orb catcher thing... no offense, but if that's the intended solution, then you really need to get some better ideas. As far as I'm concerned, if I see a cube (not a Weighted Companion Cube, which obviously needs to be treated differently), and I see a button, then I put the cube on the button and move on. Period. If you want a cube to have multiple functions, make it a WCC. Naturally, I looked through the glass. I knew I had to mate ball with socket, but I saw no clear way how. I'm aware that Valve made a similar "bounce the orb" puzzle, but like I said, that was with the WCC, which, by common Portal convention, is supposed to be kept with you to accomplish a series of tasks.
What was even more problematic was all the portal-able surfaces that apparently served no purpose but to confuse me. You gave us all this space to work with, and all these ideas that conceivably might have worked (but didn't), only to have the "solution" be some totally obscure idea that you never even introduced in your map. Ultimately, it's just frustrating.
In the end, maybe its just my tastes. Some people like certain things, others don't; some enjoy randomly whacking a ball with a cube hoping things work out, and others don't. While I may not like this map, I think your future work, if you decide to make any, will definitely be worth a try.
User has been banned for this post. --msleeper