thats just what I had in mind!
As far as scale goes, a trip from T1 to T2 on-route should be at least 5 minutes and no more than 10 minutes. My only concern with the map is the location of hunting grounds as preferably (or at least to the best of our abilities) we would want to have creeps increase in level of difficulty as the player draws furthur from his/her starting town (t1,t2,t3). Of course this doesn't need to be strictly adheared to but we don't want players "walking into" ogres and getting raped. As long as we can keep these harder hunting grounds confined by walls/fences and whatnot we should be fine.
As far as creeps go,
Right outside the starting towns will be lvl1-2 creeps, such as giant bugs, ?imps?, wolves, etc.
Further towards the shore and outer perimeter of the towns will be lvl3-4 creeps such as giant spiders, wolves, etc.
You get the idea.
Here is a slightly modified map with minor changes to help balance things out.
Changes include t1 gy being shifted up in order to make room for another mid-lvl hunting ground, Thieve's Hideout, for the t3 starters.
The addition of Troll Village balances out the overall map in terms of mid-lvl hunting grounds being available to all 3 starting towns.
And lastly, east lost its boundary due to the fact that dungeons will be "in the mountains" so-to-say, and the entrance was shifted downward for balancing purposes. By the time players can fight in east dungeon mages will already have portal, so no, t2 starters will not necessarily have a loooong trip to get to east.
This is just a concept that we can work with, if anyone has any other suggestions (or dislikes) please feel free to share them.