Before reading this, I am assuming the OP does has a map of the Fallout Alley Youth Zone (FAYZ) and knows about the FAYZ wall, which make up the area where Gone and the following books in the series take place. There is a nice map at the back of the book Gone, though there might be more detailed ones online, more suitable for recreating the area.
For those that don't know, in simple terms the FAYZ wall is very similar to the glass barriers that surround most MCSG maps, and the FAYZ is the area where the characters of the book, Gone, are trapped within by the strange spherical wall (which is very nice as not only has it trapped everyone below 15 inside of it, it hurts anyone that touches it too!).
If you did use th FAYZ as the arena, there'd be a lot of ocean to the south-west, assuming the map will be centred on the nuclear power plant like in the series, so include boats for faster travel along the coast, but I wouldn't put any chests in the ocean area except on places such as the islands and, perhaps any large water feature and ships/vessels you include.
However, I suggest these features in the ocean should be positioned in a way that they almost follow an arching semi-circle pattern, starting from the furthest away point of North-West farmland from the power plant to the furthest away point of the South-East farmland from the power plant: as well as some other large boats located around the docks.
If you do this with the water features, it may be more obvious where it is worthwhile travelling on the water, and beyond these there is no point of travelling further than the ships and other features (which could be marked with buoys), in terms of gathering items from chests, unless you were attepting to hide from the enemy by travelling far away (as they also attempt in Gone), though I think this should be not fully avoided, but not massively encouraged as the map might get slown down by people that think going far out in the ocean is a good idea.
The 20 mile diameter of the FAYZ wall might need scaling down, depending on the amount of players you want of course (48 still allows for a large map, but 20 miles is MA-HOO-SIVE!).
Definately put some TV crew vans outside of the FAYZ wall, to represent all the people outside the wall wondering what on earth the FAYZ wall is, to fit in with the maps theme.
My main suggestion I have is to feature (at least) 2 starting cons, especially if you are doing a 48 player map. If you look at the FAYZ map at the back of Gone there is the nuclear power plant at the centre: if you rotate the map so the airbase is directly above the power plant, the land becomes somewhat symetrical, as you can see an agricultural zone on both sides of the power plant and a desert and hills in the centre of the land area. I suggest you have each con located inbetween the power plant and each of the farmlands, with the aim of getting people to head towards one of:
(Ordered clockwise from West side of map)
-The islands to the South-West
-The National Park
-Lake Tramonto
-The Airbase
-The Mineshaft/Shack
-Coates Academy
-Perdido Beach/Clifftop Resort
Note These are general places of interest located towards the edges of the map, that I expect would be places to find people in mid match, but include some minor points of interest along the way.
-Or...(almost forgot to mention this location for people to head towards) some people could head inwards to find items stashed in the Nuclear Power Plant (but would be very risky as people would spawn on both sides of the facility...)
Also note how the area is fairly symetrical, having 2 starting cons, one nearby each farmland, means the map is fair no matter what side you spawn on, the National Park area with tree jumping and wood shacks can be equivilent to the town area with possible jumping across rooftops. Each side has access to farmland where some food can be obtained near the start, by crop stomping (though it would make sense to have actual 'grown crops' spread apart, possibly in clusters, but most of it concisting of dead plants or seeds, to fit into the Gone theme, and to stop people getting to much near the start), at the expense of being fairly out in the open near spawn and losing time that could be spent finding chests.
Finally...
The the nuclear power plant should be where the deathmatch will take place...
Reason: Because people would love to fight in a place that could effectively lead to an unfortunate explosion large enough to destroy everything inside the FAYZ...
I also have to say though I had the book literally 40cm away from me at the time I saw this forum page, so I just had to spent the time to write this up... just wish I could get the other books in the series soon: my brother got bought all the books in the current series he 'was' reading, and hasn't bothered since...
