Level Author

I think my best work is probably Vostok Rising for Quake2; although I'm most proud of The Gib Factory for Quake1. Gib Factory is very dated now but was a cutting edge level when it was released over a year ago. It featured lots of new monsters, weapons, and graphics and was the first level to convince me that I had talent. I would also be remiss if I did not mention the Malice project. Although my role was primarily as a level designer, it was a great experience working with a group of talented designers to create a project that was so well received. 

Most of my inspiration comes from within ... the rest of it comes from playing through levels designed by other level authors. Very little of my inspiration has come from playing through id's levels. As good as they are, I usually play through them once and am done with them. I get a lot more enjoyment out of playing through levels created by the good amateur designers. I'll often see some new architectural style or gameplay twist that will inspire me to create a variation and stick it in one of my levels. 

Let's face it - there are not a whole lot of new ideas floating around out there. One of the things that separates a great level from a good level is the ability of the author to come up with some new twist or incorporate a modification into their level. That's one of the reasons that level authors such as Neil Manke, Marcus Dromowicz, and Iikka Keranen stand out ... they are creative. 

There are too many good Quake1 level authors to start naming names so I'll just skip to Quake2. There are a few Q2 levels out there that create a true sense of mood and atmosphere. Among them I would count Greg Barr's Incarceration, Matt Sefton's ISE, Weibo De Wit's The Strogg Downfall and David Kelvin's The Abandoned Conduit. 

Quake2 is fun to play and fun to edit. The AI sucks. The rest rocks. 
As far as editing goes, there is no longer an excuse for an author not to come up with something new and exciting in every level. The possibilities are almost endless. In addition, the lighting is so much more realistic (and easier to implement) that it allows for an greater sense of atmosphere. 

Uhhh ... that's not such an easy question to answer anymore. For Quake1, I was an avid fan of Worldcraft. As support for WC slowly vanished over the past six months I began to hear more and more about other editors whose feature sets were matching or exceeding WC. When Quake2 came out and WC was the only major editor not to add support, I began to experiment with Qoole, Quark, BSP, and QERadient. For my last several levels I have used a combination of WC, QERadient, and Quark. QERadient is the most powerful editor but slows my system to a crawl. Quark has an excellent entity editing window. WC ... well ... no comment. 

Errr ... Ummm ... as of late my only hobby has been level editing. Ever since I started working on the Malice project with Epochalypse all my other hobbies have pretty much disappeared. When I do find the time, however, I play Basketball, Ping Pong, read, and breed aquarium fish. I've also been known to play my share of Deathmatch. 

My daily web crawl usually hits Planetquake news, Blue's News, any of the level review pages that have been updated, and Yahoo Finance. I am also involved in The Course Depot, a site which I established a while back to review user-created courses for Jack Nicklaus 4. I am no longer involved in the day-to-day operations of the page, but visit on a regular basis. 

I'll be working as a level designer on Revenant's first project called  Ascension: Myths & Legends. It's a mythology-based action adventure due out X-mas 98. 

This place is great. My bed was comfortable, the shambler stew was delicious, and the Strogg at the front desk spoke fluent English. Say ... what does a space marine have to do to get a free night around here anyway?

~Ed Cope

Hey Ed, the Hotel will always have a room for ya, just give us another level!
~Igor