Topic: The Never-Built Levels

[Scyphi]

In the interest of attempting to spur conversation on what has become a rather quiet forum as of late... 

I was wondering, just for curiosity's sake, if anybody had an idea for neat custom level for D1, D2, or D3 that they wanted to make, but for one reason or another, it never happened. If so, what sort of level would it have been, what details would it have, and for what reasons, if any, did it never happen?

I personally have oodles of such levels, but to start off with a simple example, I've long had this idea for a very expansive D1 level that would've been built in sprawling "layers" to emulate a sort of massive mining facility. The red room, the part I had the clearest vision for, would've been this large core-like area where the reactor was located in this decorative center room, with another circular room looping around the outside of it chock full of tough robots and matcens the player would have to fight through to get to the reactor. The rest of level I wanted to be as large and expansive as much as D1 would allow, which would've been a fun challenge looking to be creative while also conservative with cubes. I also would've wanted it to have co-op support, and wanted to be clever with the exits, modeling as these sort of docking ports of which there was more than one, allowing the player to pick and choose which exit they would prefer to use, with probable motivations of why one player might favor one exit over the other, and so forth.

I started building the level once from the beginning, but then deciding I wanted to insure I would have enough cubes for that red room I envisioned, I changed plans to start building the red room first and then work backwards from there. Neither got very far though, as ultimately I couldn't find enough time to spare to really dedicate myself to the project, and it just keep getting pushed off and pushed off.

You guys have any tales of envisioned levels that you never saw come to light like this to share?

[Kaiaatzl]

I had a lot of ideas for plotlines that I never wrote into actual play for one reason or another -- usually because they'd have been better off in another game (or as their own).  And I've got several half-finished D2X-XL maps that I never quite gave up on for one reason or another.  If I actually do decide to give up on them I'll probably give the pieces to Pumo.

[Scyphi]

I had a lot of ideas for plotlines that I never wrote into actual play for one reason or another -- usually because they'd have been better off in another game (or as their own).

I can relate to that. I've devised a couple of plotlines for Descent custom missions that would really be better for games of their own than a mod for Descent. But that said, I've got at least one I could adapt to the Descent universe and still have it quite intriguing...but that's a story for another day. 

Anyway, since I brought up the subject, I might as well talk about this lost idea (with pictures!)

Some background: many years ago now, I had sat down and started work on a D1 mission set, the first time I really tried my hand at level building of any sort in Descent. Though I did have pre-drawn level plans that I was following, looking back you can tell that my approach to this was still very experimental and self-tutorial-ish trial and error, see-what-I-could-do-or-not-do sort of thing, not to mention amateurish. Nonetheless, I got up to seven levels made, with the seventh being the intended last in the set, and was working at resolving some critical bugs with the end boss fight I had planned when I was forced to set aside the project. I had always meant to get back to it, but as the time passed, the more I realized the many flaws in my designs and knew I could do better now, and that served as something of a deterrent.

Then D2X-XL entered the picture, and impressed with all the new level elements it was introducing and wanted to build something that exploited some of them in a way I desired (as I hadn't been 100% pleased with how I had seen some other builders use them at the time). By the time I graduated from high school, I thought back to that original seven level set, and thought it'd be cool to rebuild those levels from scratch as a sort of remastered D2X-XL level set. So I got to work.


The first level as it presently stands

For most of the latter half of 2008 I worked on this project, the longest single stretch of time I believe I have ever spent on level-building, I was working on this level set, and had big plans. By the end of that stretch, I had completed the first level entirely, as well as the second and third levels save for some bug-fixing and a secret exit in the third level that wasn't set up yet as said secret level hadn't been built yet, and was well into building the fourth (maybe about halfway through building the geometry I estimate). Eventually though, real life concerns that were coming up at the time like a job and college, forced me to set aside the project, but I very much intended to get back to it as soon as the time presented itself.


Accidental screenshot taken while playtesting first level, late in its development

But then disaster struck.

At the time, I had worked on all this level-building on an old computer that had been set up for my use. But eventually it came time to retire it as a newer system was set up to fill in the same roles (I can't recall if this was when I got my first personal laptop or the computer was simply traded out for a newer model, but it was one of those two) and Techpro was left to handle it. Now, stupidly, I had foolishly assumed Techpro was going to just transfer all of the files intact from computer A to computer B which I knew would include my files for this WIP mission set, so I didn't bother making sure a backup I had on another computer was up to date. However, instead, Techpro thought that all the Descent mission files on that computer would all be the same as what were already on all the other systems in our house, and opted to skip over transferring those files so to save time. By the time I had realized what had happened, Techpro had taken that computer and wiped it's hard drive so to free it up to use for his own purposes, erasing my master copy of the mission set that was still on it. This left me with just the backup which I quickly discovered was woefully out of date.


Section of a speed tunnel in level two used while seeking help correcting a bug on the DLE-XP forums

From this fiasco, I altogether lost from this mission set the following:

• Everything I had made of the fourth level (but as I had already decided by that point in time I was approaching that level wrong and was planning to make significant changes to it, I wasn't too heartbroken about that).
• ALL that I had of the third level (and THAT was what I was most heartbroken about. I was extremely proud of how that level had turned out, and stand in saying to this day that it had been the best level I had ever built).
• More than two-thirds of what I had built for the second level.
• A number of bug fixes for the first level, but otherwise this level escaped my blunder intact.

All that survives of the second level

Disheartened by this loss and faced with the prospect of having to rebuild what I had lost from scratch, easily months of work, I was slow to resume work on the project, knowing I still needed that time for more important things. Eventually, I stopped using D2X-XL altogether, and that pretty much sealed the coffin on the project's fate. Until I pulled up the surviving files for reference for this post, it was the first time I had even looked at them in years.


In-game screenshot of the third level demonstrating colored lighting one section used

Every now and then I think to myself I ought to touch up on the surviving first level and just release that as a standalone level. Other times I think I want to try and rebuilt the lost third level from memory as much as I can. Thus far, neither has happened yet, and presently it looks like it'll probably be some time still before I can even seriously consider it. 


Another in-game screenshot of the third level demonstrating an amusing glitch with a trigger I had been experimenting with (note the shield gauge)

Such is the woeful tale of that never-built project...

[-<WillyP>-]

I have a similar tale of woe, mine is on a hard drive that should be working, but for some reason seems to be not.

Mission Z-Axis: Takes place three hundred years after 'Retribution'. Of course, MD1032 is long departed, but his great grandson MD3210 has followed in his footsteps. The aliens responsible for the transmode virus have not been heard from in all this time, but infected robots still pop up from time to time.

Level one starts off with MD3210 on a beach, on vacation with his pal Guide Bot. All of a sudden a couple of 'bouys' in the water rise up and start racing towards the beach. Guide bot spots them, alerts MD, and they jump in the Pyro just as the bouys start shooting, when they take off they discover the entire planet is swarming with bots seeking revenge. The entirety of this level takes place above ground, and consists of MD shooting massive hoards of bots with no end in site. Suddenly the level ends, with the one level goal complete.

That goal is: Wake Up!
 
Level two starts in a briefing room, where we learn about Szhericon. Szhericon was a prison work camp, where prisoners mined Szheres. Szheres were thought to be a 'miracle' energy source, due to being spheres with an extra Z-axis, but were later discovered to cause genetic mutation in humans, so the planet was evacuated and travel to it was banned. We learn that we are on a large warship, part of a flotilla that includes science and research vessels and a families ship that has been traveling to Szhericon for the last three months or so, at maximum warp, due to some very unusual sensor reading coming from the planet. We are now approaching the planet and the Lieutenant, who I'll call X 'cause i never got around to naming him, is about to talk about the readings when he notices MD3210 asleep... again... at the back of the briefing room. And the Lieutenant is not happy, he is yelling at MD and finally tells him he is fired.

The beach was all a dream! Md is leaving the briefing room and walks through the ship to the Pyro launch bay where his trusty steed in parked. There is a kid there who services the Pyros and tells MD that he received a note from Lt. X saying that MD was no longer an employee and that he needed to sign papers agreeing to pay for the fuel and supplies aboard the Pyro. MD grabs the papers from the kids hand and jumps in the Pyro throwing the papers in the air in front of the Pyro. He slams shut the canopy and the kid runs for saftey as the Pyro lifts off and MD fires the lasers, incinerating the papers, and hitting the switch that starts the bay door opening.

Suddenly there is a loud explosion, the ship rocks, debris flying everywhere, fire, explosions, etc. The bay door is blown off the ship and MD is knocked unconscious and the Pyro is blasted from the ship. Guidebot frantically tries to revive MD as the Pyro hurtles out of control towards the surface of planet Szhericon far below.

Cut to a view of a young woman with a baby, she is looking out the window at the warship in horror as a giant energy beam rips through the warship vaporizing half the ship and continuing on through space like nothing happened. She sees the remaining half of the ship breaking up. Alarms are sounding and red lights are flashing in the woman's quarters as a steel shutter slowly lowers to protect the window. The camera turns to a picture, it's MD3210, the woman and the baby. The baby points to the picture and says "Da!"

End level. Goal completed: Survive.

Level three starts with the Pyro hurtling towards the planet surface, as GB pulls out a huge needle and injects MD with it. MD gives out a bloody scream like he was just kicked into consciousness by a mule. GB informs him the the engines were knocked out by the force of ejection, and he is performing repairs. A moment later, repairs complete, but... need an energy source to restart them. By then they are close enough to the planet surface to see the lava pools dotting the surface. GB tells MD that on their current trajectory, they are going to hit a lava pool and MD yells "There's your energy source!".

All the while, the radio in the Pyro with various reports of damage, people screaming in panic and finally someone breaks through to try to talk to MD. MD is told he is the only one survivor from the warship.

Once you hit the lava pool, you regain control of the ship. In addition to fight a few random bots, there is flaming debris from the wreckage of the warship to dodge. MD is told that the have learned that the energy beam is on a path directly to earth at the speed of light, and will destroy earth in a matter of hours if MD can't find the source and turn it off. MD must navigate through the prison complex and the mines below, to find the source of the beam and turn it off, or destroy it. Which should be easy, of course, since there has been no one on the planet in hundreds of years to maintain the guard bots that have been there.

A rather long, intricate level follows. Find a way into the mines, which are quite extensive and full of angry mining bot who don't seem to have suffered at all from years of neglect. Explore the prison, get attacked by guards and mining bots. If you can figure out how, you can even explore a large prisoner transport ship, abandoned, but in perfect condition.

Once at the source of the beam, you discovers that there is a large focusing lens on gimbals that is directing energy from szheres deep with in the planet. The light from the beam is blindingly bright. GB warns you that destroying the lens could result in massive destruction of the cavern the lens is in. Chance of survival nill. You can choose to destroy the lens or go back the way you came to look for the controls but the voice on the radio is telling you time is running out and urges you to destroy the lens and stop the beam at all costs. If you destroy the lens, the room caves in on itself with fires, explosions, and falling/flying debris, and the level ends.

Goal complete: Turn off the beam.

Level four starts in the destroyed lens room, but the only door, the one you came in through, is destroyed and blocked. Explore the room a bit and you'll find a fissure just big enough to squeeze a pyro through. Now the voice on the radio tells you that some of the other ships in the flotilla have been damaged by the debris from the warship, and, pretty please, would you be a dear and fly that prisoner transport ship up here to evacuate the survivors down to the planet surface? Oh, and just ignore the fact that the same voice told you an hour or so ago that the planet couldn't possibly have and working bots, after all these years. And threatened you with all kinds of dire consequence if you didn't do as you were told.

Ok, so another large level full of interesting twists and turns follows... But at a certain point you find something extraordinary! A group of humans, living in village built with random pieces of ships and caves! How could this be? They explain that some of the oldest were escapees from the prison and that the planet energy allowed them to live for over three hundred years. They offer to help you find your way back to the transporter, and show you how to activate it. You get to the ship get on it, and a bot flies it back to the flotilla. Level ends with a view of the transport flying up into the sky.

Goal complete: Rescue survivors.

Level five: You are in a meeting with some generals, and the one tells you that because of your knowledge of Szhericon, you are requested to investigate who might have been responsible for the building of the beam weapon, which was directed at the planet Earth, and the warship just happened to be in the path as it was activated. The general, of course, has his own theory, and wants you to check out a certain planet. He tells you to report to hanger bay ONE, where transport to the certain planet awaits. On the way to hanger bay ONE, another general waylays you and explains the the first general is off his rocker, and you are to report to hanger bay TWO, to go to another planet. This plan, he assures you, has been approved of by the Secretary of Defense, no less! So, off you go! On your way, you get waylaid by yet another general, who, of course has his own idea of where you should go, report to hanger bay THREE, please.

So on your way, choose bay ONE, TWO or THREE, each will take you to a different 'secret level', but, as I haven't gotten past this point, I'm not sure what happens next. The general idea was that you could solve the mystery and find out who built the beam by seeing clues in level three and four and in either of the secret levels. Then some more levels, with more clues, and at some point you choose what planet to go to to fight the 'boss' that created the beam.


Level one was mostly complete, but needed re-texturing.

Level two had some modeling done, maybe half or so, but no scripting.

Level three was mostly complete, but I had run into problems with D3's limits as to the number of doors and rooms. So in reducing doors and rooms, broke some of the scripting. And some problems with scripting an elevator which should have moved the player ship up with it but could not get that to work. Also need to do the cut-scene of GB shooting up MD

Level four was mostly complete. 

Level five had a sorta proof of concept completed, that was as far as I got.

And by 'mostly complete', I mean, no voice acting completed, no custom sound effects done, no lighting completed except some on 'test' settings.

I had, some years ago, released a very short level IIRC called SampleZ, which was a short segment from level four. If anyone still has that, please post it up! It might be the only remnant left of many, many hours of work. 

[Hunter]

I built this level (or at least 50-70% of the shell) in 2008. These are just the rooms, the connections and tunnels are separate pieces:











































The rest remains unfinished, and nothing is textured.

It was inspired largely by Deadspace but it was intended to be a classic DESCENT-style level (think red hulks and drillers in the shadows). Custom robots were planned, I even have an entire archive of sound effects specifically for this level including all sorts of ambiences, effects and bot screams. I stopped working on it in 2011, but haven't forgotten about the general idea. Overall I wasn't too happy with the linear layout I had gone with, so I dumped this design entirely. As time passed it just become another thing on the shelf.  Maybe I'll come back around to a similar idea again once I get Silent Fury (Part 1) done™

The story wasn't anything fancy, you played the role of a contractor investigating a deep space facility located in a base that was partially underwater. It was going to be tied into the Hyperspace universe (think the infested drone base in Basewars) but I'd probably have created a new lore instead, or connected it to Descent somehow.

[Scyphi]

Wow, that sounded like a very ambitious project WillyP. I spent most of your description wondering if what you were describing was even possible to do in D3. 

It actually reminds me of another defunct idea of mine for D2, WAAAAAAY older than everything else I've mentioned thus far. I remember had been experimenting with a Descent room generator thingy (I forget it's exact name) that could auto generate shapes like spherical rooms, etc. One of the shapes it'd do was a helix, the length depending on how many cubes you inputted into it using, and I thought that was pretty cool, and I decided I wanted to use that for something, and after some thinking, though that if I overlayed the D2 secret portal texture over some other scrolling texture (say flowing water) for the interior of this thing, I could make a sort of wormhole-like effect that "flowed" with the player's movements through it. I then devised plans for a brief D2 level set where the player finds this helix-shaped wormhole (referred to as a "quantum helix") that drops the player off in distant space where it has to fight through one or two infected mine-like places before finding an alien spaceship that, upon infiltrating, finds can artificially create the wormhole and use that to stage a return trip back home.Very story-driven and sort of a D2 mix of Entropy II and D3's Alien Territory in feel.

I got as far as building a proof-of-concept of the "quantum helix" as I had described it above, but was underwhelmed with the results and decided, nah, I didn't have enough interest to continue pursuing the idea.

I might still have some physical notes on this idea lying around somewhere...maybe I can see if I can dig them up.

Hunter, I can definitely see your trademark Basewars-like style of architecture in those rooms. They look nice, and I like the sound of the idea, but I agree, better to save it for a possible future project after finishing others first.

[-<WillyP>-]

All possible in D3, though I never got the elevator working. The concept is that the player would have to enter the elevator to go up, but the elevator passed through infested areas of the mine, so bots would randomly shoot at the player from any of the four sides. The player should have been free to move within the confines of the elevator cage, but move upwards at a fixed rate, pushed by the floor of the elevator. Atan hinted to me that it could be done but decided to quit Descent before revealing how.

[Kaiaatzl]

It actually reminds me of another defunct idea of mine for D2, WAAAAAAY older than everything else I've mentioned thus far. I remember had been experimenting with a Descent room generator thingy (I forget it's exact name) that could auto generate shapes like spherical rooms, etc. One of the shapes it'd do was a helix, the length depending on how many cubes you inputted into it using, and I thought that was pretty cool, and I decided I wanted to use that for something, and after some thinking, though that if I overlayed the D2 secret portal texture over some other scrolling texture (say flowing water) for the interior of this thing, I could make a sort of wormhole-like effect that "flowed" with the player's movements through it. I then devised plans for a brief D2 level set where the player finds this helix-shaped wormhole (referred to as a "quantum helix") that drops the player off in distant space where it has to fight through one or two infected mine-like places before finding an alien spaceship that, upon infiltrating, finds can artificially create the wormhole and use that to stage a return trip back home.Very story-driven and sort of a D2 mix of Entropy II and D3's Alien Territory in feel.

Sounds like Sublevel Zero a bit.  As much as it had a plot anyway.
This is kinda why I decided to work on smaller maps for Xfing's project -- a D2-size map is one I can finish before I lose interest and he, unlike me, seems to have the ability to actually keep the project going till it's done.

[Scyphi]

I'll take your word for it, seeing I still haven't played Sublevel Zero as of yet...to honest I just don't have enough interest in it, and it's kinda gotten overshadowed by certain other upcoming 360 degree games...

Anyway, a good rule of thumb I've found to keep in mind with any sort of project is that you should always be certain it's a project you're actually going to be willing and/or able to see through to the end...if not, then it's either not that important...or more likely too big for you to try and take on. I've learned this the hard way...brings back lackluster memories of a certain Project Pavilion project I was involved in once...but the less said about that, the better.

All this take about former projects has made me wish I had more spare time so I could dedicate to tackling such a project...I've still got plenty of ideas I'd love to see carried out to completion, but reality keeps standing in the way...darn you, reality...

[Hunter]

Check my other thread for updates on a project I WILL be finishing soon

[Scyphi]

Oh yes, I've been keeping tabs on that thread Hunter, it all still looks very good and I can't wait to play it. The only reason I haven't said as such over on that thread is because I realized I had already said basically that repeatedly before in the thread and I thought it wasn't necessary for me to repeat it yet again just yet.

I have another in-depth axed project I want to share, but not the time to get into the depth I'd desire right now, so instead here are some ideas for multiplayer levels I never got around to:

Back when D2X-XL was first showing off it could do in-game teleporters now, I had thought about doing a level that had a central "hub" of four (or more) teleporters, with each one leading to a different terrain environment, like a water environment, lava environment, ice environment...each serving as little pocket arenas for players to chase each other into and combat. Always liked the idea, but never got around to actually sitting down and starting work on it. I also had concerns that such a level may not perform well in a network game, but seeing I never got started on it, I never got far enough to find out if it was an unfounded fear or not...it probably wasn't, but you never know.

For another D2 multiplayer level, there was this small toy top that had been bouncing around the house, one of those cheap plastic ones like what you'd get from your dentist as a kid when you're a good patient or some such, and it had this pattern of interlocking diamond shapes on top of a solid navy blue background. While fiddling with the thing in my fingers one day, I got to looking at this design and realized that, if I assumed that the background was empty space between the shapes, it looked like a sort of circular maze of shapes, and I thought that could be a fun compact sort of place to have a combative fight in and realized that maybe it could be a Descent anarchy level. After thinking about how I would need the cubes to all fit together, I realized I could definitely build this, and thought about how I would go about doing it if I did. Naturally, nothing has ever happened to carry out those plans beyond that...but I still have the top on hand so I can refer to design should that ever change.

[Hunter]

Back when D2X-XL was first showing off it could do in-game teleporters now, I had thought about doing a level that had a central "hub" of four (or more) teleporters, with each one leading to a different terrain environment, like a water environment, lava environment, ice environment...each serving as little pocket arenas for players to chase each other into and combat. Always liked the idea, but never got around to actually sitting down and starting work on it. I also had concerns that such a level may not perform well in a network game, but seeing I never got started on it, I never got far enough to find out if it was an unfounded fear or not...it probably wasn't, but you never know.

This concept reminds me of that D3 level 'Two Worlds' by Schplurg and Starkiller. It's a pretty easy thing to implement in either games, it's just a matter of building it

Oh yes, I've been keeping tabs on that thread Hunter

Great! Because I will need at least ONE beta tester. And I'm gonna need to find some voice actors! Each mission has like 50 lines.

[Scyphi]

'Two Worlds' didn't sound familiar, so I went and downloaded a copy to poke around in the other day. Basically the same idea as what I was describing all right, though my version would've featured more outdoor-y areas to teleport to and from. Oh well.

As for beta testing, I'd be more than happy to give that a shot when the time comes Hunter, but then again, I usually am. Heck, I think I've still got a copy of Basewars's beta lying around somewhere... 

I also own a decent microphone now, so I could give a shot at voice-acting though...something I've wanted to try for awhile now, but I don't know how good I would be at it...guess we'll see.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand...some of the old-timers from back in the PD.com days might remember me announcing that I was working on this now-all-but-defunct project:



So there was a time when I did seriously try my hand at building D3 levels, and began by learning D3Edit with the well-known "The Level" tutorial that was popular for first-time D3Edit users to refer to. Feeling like I was actually getting somewhere once I was most of the way through the tutorial and deciding that, with a little tweaking, I could turn that tutorial level I had built into a full-on multiplayer level for anarchy, team anarchy, CTF, and maybe Monsterball (though in retrospect I think it'd be too big for that), and began to try and expand the level with that final goal in mind. I got farther than a lot of past attempts at level building, especially D3 levels, and I got to thinking that maybe "The Level" would be the one I finally finish and release to the public, and started teasing its existence on PD.com. As I recall, I got some optimistic feedback from users looking at what I had posted, and that spurred me on...







...for awhile.

Eventually a combination lack of time, the arising of various bugs in the level, and eventually a declining interest led to me stopping, but what probably spelt the end the most was the fact I just got fed up with D3Edit after awhile. I mean, I get it was pretty capable for a level editor in it's day (despite its bugs) but, darn it, the thing just feels unwieldy as all heck to me. And it's not that I can't wrap my head around how it works. That I get just fine, it's the program itself. It's UI doesn't feel very intuitive, and it constantly felt like the program was fighting back against me for every neat idea I had and tried to create with it. It finally got to the point that I just couldn't be bothered anymore.


I don't even remember why I took this screenshot it's been so long, but I can see from the rear view I did it while playtesting this level.

When Atan came along and made some tweaks to D3Edit, including the ability to import geometry made in Blender, a program I liked a heck of a lot better than D3Edit and happened to have a copy at the time, directly into D3Edit, I revisited the project briefly to make various tweaks to the level, fixing some of those bugs that had been stopping me before, as well as making various decorative changes throughout the level itself (so much so nearly all of these screenshots I've posted are mildly out of date)...but eventually I got too fed up with D3Edit again and stopped working on it once more.

I still have the file, and every now and then I think I should just go in and finish the darn thing (I believe all it needed at this point was some final bug-tweaking, some powerups, and maybe a few more player starts otherwise it was already playable), but the thought of working with D3Edit is largely what keeps stopping me. At this point, quite likely the only thing that'll get me to finish it at this point is if somebody finally gets around to either giving D3Edit a serious overhaul or building an all-new D3 level editor from scratch that I can live with better...neither of which I think likely at this point, especially seeing we the public still don't have access to the D3 source code.

So yeah. Totally blaming D3Edit for the failure of this particular project. 

[Hunter]

That level reminds me of some of my earlier unreleased works. Better, even.

D3EDIT sure is a pain to use. Somewhere along the way though I just got used to it. Even now, after years and years of not doing anything in D3EDIT, I can still fairly quickly whip up a half decent model or room within an hour or two. I guess it's like riding a bike, once you've got the know how, it never goes away. I just wish I had more time to relax and whip up stuff, without worrying that I might be better spending my time making money.

[Scyphi]

I admit I am rather envious of the fact that you have the ability to be more...persevering...with the darn program than I do. 

If I were to ever resume work on that level though, there's a lot of things I've decided I'd want to change though. That path that goes down and under the level I'd cut out entirely, for instance. Assuming I could figure out the scripting to pull it off (never got very far learning scripting in D3Edit due to my lack of patience for it), I'd like to replace it with a teleporter-based kind of puzzle so to keep things interesting. I'd also want to redo that whole big green middle room to be more wide than tall, and I'd shorten the hallways interconnecting it as much as I could, because otherwise the level feels a little too big, and it takes just a little too long to get from one side to the other...refining things largely in order to make it play better as the multiplayer level it was intended to be.

While I'm daydreaming, I'd also wouldn't mind going back and redoing the geometry for some of the more decorative elements I added after the fact...