Level Design Survey

Not entirely related to Source/HL level design, but interesting for you guys nonetheless, I hope

I am currently doing a big cross community survey on level design. How players, modders, and professionals experience it. Most focus is on FPS level design (aka like for the historical big three: UT/HL/Quake).

Nearly 600 people have participated so far, but I would love to hit the 1000 to get a really accurate picture of it.

1. The survey is for both gamers and level designers/artists, and for amateurs and professionals.

1. Please note that the term 'level designer'is used broadly. 'Level designer', in this survey, is defined as someone who designs and creates large parts of a virtual world. This can include the visuals or the gameplay, or both.

1. The results are for personal use only. This survey is a personal initiative because I would really like to know how gamers, modders, and professionals perceive Level Design. For the community, by the community.

# The results will be announced mid september. I will post them here as soon as they are released!

Survey:

http://www.hourences.com/book/surveyactive.htm

Help me portray an accurate picture of the state of level design! The results will be read by a good number of professionals and modders across the communities.

Thanks!

Hm, it completely messed up my post and inserted html codes, and the edit button doesn't work anymore. Fun, but you all get the idea I guess:)

Yea, I just got through filling out this survey, and it is pretty straight-forward. Most regulars here on SnarkPit should be able to fill it out with no problem and give you some good feedback!

-BTW, I might have to add your books to my collection!

Filled this in the other day, and I'm looking forward to seeing the results myself.

Riven, I'd recommend picking up a copy if you're considering it. I grabbed the first edition of the level design one and felt it was well worth the money. The second edition only looks to improve upon that, and while I'm not quite sure I can bring myself to buy it with already owning the first, I don't deny being tempted Haven't read the game industry one, but I'm sure it's an interesting read if you're thinking of going for a career in it.

I just filled in the survey. Some questions lacked a few options imho: I don't think consoles threaten the modding communities, but increasing game complexity (you might as well create a game of your own) and novely wearing off. And more complex tools do make life easier, but they're often not able to cope with the increasing complexities of games, so ultimately level-design becomes harder (hence the need for multiple people/roles).

I'm waiting for my copy of the level design book - ordered it a few days ago. I'm not doing a lot of level-design these days but I'm sure it'll be useful for level-design in general (2D games for example).

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Create-ivity - a game development blog

Well, I think I'm sold! I read through the about page and the examples and remembered looking at this website a while back! (looking through my old bookmarks confirmed it). I must have bypassed the book section then.

Yea, the book definitely caters exactly to what I'm looking for more of. And it looks like I re-discovered it at a good time to be getting the second edition. I don't know about getting into the industry anytime soon, but I sure as hell would like to hear what other people think of level design theory! I can't wait to read the singleplayer gameplay and audiovisual sections; looks to be promising. Thanks for the heads-up Reno!

This may not be a bad idea for discussion in this very thread, but thinking back to the questions from the survey, particularly the one Captain P is referring to, I'd like to find out why people think one way or another. Sure the stats of the survey will be interesting and educational, but what are people's thoughts behind it?

The question in the survey asks (according to my memory): Do more complex tools for level design make building levels harder or easier?

My opinion>>> I agree with Captain P, but also disagree. Because the tools are more complex, they ultimately make the work of a level designer more complex, and therefore, tougher to master. But what we do get out of more complex tools is more control over what we create. We're no longer faced with the task of individually animating each and every custom scene we make. Instead, we have a tool for creating many custom scenes with unique looks much easier because of new systems that can automate most of the process, but in turn, standards move up. Because standards move up is why level design becomes more complex.

Imagine building a level with just Goldsource (Half-Life 1) quality textures, models and brushes, but using the Source engine to do so. How easy would that be? The difference between Counter-Strike 1.6 and CS: Source for example is apparent. In CS 1.6 you didn't have to worry about HDR, actual physics, and or 3D skyboxes, but in CS:S you do! It's because those features have now become standard and it requires more work to build a nice quality map for CS:S than it did for CS 1.6 back in the day.

So ultimately (I believe), more complex tools/engines require more work to understand and master. The real question is: are more complex tools better?

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Blog: www.playingarchitecture.net
LinkedIn: Eric Lancon
Twitter:@Riven202

Hey Hourences, I just finished the survey, but I was a bit annoyed at this question:

"How do you feel about todays more complex tools?"

and basically the only option was it makes things easier or harder. I think that the newer tools defiantly make things easier and quicker, but the development time required for making properly complete maps is going up, I didn't want to imply that its getting easier and quicker to make maps as a whole.

Still, I answered its making things easier.

Thanks people

Yup Captain P, I could have added that to that question, although I personally think that the current console era (and thus a dying, or at least changing PC market) does has a big impact on modding and I wanted to see what others thought of that. I don't know about the HL community, but the UT3 mod community isn't as big as it should be. I remember that back in 2000 I could easily hit 50 000 downloads with a level, and I managed to surpass 250 000 downloads with a mod I worked on. Nowadays I am lucky if I can even reach 10 000 people. Another example, there are less than 10 mod teams for UT3 at the moment that have somewhat of potential, and we don't even have a map review site anymore (used to have like 10 big and active ones)

And I believe this is even more true for the Quake community AFAIK, and Crysis, even while it has great tools, seems to have a tiny community as well.

And it is of course also because people lose motivation because of the more complex tools, but to me it looks like the falling sales numbers of PC games must have something to do with it.

So what do others think of this?

The complexity question seems to be very controversial. It is also a very complex question and it is very hard to ask a very complex question in just one sentence. Tools did became more complex, but they also have better support nowadays, and they are more userfriendly and WYSIWYG orientated. So, does the better support and more userfriendly tools make it easier for you, even though they are more complex, or the other way around?

Its true of the HL scene as well to be honest mate - the modding scene in general isn't everything that it used to be. In the past there was a large audience for level review sites and there were dozens of active communities centred around level design. At our peak on the Snarkpit we were getting a couple of new maps, a tutorial, and 50 or so forum posts a day. These days we're lucky to see more than one or two forum posts and a single piece of other content. Odds are the posts aren't even level design related. We pretty much just hang around because we've been here a while and kinda like the place. There's not a whole lot in the way of new blood appearing to reinvigorate things.

Its an interesting turn of events, really. I'd say consoles play a big part, not so much because of their increased popularity (they've always been popular, after all), but because they're now a valid platform for FPS games. There were a couple on the PS1 and N64 that were decent, but they didn't really compete against the big PC franchises. Since the Xbox showed that the genre can work on consoles with Halo, consoles have stolen a lot of that market. Not many big shooters come out on PC and without a consoles version as well these days, and for a lot of people the convenience of consoles makes those versions more appealing. I've got to admit that, in most cases, I'm one of those people.

Complexity is no doubt an issue as well, or at least percieved complexity. In the days of HL1 mapping you could follow a basic tutorial, get a box room with a light, and see some degree of similarity between what you'd just created and what you'd seen in the original game. Now you do that and you're really still a million miles away. It's gotta be intimidating to first timers, and that discrepency between what you can build after a couple of tutorials and what else is out there on the engine will doubless drive many people away. In many cases it hasn't really become harder, but in the baby-steps phase it probably looks like there's a damn sight more to learn than it did to us when we were first getting into it.

Another factor, IMO, is that people are spoilt for choice these days. There's so many games competing for your time and attention, so a lot of people probably don't bother spending long enough playing a single game that custom content really enters their mind. If you're only gonna pour 10-20 hours online with a game you'll probably still be finding enjoyment from the retail content. And if you're not really in the market for playing custom content, are you likely to go looking into how to create it? Not only that, but even if you were interested in creating custom content, if you're not spending all that much time on a single game or engine then it might not seem worth the time investment to learn how to create content for it.

Anyway, rambling now, but it is a rather interesting topic of conversation

I will have to get the book as well.. will do the survey soon.. kinda busy at the moment... cleaning up the house and what not. Hey someone has too right. Cleaning for me means rearranging the furniture and changing things up.. and while I am moving stuff around I might as well clean too.

Well Reno.. I enjoy creation, and artistic endevors. So I will do my best to stick around and try my best to add some content. =)

Yeah it can be daunting Reno.. I am having all kinds of issues with what works now and how.. old hammer I could slap a map together rather quickly.. now I have to test this and that, and I dont know what half the crap they have in there now does.. I just figured out what env_sun does.. lol. Maybe this guys book will better explain it so I can make better maps. Not that I will ever be pro at this.. but I enjoy it.

Without meaning to discourage you from buying the book, it won't really help you with anything that specific. The book isn't written with any one engine in mind, but instead talks more about the theory that you can apply to level design in any engine (though primarily first person shooters). Very worth picking up though - there's loads of tutorials and help you can get online about specific engine related issues and features so it's nice to read something that is more general.

Bump, the results are up!

http://www.hourences.com/book/surveyresults.htm

(Dozens of charts below all that text!)

Thanks to all who participated.

There were around a 1000 participants in this survey, of those, 58 percent were level designers or artists. The remaining 42 percent were gamers and developers involved in other aspects of development. Of the 58 percent, 27 percent were professional level designers (152 professionals).

38 Percent of the participants voted for Source as the preferred development platform by the way, which makes it the most popular platform. Unreal comes in second at 31 percent. All others are far behind (Quake only got 12 percent for example).

Very nice work, this should be required reading for all up-and-coming mappers everywhere, if only for a glimpse of the bigger picture.

I found myself in the majority all-around now that I see the results ( except for performance answers, but that is my problem really )

Interesting, 68% of people think that level design is one of the most complex parts of a game. I suppose it is one of the most complex but I would say it is defiantly not the most complex.

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