Crater Summary:

Having built some multiplayer maps in the past, one of my most common critiques had been that players did not know where they were in relation to the rest of the map.  This is because I tended to, early in my career, design maps that were fairly symmetrical.  While a map being symmetrical is not a negative when it comes to certain game modes, such as capture the flag, in the case of deathmatch maps it can confuse and frustrate players because they do not know what to do and where to go.  Deathmatch maps, need to do more than just be a cool map that players find visually awesome.  A good map provides players information, even if the player does not consciously recognize it, so the player can make tactical decisions depending on their location and the current state of the game.  The difference between a good and bad map is when the player can go, "Oh, I'm spawned here.  I could go for the X in the next room, or Y in the other room... I'll grab one of those before heading out," as opposed to, "Alright I died.  Let's try this again."  

While Crater may have explore certain ideas that were new to me or outside my comfort zone, I also kept true to many proven design tactics that I had seen both in practice and in my own play.  One such example is the separation of weapon and ammunition.  If you place down a powerful weapon right next to a supply of its ammunition, there is little reason for a player to move from that position.  They will happily sit and camp, killing all in their path so they can keep using the powerful weapon without fear of effective reprisal.  With this in mind, I purposefully placed certain weapons away from where they would be most effective and/or away from a hefty stock of ammunition.  One example of this is the grenade launcher.  While arguably not the most powerful weapon, when you are able to rain death from above, it can become almost as effective as the flak cannon or rocket launcher.  To mitigate this, I separated the grenade launcher from its ammunition and forced players to journey across the map to get more.  And while I placed the spawn for the grenade launcher in a decent spot to lob shots from, it is far from ideal and forces players to step into various lanes of fire, opening themselves to being flanked before they really begin to rake in the kills.

With this in mind, I decided to make a map that was asymmetrical but still felt like an actual place that humans used before it was turned into a deathmatch arena.  This lead to a map that has visually distinct rooms, each with their own inferred purpose.  After sketching out the map, and building out some of the areas, I created a small story for the level so it could inform my design decisions.  I began to see the map as a recently abandoned facility in the middle of an active volcano.  Here the researchers and science team performed various experiments and gathered energy for later use.  This story helped to influence the design of the various rooms in the facility such as my personal favorite the Arboretum, which you can see in the picture on the left.  In this room, the players can battle through the remnants of the science team's plant related experiments, hiding behind planters of ferns and bushes, and firing through the central bundle of trees.  While this room and others were fun to design, they serve the important purpose of providing players the necessary landmarks needed  to make decisions and build a personal map of the level.  

Reactor Summary:

Another map that I built around the same time as Crater was Reactor, so named for the large imposing reactor in one of the level's three main rooms.  Reactor is a smaller level when compared to Crater, but still operates under many of the same ideals.  Distinct, and interesting rooms provide players information about where they are, where the other players might be, and what weapons are within easy reach.  One unique aspect of this map is the use of sliding doors.  One maps from the original Quake played with the idea of using sliding doors to block off a central room which contained some of the more powerful weapons and pick ups.  However, players knew when someone was heading for these items because when the player went through the doors, there was a loud moving and closing sound.  This informed the other players as to their potential prey's location, an idea taken even further if players went through multiple doors, allowing others to effectively track their opponents' movements.  While this level does play with that idea, it also provides players a simple, easy to understand map with some solid gameplay.