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DaveJ's Christmas Feel-Good Message (Dec 21, 2005)

It's almost Christmas, and since it's hard to escape it, I suppose there's little option left than to embrace the season of good will, merriness, happiness, joy and other fluff. This post will be no exception.

You see, throughout my entire 'career' I've made maps that have been failures. Whilst others have been great successes. There's a split though - roughly 80% of stuff will be bad, and 20% will be good (20% of good maps will be great and 20% of great maps will be astounding). But whether one person or one million people play a map, its popularity changes nothing. It is still a map you made.

That's an important thing to remember. The amazing thing about level design is that we can go from scratch to having an entire world sitting in front of us in less time than it would take to cook our dinner. We can go from absolutely nothing to something incredible, something that is unique to us and us alone; something no one else would have ever created the way we would have done. We may not be the best designer in the world, but everyone is unique and everyone gets better the more they do it.

Ultimately that's what makes level design so much fun for me. It lets me create something that I can be proud of, be it terrific or terrible. It lets me learn from every mistake. It lets me improve as I strive to create something better. It's the same for everyone and every map. Even if it's dull, bland or ugly, it's something you will do anything to nurture into something better.

Look at that map you're working on. It might not be the best in the world... or maybe it is... but either way, be proud that you created it and that it and you will only get better.

(Aww. Next year I'll have some more useful stuff to say! Until then, Merry Christmas folks.)

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user comments

Atrocity at 16:23 on Dec 21, 2005

Made me feel good :) Merry Christmas Dave and thanks for all of your useful rants I've learned a lot.

reaper47 at 20:16 on Dec 21, 2005

"The amazing thing about level design is that we can go from scratch to having an entire world sitting in front of us in less time than it would take to cook our dinner"

You're cooking slow, Dave. Or mapping really fast... :D

I've read the complete blog now and it's very inspiring. I think there are few people that think so much about level design, love it so much. Thanks for bringing us in the right mood!

gayvid bumstone at 22:21 on Dec 21, 2005

I dont make maps.
What you've said is an irrelevance to me

Bromfitsen at 00:06 on Dec 22, 2005

A christmas biscuit for you dave, and one for you gayvid for making that fantastic point.

Merry christmas.

Dylan Johnston at 11:43 on Dec 22, 2005

Your post is quite enspiring, i make maps for fun all the time some are good some are bad but i'm pretty proud of all of them.

smeerkat at 15:48 on Dec 22, 2005

Happy Holidays, everyone!

mikey at 21:07 on Dec 22, 2005

merry christmas dave :]

zorius at 09:22 on Dec 23, 2005

I make maps. And it felt very good for me reading these lines. It gives me power to cotinue on, althought I'm even not a good mapper, just I want to be one.
But I'm really proud of my maps, I love to walk on them, and love to see paople download it and play it!

Addicted to Morphine at 22:34 on Dec 23, 2005

Happy Holidays to all the johnstoblog lurkers like me!

Extreme_One at 14:41 on Dec 24, 2005

I've really enjoyed reading your blog over the last few months Dave.

Keep up with the good work.

Merry Christmas to you and to everyone else reading.

An Ominous Person (or am I anonymous?) at 17:39 on Dec 24, 2005

Merry Christmas Eve everyone

Those are really inspiring words dave, they make me want to finish my map, bad as it is.

(The first person that comes whining that that's discrimination to their religion, race, or morals, I whack 'em over the head for ruining a happy occasion)

vartaxe at 02:03 on Dec 26, 2005

http://www.goldeneyesource.com

the greatest mod ever is out

pyropowered at 23:01 on Dec 26, 2005

Very huge disappointment...

tomvendetta at 13:17 on Jan 2, 2006

I just read your digg.com stuff. I doubt that you got many google adsense clicks. I clicked about 8 of them now ;)

peter hodson at 18:06 on Jan 5, 2006

hey david i will cut to the chase im soon to make a paintball site (within the next three years)
and my lil bro who plays cs every day after uni suggested i make a paintball version of dust if i am to do this then i need
A your permission and
B yor help please contact me soon