I think I've been luring in the shadows ever since the site went up years ago - but I'm breaking through to the community now.
Well - what is there to say -
Most of it is in my profile - I work professionally in the industry with Activision Blizzard at the moment, but nowhere near any design department. I worked for Microsoft Game Studio before that.
As many of us - I love Level Design - but never found the time to really engage in that passion.
As many of us, I also grew up with games, and I've got a lot of plans for my life.
I'll hopefully start some college education soon - but the nice thing about this industry - is that people are judged on what they can do - rather than their educational background.
What else - well - Level Design wise (which I guess is the big thing here at interlopers) - I don't consider myself bad - nor do my friends - but I certainly have a lot to learn - and I'm willing to do just that!
While I usually have great ideas for mods, and usually end up leading teams and writing design documents - rather than getting my hands dirty on Hammer, I'd like to change that.
Most of my previous levels and mods were really ambitious - both in length, complexity and engine strain.
Thus, they ended up failing in one form or another - but I draw positive sides out of that as well.
I'm a very patient man - and could spend years on one level, or scripted sequence.
I love the technical side of it.
![:[]:](./images/smilies/cube.gif "Companion Cube")
Aside from that - I currently only know my way around Hammer.
I've played around with UnrealEd and the editor for Crysis - but in my opinion Hammer is a good basic learning tool - for all things 'Game Design'.
As much as time will allow me, I might release something in the near future, and we'll go on from there.
I'm especially interested in learning about the more advanced features of Level Design (Optimization, working with complex triggers, etc.) - but I don't want to get ahead of myself.
So just know that I'm willing to learn and listen, and would appreciate a helping hand
Perhaps with lots of love from you guys, time and practice - I'll see my skills develop in the coming years.
'And so it begins...'
*bash, bash, bash* 
