Billy Zelsnack Now that's a name I haven't thought about for a long time. The gamer in me wishes Rebel Boat Rocker had worked out because their game had some p

Billy Zelsnack Now that's a name I haven't thought about for a long time. The gamer in me wishes Rebel Boat Rocker had worked out because their game had some promise. I only talked with Billy a couple of times and he seemed a good guy. I met John Romero once in the Ion Storm tower, I would agree with the interview as he seemed a nice guy. Although there's a bit of a rep there. Shame Ion Storm was such a mess. Met Jay Wilbur as well. Seems I've met quite a number of people in the industry during that time, wish I had capitalized on that a bit better. Never did meet Carmack or Sweeney, that would have been nice to add to the collection. Personally, I actually preferred Half-Life level development for a long while simply because the output was so nice. It was all about the lighting for me. Once the level building tools evolved a bit from the first crude Quake1 tools, dealing with them wasn't as bad as people seem to remember. It was those tools that instilled in me that the concept of making things more efficient and to look for more efficiency was well worth the effort. Eventually a common thing for Unreal, probably UT, level development was to start with one large empty space and then fill it as necessary. As I remember it anyway. Especially with the usage of meshes and instances, it was simply more efficient. My favorite editor was always DromEd for the Dark Engine used for Thief. The concept of designing levels with real-world units, that lighting had serious gameplay implications, and having to consider sound throughout the level was a nice change of pace.