Future plans

I feel as though I am at a crossroads with how I should be spending my free time. I want to complete a team fortress 2 level, however I feel my current attempt in my payload race map hasn't quite worked out as planned. Furthermore I've had a common mappers advice repeating constantly in the back of my head to "never release your first map." While I admit this technically isn't my first foray into level design. I have 1 level under my belt for Unreal Tournament 2004, 1 for Unreal Tournament 3, and a few combat multiplayer scenarios for Lockon: Modern Air Combat. This is however my first quality attempt in the source engine, which powers TF2. With regard to powerplay, I don't feel like I should totally abandon it however. I've put a ton of time into creating the behind the scenes logic, designing, and redesigning the construction of the level. My current line of thinking is to put it on hold for a while. Giving my mind a nice rest from thinking constantly about it and to slowly get back in the groove of finishing it. Perhaps a break will give me a fresh perspective and allow me to look at it or approach it differently.

So what will I do? On one hand I still want to design and finish a level, on the other I could just focus my attention toward other things. Perhaps practice my modeling skills, maybe import some objects into tf2, or shift to something completely unrelated to tf2. While deciding on what to map I drew up several different possible ideas. With the inclusion of King of the Hill mode to TF2 I could create a simple and small map to fit that gamemode relativity quickly. After-all a KOTH map is just a single stage with a single control point.

I'll probably make my final decision in a few weeks time, as I am currently creating an official portfolio web site and polishing my demo reel. My computer already spent 5 hours last night and today re-rendering my senior project for inclusion into the demo reel.