Introduction + World of Warcraft (WoW) Player Vs Player (PvP) 1v1 Arena Level Design Idea

Introduction

First year Games Design student wanting to focus mainly on level design. I have created a YouTube channel to showcase all the different blockout levels I will be creating in Unreal Engine 4. I will mainly be replicating existing levels in games and also creating my own levels too. I will be documenting every project I do here on blogger, the videos on YouTube are for reference so viewers have more of a visual in-sight into what I create.

I am a complete beginner, so any tips / tricks are welcome! If there's anything I'm doing wrong or there's a more efficient way in doing things, please don't hesitate in commenting on my videos.

Also if there's a level you would like me to design, please comment it on one of my videos & I will research into it and try my best to re-create it! (As I would like to challenge myself by making levels for games I've never played before).

My main outcome from this is to see my progression as a level designer grow.

World of Warcraft (WoW) Player Vs Player (PvP) 1v1 Arena Level Design Idea

Throughout the Christmas holidays I have been playing a lot of "Player Vs Player" (PvP) in the game "World of Warcraft" (WoW) which is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (mmorpg). Currently in the game they have game modes and maps for: 2v2s, 3v3s, 10v10s and 40v40s. However, they have no maps or game modes specifically for 1v1s. I did some research and found out a lot of people would like this to be featured in the game. With that being said, I decided to create a level design based on a 1v1 arena which I think would suit WoW. The 2v2 & 3v3 maps are very basic and standard, so I wanted to stick to that as it suits the game. I know there are duels in the game where you can have a 1v1 with someone if you request to duel them. However, I think it would be a lot more fun if there was a system allowing players to queue up and fight someone in an open arena and also have a rated version of it. (This is WoW's ranked system, the higher the rating you are the better rewards you get within that season).

I didn't want to add any platforms that move up and stay above ground level, as it would be too overpowered for ranged damage dealers and unfair on melee damage dealers. At the start of the arena, there is a very big pillar which is in the middle of the arena that is blocking each other's view; as this would be more of an advantage for ranged damage dealers if the pillar wasn't there. I've also added two rectangular pillars on each corner of the room for players to be able to hide and kite round the room. Other than that, it's just a small standard square room which is easy to locate round when battling your opponent. 

Please see all images below and a small footage clip on my YouTube channel here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uviWwudQILA

These are my sketch drafts before opening up Unreal Engine 4. I prefer to sketch any ideas out on the Whiteboard program with my Wacom tablet as it helps me visually see what I'm trying to achieve. Any errors or changes I want to make, I can easily do which helps out a lot.

Top down view of map

Spawn point

Opposition's spawn point

Middle

Two shots behind pillars

Environment

Originally I thought about having the environment to be either race or class specific. For example, a mage arena with lots of different potions scattered round the arena in an enclosed tower. However, as the Shadowlands expansion is still fairly new at this point I wanted to base my 1v1 around the zone "Maldraxxus". In this zone the lore is based on people constantly fighting so I thought this would suit the arena dramatically. I've taken some in-game screenshots of what I would like it to look like. (See below)

I thought it would be a good idea if the pillars had people inside them such as orcs and undead chanting and cheering you on. This would trigger whenever someone is close to dying and the pillars could be a type of stand (such as the podracing scene in stars wars - see below)

I know this is a very basic and simple design, so that's why I decided to do it as my first. I have prepared a few different projects I would like to do as well. I want to try and do each project in a certain amount of time so I'm not spending too much time on each one and give myself a deadline to challenge my abilities. Overall, this took me less than an hour to do. For my next project I'm going to re-create the map "Shipment" from the original "Call of Duty Morden Warfare" game. Again, I'm going for another simple one, but I want to ease into this and gradually grow.