This is more about brand recognition that anything else imo.

If you see 2 level and one was called Bob's level and the other was called Mario remake, chances are, more poeple will click on the later because its something they recognise.

I'm with the dude who likes Magna Carta. Besides it is always easier to start with a concept and then move on from there. There's also a certain amount of awesome that comes with figuring out how to make a level work. Like the Gradius level, it wasn't inventive in it's concept, but the implementation was very creative.

I expected this since the start of the beta...

Can anyone say they didn't see this coming?

I was optimistic, but I guess not surprised. Any online game I've played with good editting tools ends up the same way. I remember playing starcraft years and years ago, and even a couple years after the game was released people were just making and playing Dragon Ball Z RPGs, and Neon Genesis Tower defense.

lol, it was my first level. I had no idea what the hell I was doing. The stage I've been working on entitled "DeathKillers Part 1: The Deadening" should be alot more playable when it's finished. You can call it crap too if you want (you probably will, you seem snarky), but at least I'll have thought of it and the characters, monsters, scenario, ect myself.

The point is people aren't thinking of their own "dreams and imagination" as the into to the game would have you do. They are thinking of Kojima's imagination, and Miyamoto's imagination, ect ect. All of the thousands of people and so few of them actually have their own adventures?

Alright, here is a great example of an original concept. Go find a stage called "Zero G wheel".

It's a maze inside a big wheel. The catch? The wheel rockets straight up into the air, slowly rotating and then falls straight down against a blank background, and then repeats. Creating the sense of zero gravity, followed by everything (bubbles, items ect) crashing to the ground, and then floating back up again. It's a really great idea and is cool to see. Kind of hard to get through though.

I really liked that LittleBigPenis level that I saw on YouTube. Unfortunately, it was removed. It's the one that squirts. That was my favorite and the most original one I've ever seen. Almost looks like the real thing.

BALLBAGS!

It's kind of hard to make great levels with so much technical stuff to consider and so much you can use. I started to just put random stuff in my one level because I had trouble deciding what to use and where to put it exactly. My first level is almost done, but it's going to take some tweaking first. It's Excite Bike. All you do is get on 1 of 2 motocycles, hold down the switch and enjoy the ride. I put a ton of bubbles in it.