Reconsider solid ceiling in view of addition of shimmier? [DISCUSSION]

[Proxima]

The ceiling acts like a steel wall in all other cases. Builders hit their head, Lemmings turn if they run against it. So it would only be logical if the shimmier grabs onto it. Not doing so would be a weird special rule.

Well, I think it is time we reconsidered the deadly ceiling. Nepster decided to cull radiation and slowfreeze in spite of damage to existing content, because it resulted in a simpler and more consistent game.

[Proxima]

This was discussed on multiplay occasions in the past with the final result ending here: http://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=2537.0
Even with a high majority in favor of this.

In favour: namida, IchoTolot, Gronkling, Minim, Dullstar
Against: Nepster, mobius, Simon, Proxima

That's your idea of a clear majority?

[IchoTolot]

1.) It would still be a majority.

2.) Where did you pull out Nepster's clear against voice?

Nepster after the content breaking analysis and last post: "I could live with a solid ceiling as well. Solid ceilings tend to create far less backroutes than solid edges, so turning deadly ceilings solid will not break many levels."

2 of the other against voices don't have content to maintain as well and wouldn't face hours of level checking and fixing and therefore no consequences. (Simon and you)

[Proxima]

"I could live with" means "I would prefer not". If you want to discount that for not being "clear", then you should discount Gronkling and Minim's votes in favour as well. But this kind of tallying is pointless; if you want to see whether there's a majority or not, hold a poll of the current forum members. Several of the currently active content producers didn't contribute to the old discussion at all. My point was just to refute your claim that the discussion was closed because of a "high majority".

I accept that as I don't have a NeoLemmix pack yet, I'm not directly affected if we decide to make this change. On the other hand, leaving bugs and inconsistencies in the mechanics because we don't want to mess with old content does affect any content I make in the future, and it affects all new players and creators.

[IchoTolot]

"I could live with" means "I would prefer not". If you want to discount that for not being "clear", then you should discount Gronkling and Minim's votes in favour as well. But this kind of tallying is pointless; if you want to see whether there's a majority or not, hold a poll of the current forum members. Several of the currently active content producers didn't contribute to the old discussion at all. My point was just to refute your claim that the discussion was closed because of a "high majority".

I accept that as I don't have a NeoLemmix pack yet, I'm not directly affected if we decide to make this change. On the other hand, leaving bugs and inconsistencies in the mechanics because we don't want to mess with old content does affect any content I make in the future, and it affects all new players and creators.

That's why it was discussed multiple times and finally a decision was made to end it. If we pull out old discussions with final descisions again and again we never will find stability!

[kieranmillar]

I think being able to shimmy along the top level border would look and feel absurd to me in the same way climbing up a solid side border would be absurd, because there is no terrain there. If you want to be able to shimmy on the top of the level, just put some terrain there.

I never viewed the top of the level as steel, but like one of the force walls from Neolemmix, but pointing downwards. And you can't climb up those walls, so you shouldn't be able to shimmy along the ceiling. But my expectation had always been that all 4 sides were deadly, so the ceiling being different in this case has always felt a bit odd to me, but I guess in the original lemmings it barely ever mattered.

[Proxima]

That's why it was discussed multiple times and finally a decision was made to end it. If we pull out old discussions with final descisions again and again we never will find stability!

Your definition of "multiple" is as shaky as your definition of "majority". And I'm not proposing to pull out multiple old discussions, just this one, precisely because it was closed prematurely by fiat of namida when the discussion had no clear consensus and there was a lot still to be said. In particular, namida decided about the sides and top together, so there was never any room for anyone to say "Well, now that we've decided about the sides, the top should be deadly too, for consistency". I can't help feeling that at least some of the participants would have agreed with that.

[IchoTolot]

That's why it was discussed multiple times and finally a decision was made to end it. If we pull out old discussions with final descisions again and again we never will find stability!

Your definition of "multiple" is as shaky as your definition of "majority". And I'm not proposing to pull out multiple old discussions, just this one, precisely because it was closed prematurely by fiat of namida when the discussion had no clear consensus and there was a lot still to be said. In particular, namida decided about the sides and top together, so there was never any room for anyone to say "Well, now that we've decided about the sides, the top should be deadly too, for consistency". I can't help feeling that at least some of the participants would have agreed with that.

This was far from prematurely. Sry but this was long drawn out.

[Proxima]

Two pages of discussion over two days. No further discussion after the decision to have deadly sides.

[IchoTolot]

Two pages of discussion over two days. No further discussion after the decision to have deadly sides.

With all the prequels in IRC and spread out over other topics.

[Proxima]

Then I have to ask: Why was this discussion spread out so much? That stopped people who wanted to contribute from having an accurate grasp of what had already been said. And given that the discussion was so badly handled, why is it so unthinkable to suggest we have a proper discussion so that at least we can have some closure?

[IchoTolot]

Then I have to ask: Why was this discussion spread out so much? That stopped people who wanted to contribute from having an accurate grasp of what had already been said. And given that the discussion was so badly handled, why is it so unthinkable to suggest we have a proper discussion so that at least we can have some closure?

He had a proper discussion. We had a closure.

After 1,5 years breaking up standard physics again that would have significant impacts even at that time would burn down everything today.

[Proxima]

Discussion that's hidden from people who have an interest in participating is not proper discussion and should not be treated as binding.

And I do think you are overreacting; yes, it would take some work to fix levels affected by this, but only those levels where it's possible to interact with the ceiling, which is probably a small fraction of NeoLemmix content.

[Colorful Arty]

I think being able to shimmy along the top level border would look and feel absurd to me in the same way climbing up a solid side border would be absurd, because there is no terrain there. If you want to be able to shimmy on the top of the level, just put some terrain there.

This right here. While it is important to be consistent, it's just as important to be intuitive and to make sense. It really makes no sense for Lemmings to be able to shimmy across the top border of the level, and since the top border currently does not kill lemmings, it should not kill the shimmier if he jumps into it. Rather, since the top border acts like a steel wall, the shimmier should hit his head on the border and fall right back down to the ground.

[Dullstar]

When I played through Lemmings 2, I found the deadly ceiling to be one of the most annoying aspects of that game (granted, the flinging mechanics made that much worse than it would be in NeoLemmix, but still). Considering that the ceiling's behavior doesn't usually result in backroutes, the ability to put builders close the ceiling without having them die randomly because they went slightly too high is rather nice - besides, it's logical that lemmings, if allowed to go offscreen towards the top, would eventually fall back into the level area due to gravity, which isn't the case with the bottom (because you can think of it as a bottomless pit) and the sides (where there's no particular reason why the lemmings should EVER turn around). It also has the convenience thing of not having to babysit climbers as much - and if the level designer really wants to fry rogue climbers it's easy to use a flame trap for that, especially with style mixing.

It is also logical that the top edge of the level represents sky. You cannot hold onto the sky, therefore shimmiers should not be able to attach to it. To be honest, I don't think it's even all that inconsistent to disallow the shimmier from using the ceilng, because while we sometimes consider the ceiling to be technically equivalent to a mass of steel just offscreen, there's no particular reason it needs to literally behave like a mass of steel at the top of the screen. The main reason I think it makes sense to have lemmings hit their heads on the ceiling is because you have to set an arbitrary "you can't build here" cutoff SOMEWHERE to prevent the lemmings from walking on top of the level boundary - and having them hit their heads certainly makes a lot more sense than them randomly dying because they wandered 1 pixel too high.

Consider a level, one screen large, with the sides and ceiling accessible to lemmings. Now picture a builder that, if allowed to continue building as long as possible, reaches the point where it would die with deadly ceilings. Now, let's expand the level, repeating the terrain on the edges of the level infinitely. Lemmings traveling to the left and right would continue travelling left and right forever (assume the player lacks a skill to turn them around with), whereas the builder, building in the same position as before, will fall back down after passing the former ceiling. This is a compelling reason why it makes sense for the sides to be deadly, but not the ceiling.

To summarize, I am strongly against deadly ceilings, and against shimmiers attaching to the sky.