A message from Flopsy

[Flopsy]

Hello everyone,

I'm in a state right now where I am about to leave this forum for good and I feel like I have nothing to lose by posting this. If the following post is inappropriate then just delete it, I will know where I stand then. I'm trying to be as discreet as possible here.

As you may have noticed, I have gone from being on the IRC a year ago to not even being on the public discord anymore and I am now not even a Global Moderator anymore (which I voluntarily resigned from a few months back).
I feel like an argument I had with an established forum user over a year ago publicly on the IRC has slowly made people have very diminished opinions of me.
Also my recent pack MegSEGAbytes (with Wafflem) has had virtually no reception which leads me to believe that the argument mentionned above has not gone down well with some people.

I also believe this community does not want to embrace packs made entirely of custom content which has lead me to cancel my Gotta Go Fast pack about a month ago even though it is 95% complete because I feel like after what has happened with MegSEGAbytes, no one will want to play Gotta Go Fast. If it's not made with the standard L1, L2 tilesets then people just don't want to know I feel.
I have even worked hard on some more Sonic themed tilesets for GGF but I feel like I don't want to release the pack anymore because people will just download it and never play it, or if they do play it, they don't provide feedback.
SEB Lems got a great reception but I feel that is because that pack was mostly made with established tilesets which the community are used to as a whole.

I am still around on the community, I sometimes post messages on Discord and I tried to get involved in some Multiplayer sessions but I feel like in general whenever I do make the leap and do something public then people just do not like the person I am. I don't know what it is I do but I have been in previous communities before this one (Guitar Hero, Mario Kart, Xbox 360 Achievements to name a few) and the same thing usually happens, someone established usually takes a dislike to me and then as a result other people tend to dislike me. I feel like the argument mentioned above has triggered it in this community.

I am fed up of this happening and I just want to speak up about it because quite frankly I feel I have nothing else to lose at this stage. I'm sorry I have to post this publicly and you can just ignore this or delete this but I just wanted to speak up about something I feel strongly about.
I do really enjoy Lemmings but the last few months have been really tough and it has got to the stage where I do not even want to work on content because it feels like no one is interested in anything that I publish anymore. I really do not want to go through the embarrassment that MegSEGAbytes has been through again.

So yeah, that is what is going on with me, if no replies to this then at least I know where I stand. No names have been mentioned here so I have been discreet.

[IchoTolot]

As this post seems final, I will also make a statement as I feel responsible for this developent:

I don't dislike you. I never did dislike you.

I just stopped testing/playing the content, because my critique and backroutes resulted in me getting angry messages and those resulted in arguments. Of course those arguments made me angry at some points and I called this out as I am a very direct person, but I never disliked you. I dislike some levels and the arguments, but not you as a person. I just wanted arguments to stop and not covering content seemed the easiest solution to me. I also never noticed a general dislike against you from other users, other than 1 argument with Arty at some point.

I love packs that don't rely on the original tilesets. I am a fan of custom tilesets. I just point out where things are unclear or the tileset lacks something, even if that is how it worked in the original and if it were not for my feedback resulting in arguments I would have gladly played the packs.

People in general over the past few years played less packs than before and were more occupied with other stuff. At least this is what it seems to me.

I really liked playing the multiplayer sessions with you and also enjoyed the little rivalry we had in Lix and I am sorry if you felt otherwise.

I also never intended to sound patronising to you. It's just that when I see a member struggle with a puzzle (be it not being able to solve it, or really overcomplicating it resulting in frustraition), I tend to send hints in spoiler-tags and/or a replay to offer optional help.

If you still feel like leaving I will say goodbye. If this somehow changed your mind I will gladly welcome you back with open arms and also offer to cover packs from you again if you can promoise me not getting angry if I backroute half of it or have some different opinions, you always have the last word in your content and are not required to change it to my demands.

I hereby offer you an apology and an offer to come back. If you can't accept this, I say goodbye and good luck on your way.

Your still friend, IchoTolot.

[Proxima]

Very sorry to hear this. As far as I'm concerned, you are a valued member of the community and I look forward to your contributions, whether it's videos or content or multiplayer events. I know you might feel these are just words because I haven't found time to look at your pack, but I just have so many demands on my time at the moment -- I'm trying to sort out the house and find work, and both this community and the DROD community just keep producing so much content and streams and live events that it's impossible to keep up with everything. So naturally I end up limiting myself to things that I know will be quick and straightforward, such as testing the NeoLemmix intro pack. I left the new-formats conversion of Redux waiting for about a year and really have no excuse for that.

You know I'm a big Sonic fan, and I was really looking forward to Gotta Go Fast -- seeing it complete would have felt great even though I wouldn't have gotten round to playing it for a long time.

I have no idea where the idea comes from that people don't like custom content. I have one hundred and sixty-three styles in my styles folder. Pretty much all the currently active members use custom styles -- namida, Icho, Giga, Strato, Arty, Nessy, nin10do... I can't think of anyone who doesn't! I hope you're not thinking of my own GemLems and RockLems. In the first place, that's just a personal preference for styles I work with and doesn't affect what I play. Besides, both packs do use custom styles on a once-per-rank basis for a bit of variety -- GemLems in particular uses your Sonic styles in addition to showcasing other styles, and the only reason RockLems doesn't is that I chose to limit myself to a smaller level size, and I don't think I could do the Sonic styles justice with that. But both packs are still active, and I would absolutely love to have more Sonic styles to showcase!

I also don't think, from what I've observed, that anyone here really dislikes you. I know we're a bit of a weird community and we have surprisingly heated arguments over trivial things in a video game, but I think underneath it all we are all good friends and we know that we're not going to start disliking someone over their defence of hidden traps or deadly ceilings or whatever.

[Strato Incendus]

I can basically agree with Icho and Proxima here, and I think you might have got it the wrong way round: It doesn't seem to me like people reject custom content, it's just that there is less new content available now that has a difficulty comparable to the major packs we used to have in Old Formats. For example, I stopped checking in with all the updates to Icho's Lemmings United, because I know I'm simply not skilled enough for that pack yet anyway. A pack that I would have predicted I might have a chance at is ArtLems, but that one has been cancelled.

For SEB Lems, I got up to the beginning of the Murder rank and simply haven't made any progress since.

Whether I stick to a pack or not has less to do with what tilesets are being used and more with simply how quickly a particular pack starts annoying me. Look to the "Immediate turn-offs" thread to see each individual user's list of personal "no-gos". I admit I like the original tilesets, but that's mainly about me trying to pinpoint what exactly creates a "Lemmings feeling" in a level (vs. e.g. a "Sonic feeling") in a level. As such, I have tried to create custom graphic sets in the same vein, and I'm also a fan of custom tilesets that preserve this feeling - I'd consider namida's original Tree and Purpe tilesets as good examples here.

In contrast, tilesets like GigaLem's Freedom Planet or your Sonic tilesets feature much greater detail and are arguably of a much higher quality - it's just that I'm somewhat "intimidated" by that, unless I really want to create an artsy level that looks "realistic" in depicting a real location, for example. When it comes to abstract level shapes, I tend to stick to classic tilesets, and since abstract shapes often result in better puzzles since they're less restricted in what they look like than "picturesque levels", that's what I'm shooting for with Lemmings Open Air.

But, as Proxima said, this is about my style of level creation, not about level playing! That's really just a question of the balance between reward and annoyance caused by a particular set of levels.

Speaking of annoyance: I admit I wasn't sure for a while whether you had developed a personal gripe against me, or at least my packs, judging from your LP of Lemmicks leading up to that of LWT, in the beginning of which you mentioned right away that you had taken "a step back from my packs" for a while; at that time, I thought it was due to me not using New Formats yet, even though that obviously wouldn't have been possible for Lemmicks in the first place. And while I appreciate you having given my packs another try by LPing Lemmings World Tour, it seemed to me while watching like that pack caused you even more frustration, and not in the "good way" that packs are supposed to frustrate players to some extent .

When I subsequently started fixing backroutes and annoying or misleading parts in the pack, you complained to me about me breaking your previous solutions - apparently the inverse of what IchoTolot experienced when he backrouted your levels.

I definitely can tell you that I didn't develop any personal gripe against you as a result - but it may have lead to what you described as people just outright ignoring your packs, possibly simply because they wanted to avoid further conflict with you and thus also spare you the frustration of having your levels broken. I can only speak for myself here, of course.

Since you said you've had similar experiences on other forums... yes, maybe there might be a constant in your behaviour that has caused you to experience this repeatedly. But if that is the case, that also means it's probably difficult to change, and I'm not the one to tell you that's what you should do. I just want to make you aware of the consequences that can arise from on the one hand providing harsh criticism of other people's packs, but then responding angrily to other people doing the same with your packs.

I do want to stress though that I only pieced together this picture now, based on what IchoTolot has said about your responses to his replays; I don't remember you ever responding negatively to any of my replays of your pack. That said, I also didn't play as much of it as others did, simply because I've been lacking the necessary skill so far .

Anyways, I can't remember us ever having had any arguments about the direction NeoLemmix should go in, like the heated discussions about culls I've had with various other forum members. And since we haven't grown to dislike each other as a result of those discussions, why should I dislike you then?

It might just be that sometimes, as you yourself acknowledged, Lemmings as a game can bring out certain aspects of us we're not particularly fond of, and I'm sure everyone here can understand that, because we're all familiar with it. We all raged at those stupid little green-heads not behaving the way we wanted them to back when we were kids, and we probably still occasionally do so to this day.

It's just a lot more "community-friendly" to "swear at the Lemmings" together, rather than taking out our frustration on the content creator who designed whatever pack we're currently playing. The Lemmings and their stupidity should be the "common enemy" that unites the forum, not player vs. level designer.

[Flopsy]

Well looks like I've been proven wrong, to be honest I'm surprised I got the response I got.

Firstly, IchoTolot I honestly had thought you had fallen out with me. Especially when you had not even done any SEB Lems videos on your channel.
I appreciate your apology nonetheless, I accept it and I apologise for causing the argument over MegSEGAbytes. Your feedback was reasonable, I just took it badly. I have to learn to take constructive criticism, point taken.
For future reference, I don't like being told the solution to levels whether it is in spoiler tags or not. Especially when forum emails don't acknowledge spoiler tags and the email displays PMs as if the spoiler tags don't exist.

Also IchoTolot, I have been crying out for people to test my newer tilesets since Wafflem is absent again. I would be interested in your opinion on some of my newer creations.

I feel like I'm obnoxious and loud in multiplayer sessions, looking back at videos of me in sessions, I don't like how I come across, if I don't like how I come across then I can only imagine how you lot perceive me...
It's partially why I stopped making YouTube videos because I didn't like the person I was in the Lemmings videos.

To be honest with you Strato I actually agree with what you're saying. I have been doing double standards where I have been harsh on other people's packs but I don't like it when it is done to myself. You've pointed it out to me now and I'm now aware of this. I think I've been like this on most packs I've ever played, not necessarily just LWT.

Proxima, if the interest in GGF is there then this is the first time I've been aware of it because no one has been telling me or showing interest in the project.
No one replied to the topic with exthusiasm in the project so I had no idea the interest was there.
It's nice to know that the interest in the pack is there, from both yourself and what IchoTolot has said anyway.

I just had a feeling that custom packs like my GGF project were unpopular with the masses, if that is wrong then I'll drop it. I had this thought for a while and I just had to know if it was true or not.

After hearing what has been said, I won't be leaving, especially with the faith restored in my level pack project and the fact that I'm not hated. I honestly did not know where I stood in this community until I read these replies.
I'll be taking a little break from the discord and forums for now because I've loaned my laptop to someone else for now. I'll be back when I get my laptop back.

[namida]

I feel like I'm obnoxious and loud in multiplayer sessions, looking back at videos of me in sessions, I don't like how I come across, if I don't like how I come across then I can only imagine how you lot perceive me...
It's partially why I stopped making YouTube videos because I didn't like the person I was in the Lemmings videos.

I can't speak for everyone, but I didn't see any problem here. You often got very frustrated while playing my content - but it always felt like you were frustrated at the levels / the lemmings, not angry at me specifically, and being frustrated at the levels is the expected reaction when hard levels show up.

Proxima, if the interest in GGF is there then this is the first time I've been aware of it because no one has been telling me or showing interest in the project.
No one replied to the topic with exthusiasm in the project so I had no idea the interest was there.

I think this comes back to something I said - or at least, meant to say - in the past. Namely, that in general, interest has been at a bit of a low lately. Even with some of the major breakthroughs lately - the Shimmier and a few other new features on the NL side, as well as editing ability for an official game that previously wasn't editable (Lemmings 3D) - things have been very quiet here lately in general. As far as I know, for example, no one other than the pre-release testers have played my Lemmings 3D pack yet. Ultimately, you really have to do these projects for yourself, and consider it a bonus if other people enjoy it too - remember, none of us are making money off this (the occasional contest prize aside, but money prizes seem to be relatively unpopular choices and when they are chosen people often just donate them to the site's running costs), it's purely about enjoyment.

In case it was a specific point of concern for you - I haven't given up on SEBLems altogether, I just haven't been playing much in general lately, and while I have had a few goes at SEB during the time I've been playing, I haven't actually managed to solve any more levels yet - the one I'm on has me pretty stumped. (The same is also true for Lemmings United, actually.)

I have to learn to take constructive criticism, point taken.

It's always hard, and it's understandable to get a bit defensive. Just remember that criticism of your work - even when it's really harsh (for example, my comments on Ski Sloping Lemmings recently) - doesn't at all mean that anyone hates you personally. It just means, at worst, that person didn't like that specific piece of your work. It's also good not to assume anything beyond what they say. If I say "I didn't like Mayhem 14 of Orig", this doesn't mean I hate all of Mayhem, or all Marble levels, or all of Orig - just that I specifically don't like Mayhem 14. Now of course, if I said "I don't like Mayhem 14 because it's builder-heavy without much else going on", it's probably safe to assume that a similar opinion extends to other similar levels, like Taxing 14 for example. But in this case, that's a logical conclusion drawn from the reason I don't like Mayhem 14, not just assuming that my dislike goes beyond the specific level due to an "assume the worst" basis. Even here, it's possible to be wrong - for example, if a user complains about you having "a lot of hidden exit levels", this could very well mean they wouldn't mind if a pack just had one such level - so take any assumption with a grain of salt, and if in doubt, ask people to clarify.

[Strato Incendus]

Respect for that response, Flopsy! Not many people can take this type of criticism that easily!

In fact, it seems even a little paradox to me that, while you may have taken criticism of your levels personally in the past, now that we actually did provide some critical feedback regarding you as a person or at least your behaviour (even though it was kind of explicitly requested by you), that you seem to have a much easier time accepting this type of criticism. Let's say this was not the response I expected, but definitely one I appreciate!

For future reference, I don't like being told the solution to levels whether it is in spoiler tags or not. Especially when forum emails don't acknowledge spoiler tags and the email displays PMs as if the spoiler tags don't exist.

Wow, that seems like an actual "security leak" in the forum, I didn't know that, thanks for the warning!

That means it's actually less "dangerous" to post a solution in a thread for everyone to see, but hidden in a spoiler tag, than to only mail it to specific people, because in contrast to the reader of a forum thread, a PM-ed person can't avoid seeing that solution as soon as they open the message.

Of course, as a future note, this would mean that we all must learn not to treat spoiler tags lightly - i.e. don't open every single one of them if you simply want to catch up on what happened in a specific thread, and therefore think you'd have to read everything that was written before. And, on the post author's side, to clearly label and differentiate between what various spoiler tags in anyone's post refer to.

If spoiler tags are clearly named with regards to what level(s) they refer to, "accidental" spoilers should be easily avoided - and then it's simply everyone's personal responsibility not to click on spoiler tags which are clearly labelled as referring to a level you still might want to play.

I can't speak for everyone, but I didn't see any problem here. You often got very frustrated while playing my content - but it always felt like you were frustrated at the levels / the lemmings, not angry at me specifically, and being frustrated at the levels is the expected reaction when hard levels show up.

Yes, I think we all know that in principle, and I myself have stated it repeatedly. In reality, there just seems to be a gradient between being merely frustrated with the game itself and being angry at the content creator, and sometimes it just "flips" and people say stuff spontaneously out of a bad mood. Usually, we all know how to interpret that - i.e. not as a personal offense, but simply as a spontaneous exclamation of frustration. But doubts about that can creep in on people when such instances of "blaming the level designer by proxy" become more common, or when there seems to be a pattern.

I myself am not sure how I would respond on camera, which is one of the main reasons I haven't done a Lemmings LP yet, despite being on YouTube in general with other content. It's the combination of "most packs I don't think I would be able to solve" and "I know how easily I can get frustrated by playing custom Lemmings packs" that sounds like a very explosive combination to me...

When it comes to other people playing and thus also backrouting my levels, though, I've come to see this as a sort of comedy: Somebody is making a parody of my level, so to say, and isn't that "the sincerest form of flattery?"

Alternatively, if you're more competitively-minded, i.e. like those content creators who say they want to "beat the player"... well, in that case, just count the single levels like points in a match: Whenever you've gotten a player to the point where he needs to stop and finish a level in the next video (or to at least insert "offscreen time" to think about the level, or needs hints from anybody else), you've beaten him. Whenever he backroutes your level, he's beaten you. That simple ! Makes it easier to be a good sportsman about all this, in my experience.

[IchoTolot]

For future reference, I don't like being told the solution to levels whether it is in spoiler tags or not. Especially when forum emails don't acknowledge spoiler tags and the email displays PMs as if the spoiler tags don't exist.

Wow, that seems like an actual "security leak" in the forum, I didn't know that, thanks for the warning!

I also did not know that this is actually a thing and this explains things. There are quite a bunch of pms from myself affected by this" This should be fixed or at least warnings should appear!

[Strato Incendus]

Shall we post it as a [Bug][Forum], then?

[namida]

Shall we post it as a [Bug][Forum], then?

This one was already posted as such and should now be resolved, but in general - yes, please report such issues with the forums, so we can fix them.