[LP Series] WillLem Plays Through Just The First Rank Of A Bunch Of Custom Packs

[mantha16]

had to replay the pack cos i was missing a few replays but ill post them on the sammings 2 thread

[WillLem]

Episode #8: Ski Sloping Lemmings by grams88 is ready!

[mobius]

a few ranks/packs I didn't see on the list I recommend offhand;

Insane Steve's World
Clammings (probably the hardest out of these but nothing too insane I think)
PimoLems (can't remember how difficult the first rank is but I think it's pretty easy)
Dovelems

[WillLem]

Episode #9: Lemmings Migration by Nessy is uploaded!

[kaywhyn]

Awesome! I will watch the whole thing later on, but I have noticed two things just from a quick search during the video: You were able to solve both Painless 1 and Painless 5 much faster than I did I don't supposed you had watched my LP before recording your first rank playthrough? It's not a problem if you did. It always makes me happy to hear/read that others are indeed watching my videos. Then again, you mentioned at the very beginning of the video that this is the first time you are playing the pack, which would mean that this is indeed the very first time you are seeing any of the 10 levels of the Painless rank. If you watch Part 1 of my playthrough of Lemmings Migration, believe it or not my dumb moments on those levels are both real and authentic. I really was stumped for a good 5 and 15 minutes on those two levels, respectively. You can even tell that I took it in great stride and still had a great time during my LP despite already being stumped on the first level of the pack. I think I pretty much guaranteed amusement and laughter with Part 1 of the LP just from that No worries, though. Not only am I more than happy to show people how I approach level solving, I was trying to be entertaining at times as well and just to show viewers that I was enjoying myself during the LP.

[WillLem]

You were able to solve both Painless 1 and Painless 5 much faster than I did I don't supposed you had watched my LP before recording your first rank playthrough?

Not at all, this was the first time I had seen/played these levels. I have been playing Lemmings a lot over the past week, so I guess my brain was just primed for it! In all honesty, I can assure you that I too was very surprised by how quickly I made it through these levels!

EDIT - Another thing to consider is that I do edit these episodes, and I tend to cut out relatively long periods of me just "thinking" The episode was about 44 minutes before edits, and is now 36 minutes.

I think I pretty much guaranteed amusement and laughter with Part 1 of the LP just from that No worries, though. Not only am I more than happy to show people how I approach level solving, I was trying to be entertaining at times as well and just to show viewers that I was enjoying myself during the LP.

I've watched a few of your LPs and they're great, very entertaining. It's good to see that even the best solvers can sometimes struggle with a level, but equally it's good to learn from those moments of genius when you realise what the solution is, or think of an unusual technique that maybe others wouldn't have thought to try

[kaywhyn]

Not at all, this was the first time I had seen/played these levels. I have been playing Lemmings a lot over the past week, so I guess my brain was just primed for it! In all honesty, I can assure you that I too was very surprised by how quickly I made it through these levels!

EDIT - Another thing to consider is that I do edit these episodes, and I tend to cut out relatively long periods of me just "thinking" The episode was about 44 minutes before edits, and is now 36 minutes.

I believe you. It's amazing when and where the stumpers are for different people. Another thing I can say is that the route you took in Painless 2 was initially the one I tried, but I ended up rejecting it too quickly, and so I went up on the left side instead.

Ah, yes, I'm not huge on video editing at all, since I don't know how. I don't like the way I have the game on pause for way too long during my LPs, though. Guess I haven't found the best way on how to do them smoothly yet. I also need to cut down on the video length, as most of them end up being over an hour long.   

I've watched a few of your LPs and they're great, very entertaining. It's good to see that even the best solvers can sometimes struggle with a level, but equally it's good to learn from those moments of genius when you realise what the solution is, or think of an unusual technique that maybe others wouldn't have thought to try

Thanks for letting me know that my LPs have been great to watch I wasn't sure if I was coming off as too boring in my videos, especially since I sound monotonous most of the time. Yea, I remember you told me that you've seen my Doomsday LP.  I've definitely been having so much fun doing the LPs. I also remember that you asked Armani if he considered doing LPs, to which he said that he doesn't have any future plans to for various reasons he outlined. TBT, I had decided to try LPing before he said that he wouldn't do any LPs, so I guess in a way I'm filling that gap and answered to your call of you wanting to see LPs of level packs. As I already said before, I especially think the community could use more LPers anyway, so I be more than happy to fill this niche both to allow others to see and hear my level solving process, as well as some good entertainment. I know a few others here have expressed huge delight that I'm LPing.

[WillLem]

As I already said before, I especially think the community could use more LPers anyway, so I be more than happy to fill this niche both to allow others to see and hear my level solving process, as well as some good entertainment

Good for you kaywhyn, keep up the good work!

[ericderkovits]

Hey why not LP lemmings Open Air(the first rank) as this is a great pack. Also If I can solve the 1st rank then I know you can. Since I'm the worst solver on the forum.

[namida]

Hey why not LP lemmings Open Air(the first rank) as this is a great pack. Also If I can solve the 1st rank then I know you can. Since I'm the worst solver on the forum.

It's a great pack so far, for sure, but it's probably way too hard for what WillLem is going for here. For an LP, it's often not just enough that the player can solve the levels, it also shouldn't take them too long to do so.

[kaywhyn]

Also, you need to take into consideration that the rank is 30 levels. Even if WillLem does manage to solve all of the levels, I would estimate that it would still take a little over 3 or 4 hours, even with edits.

[Strato Incendus]

Well, maybe ericderkovits can add how long it took him in total to solve the 30 levels of the Soft rank?

[ericderkovits]

ok, maybe he could Lp 10 levels in a rank at time, break it up into 3 videos with 10 each. Or even if he can't solve particular levels, he can skip them as he's done in other Lp's. Also
for your info I did levels 12-30 of soft last night perhaps bout 5 hours. and 1-11 probably took maybe 1 1//2 hours. so Probably in total for the soft rank maybe 6 1/2 to 7 hours total. For me that
is good, for others probably NOT good. But remember I'm not very good at solving. I just figured Willem is better than me, so if I can do it, anybody can. Plus he only LP's 1st ranks.

[kaywhyn]

Along with the good point that namida brought up, you seem to forget that WillLem has said that he prefers to not split the LP of first ranks of his series into multiple videos. Now if he was LPing the entire pack, yes that's a viable strategy to break it up into multiple videos, as I do that. In regards to the total time it took to solve the Soft rank, I think that is somewhat reasonable for players with a similar solving caliber to yours, even if it's a bit long. Even then, how fast you solve levels/entire ranks is irrelevant, as the only thing that matters is if you end up being able to solve the level, then you're really no worse off than others who solve it much faster.

[WillLem]

What I've decided going forward is that I stop recording when I get to 1 hour, so the video (with edits) is always guaranteed to be under 1 hour. However many levels I can solve in that time is what goes into the LP. Ideally, it shouldn't take that long to get through the first rank of a pack anyway! If it does, then I'd suggest that players are even less likely to take on the later ranks.

Maybe this is why there's a shift towards labelling them as "groups" rather than "ranks", since the difficulty seems to be extremely subjective, varying quite wildly from one pack to the next, and not always representing the traditional "beginner, novice, expert, master" pack structure.

This is why I've tried several times to suggest/introduce a Forum-wide difficulty standard which level designers can match up their levels to in order to give a clear idea of what difficulty the player can expect. The issue is that one person's "easy, medium, hard" is another person's "hard, extra hard, forget it!" So, the problem remains of how to accurately advertise a pack's difficulty.

Anyways, the main goals of this series are to a) find out what makes a "good easy level", and b) showcase as much custom content as I can. So, if I end up only playing a few levels within the space of an hour, it's still more than possible to achieve both of those goals even though I might not have LP'd the full group of levels.

Thanks everyone for getting involved btw, it's good to know that people are interested in the series. I may well take Eric's suggestion and do Open Air instead of World Tour as Strato's pack for the series, but if namida's comment is anything to go by, it may end up only being a handful of levels in that episode!