Future of NeoLemmix development

[WillLem]

I like the idea of the Neo-Lemmix engine gaining some of the QOL improvements that Super Lemmix has ... keep the non-slx mechanics though.

Me too, but is it worth a completely new fork?

Namida has taken a hard line with not wanting to add anything, and whilst it's frustrating I do both understand and respect his reasoning: he wants the final version to be as stable as possible. Adding new features, however small, has the potential to create further work down the line.

As it stands, if we want NeoLemmix to include any QOL stuff from SuperLemmix, it'll have to be as a new version...

It's only my opinion, but I think keeping the name Neo-Lemmix would better remember Namida as the creator. But that's his decision. A CE-Lemmix or something would be fine with me to see future updates to the engine.

I agree.

Even taking into consideration that Namida has expressed a wish for the name "NeoLemmix" not to be used, I think this should ultimately be up to the community tbh. If enough of us want NL development to continue beyond its final version, and we agree not to change physics or add any game-breaking features, I think "NeoLemmix CE" is a perfectly reasonable suggestion given its intended purpose.

With that said, it's a bridge to cross when and if the time comes.

if a fork were to retain the existing physics / data formats exactly and purely add cosmetic or QoL improvements, while being equally (or more) stable, I can't see why it wouldn't become popular

Yes, exactly.

The discussion here is really: do we want such a fork to exist? I think most of us don't, but it might come about as a result of necessity given that there's no chance of further development to NL itself.

Either that, or we develop a totally new engine which does everything NL does but has a more future-proof codebase and runs on a 64-bit system. For the record, I see this as being the most likely future scenario even if I do bother to fork NL again.

the reason why NL is considered the community standard is that NL has the largest user base. NL has attracted most people and that's it.

When I said "adopt a new engine as the community standard", I didn't necessarily mean that it would happen as the result of a direct decision. In fact, it's far easier to see it happening by natural selection, as you've suggested.

Imagine that there are 2 versions of NeoLemmix - the final version, and the final version but with an improved config menu (for example). Why would anyone continue to use the former when the latter is available?

You can replace the words "improved config menu" with anything that you personally would consider to be an improvement to NeoLemmix. My point here is that the community won't stop wanting improvements to be made just because the final version has been released. And, if someone makes a fork and starts taking suggestions, it most likely will become the new standard, as naturally as you've suggested.

Let just leave Neolemmix as it is ... I also have my own modified version of Neolemmix although I'm don't have any plans of public release. I ... tuned some of the QOL features to my taste.

It's interesting that you've done this, and yet don't want to see further development of NeoLemmix itself. I get that not everyone wants the responsibility of maintaining a publicly-released version, but I do wonder why you wouldn't want the possibility of someone else making improvements, and perhaps even implementing the ones you've made.

If it's trust in namida as opposed to myself or someone unknown, remember that namida himself had to go through his years of experimentation and controversial features in order to get to where he is today. To know what works, you have to also be very familiar with what doesn't work! My experience with SuperLemmix has taught me a lot, and as an old adversary of NeoLemmix philosophy I probably understand it better than anyone!

But seriously, if I was to take on development of an NL fork, you can be assured I'd be very careful not to do anything that would upset anyone. The whole point would be to continue to maintain a community-approved version, and I know well enough by now what the community wants, even if I don't always agree

[Dullstar]

Regarding forks, if namida was okay with it my suggestion would be to keep the NL name (perhaps with a prefix/suffix) until breaking changes are made. If it's just an enhanced version of NeoLemmix but the physics and file formats are the same, so content made for one will work perfectly in the other, then I think a new name would just introduce confusion; conversely, if it's merely compatible with NL content, but its content is not compatible with NL, then calling it NL would be confusing.