The pack I'm currently working on, "Pit Lems", does in fact have a lot more radiation and slowfreeze use, but certainly not just to give them some "quota screen time". This is what I mean by "you're discouraging new level creators".
Sorry, but if we wait until noone is creating a pack using some feature, before we remove it, no removal will happen at all. Especially as a lot of packs take more than two years.
I feel sorry, that this now hits you, who has only recently joined this community. But delaying the new-formats version just for your sake is not something healthy, given that we are nearing the stage where a stable version could be released.
What if one day, the majority of the forum decides to cut zombies again?
You are comparing apples with eggs here:
- Zombies are far more often used, so the hurdle to remove them is far higher.
- They are considered useful (and are used) by far more people.
- They add something far more unique to NeoLemmix than Slowfreeze or Radiation objects do.
- They don't cause any confusion.
So even though I don't like them myself, I recognize their worth and would now defend them against culling suggestions.
Finally as already mentioned several times already: Everything that stays now for the first new-formats version, will stay for a long, long time.
The thing I don't get is: The more features we remove from NeoLemmix, the closer it becomes to good old Lemmix again.
Up to now, we almost only
added features and almost never
removed any. And I guess, it will stay like this, if I look at the long list of proposed new features. So even if we remove a few features now, we will never come close to Lemmix again.
Btw. did you notice how many introduction levels nin10doadict needed for Casualemmings? Most of the the first rank and quite a few of the second rank introduce new skills or objects. Are these really not
enough features to play around with?
Nepster's pack featuring only the classic 8 skills could be played on Lemmix perfectly, minus the instant bombers and the skill blueprints.
My pack was made deliberately with these restrictions in mind, mainly as a challenge for myself to see whether I could come up with new level ideas within these restrictions. I am currently working on another pack "Return of the Tribes", where I will use a lot more of the new skills and objects. So it simply isn't fair to use NepsterLems as the standard pack that everything should be compared to, especially with regards to usage of new skills and objects.
So I sometimes ask myself why the philosophies aren't "swapped": NeoLemmix has all the whacky features, so why isn't that engine the "playground" for whacky level ideas in the first place, and Lemmix the more restricted, conservative, strictly puzzly one?
If you have a closer look at some of the recent levels, then you will notice that there are a lot of them really whacky ones, that would be horrible to play on Lemmix. All the framestepping and blueprint additions make them suddenly playable! So I would say: NeoLemmix is indeed the playground for all the whacky level ideas.
It just doesn't try to emulate Clones or Lemmini (with all its mods) that strive to add any feature that anyone can think of, regardless of the complexity this adds. Instead it wants to keep the rules relatively simple (as far as this is still possible), so that new players aren't overwhelmed by all the object types (something I fear is happening already now). And for this we rarely have to remove a few features that are no longer worth keeping.
EDIT: Proxima was faster than me. So sorry for any overlapping arguments.