Yes, I've noticed and posted about this problem in the SMF 2.1 Upgrade topic, in these two posts:

https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=6856.msg105291#msg105291

and

https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=6856.msg105886#msg105886.

This I've observed ever since the Forums software upgrade took place. It's still a problem a year later.

namida apparently also made a topic on it too:

https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=7122.0

Quote from: Strato Incendus on August 05, 2025, 08:17:42 PMI just realised the music rotation doesn't work, as the level files have individual tracks specified. Meaning, even if I swap out the music rotation for my Lemmings World Tour tracks, it's still the original DMA tracks that will play.

You can rename your Lemmings World Tour tracks files to orig_01, orig_02, ..., orig_16, orig_17.

Yea, I'll open a topic on a potential Lemmings Plus VII community pack sometime in the future. We should see if there's enough general interest in one first before I do so, though, especially as it will only go ahead if there is. It won't be for a while anyway, so don't worry about it for a time.

Quote from: Crane on July 23, 2025, 03:11:49 AMIndeed, and regarding the above point, I don't know if someone voted at the last minute just to break the tie or if they legitimately left it late...

Your guess is as good as mine. It could very well be for other reasons too. What's done is done, though. There's nothing that can be done about the results. Instead, let's turn our attention and focus on more important matters, such as things that will be decided by polling.

Quote...but hiding the poll results until it closes will also help to avoid any possible manipulation.

Exactly, that's why I put forth the suggestion that poll results be hidden entirely until the closing of the poll instead of having them be shown to the user once he/she has casted a vote like it always has been done. That's the other option the poll creator can select when making one. This point will be up for polling once Icho makes the call for the current one, takes it down, and puts up the new one

Quote from: Crane on July 23, 2025, 02:22:18 AMWatching the last vote-off carefully, Rule 3 was dead even between "Migraine" and "Quick Lab Rush" at 4 votes each, but then someone else voted close to the cut-off time to break the tie.  So ties are definitely possible.

Right, there wasn't ever a doubt that ties aren't possible at all under the new system. I was simply pointing out that tiebreakers so far haven't been needed, though to be fair it's only been two contests under the new way With more votes depending on how many levels there are for the ruleset, I suspect ties will be more frequent, especially if the maximum number of votes per user is used each time, but of course one can always cast less than the maximum amount of votes allowed if they want.

In any case, like Icho already mentioned, contests would still be over after a few rounds no matter what is decided here. 

All great points and feedback, thanks everyone! I completely agree with Icho that it should just still be one level survives regardless of how many votes we get. We haven't had any tiebreakers after the rule voteoffs for tied levels since the contest voting system overhaul, but I also agree there with the edge case that all levels move on if the tiebreaker ends in a tie too. In any case, the community seems to be in favor of knowing the results ASAP instead of having an endless amount of rounds of voting because of ties! The new voting system definitely works quite well with greatly reducing the number of voting rounds and, combined with multiple voting topics open, hence shortening the overall voting time tremendously!

Also Crane's proposal with the base 2 log on the number of levels to determine the number of votes sounds excellent!  

Quote from: Crane on July 22, 2025, 03:56:19 PMThe people have spoken/voted, kaywhyn, so I think people do like your levels!

I know I liked the hoard-themed level, that's for sure - some nice puzzle solving in that one.

Thanks buddy, I appreciate it! Also yea, nice job for making me work for the gold talisman on Monster Munch. I haven't had the chance to take a look at the version you posted on Discord yet, so I still have no idea what it is, but I will get it eventually!  

Quote from: Simon on July 22, 2025, 10:08:01 PMCongratulations to all the authors!

Agreed, congrats to all whose levels were nominated for LOTY this year, and same thing to Dodochacalo and Mobiethian for being LOTY co-winners!

Quotekaywhyn's videos helped me judge the remaining levels that I didn't play. Thanks!

No problem, and thank you for streaming my "Snow Way!" level! I meant to reply to your thoughts on the LOTY levels in your LOTY stream topic, but I'll do it here. I did get a chance to watch your stream of the level before the video wasn't available anymore, and even though it ultimately was a no solve from you, I will say it was a wonderful effort, all things considered! Indeed, I now see that the beginning area is what really trips players up on the level, and you and one other user who streamed the level have made me realized how very badly I underestimated its difficulty. As such, I have now upranked the level from the third to the fourth rank for my upcoming Lemmings Memories pack. Thanks again for the feedback!

Another thing in common is that players, including yourself, have been able to correctly spot the required

Spoiler

builder/miner combo

very quickly, and so the biggest question is how to achieve it while still having the necessary skills later on to do so!

QuoteStrato's The Lem-Catcher's Song wins the prize for the best counterintuitive moment among the levels that I solved myself:

Spoiler

The digger must be as long as possible, even though you need only the top of the hole later and lemmings keep splatting until the digger has finished.

Glad you enjoyed Strato's level! Yes, I want to confirm that both levels of Stratos' that were nominated for LOTY come from his Lemmings Hall of Fame pack, and all levels have titles where the author listed is the singer of the song that's referenced in the level title. This is simply due to Lemmings Hall of Fame being a musically themed level pack, just like his previous two level packs, Lemmings Open Air and Lemmings World Tour, which did something similar with the author listed being the singer of the song referenced in the level title.

Regarding Lem-Catcher Song, it originally had a flamethrower, but in my pre-testing of the pack, Strato was given the feedback to remove it, as this way it makes it less clear what needs to be done, but also

Spoiler

the worker Lemming is dead (at least if he wasn't a floater) anyway if you don't dig at the top of the pillar, since that is a splat fall without the flamethrower

Whoa, I won??? Well, what a pleasant surprise! My very first time winning too, after having entered for the past 11 LDCs in a row and the closest I've come was finishing as first runner-up twice in two fairly recent contests within the past year. Also the first time I had all 3 levels of mine all make it to the finals! Now how did that happen? I honestly didn't expect this at all! I guess I shouldn't be too surprised that my R1s' wounded up getting the most votes out of my other two in the finals.

Fun fact: This is the very first time I have used Dexter's Hoard tileset to make levels in, and in a way I knew that I wanted to use the Hoard graphic set for the R1 repeat rule. I admit for my first time using the graphic set it was difficult to use, but I think the result turned out all right. Also, I knew I wanted to make one version be going down and around with one of the levels in the pair, and in the other level of the pair have the player go up and somehow involve circling back to help the crowd get released later on.

Also, I remember Icho using a Rainbow Island remix track many LDCs ago, and I thought it fit the "Oh Yes" level pretty well. For the "Oh No" level, I used ssam1221's remix of Ohno track 5. I've notified them that I've used their music track and they are happy that I did and have told me it fits quite well for the level! Needless to say, I've used a remix of an official Lemmings track for my R1s!  

I am however questioning and self-doubting my worth as a level designer in this community. Even after all this time, I still get the impression that no one cares or likes my levels. Are my puzzles/solutions really that good, as Icho and Armani have noted? Not to mention for some reason I feel really bad any time my levels end up stumping people. In fairness, except for one level I've made and posted in the Random Level Sharing topic, the only levels I've released are contest entries, and that already heavily limits who plays my levels. Also, I've been told in the past that perhaps why there haven't been that many people playing my levels is because it likely might be due to my levels being too difficult. A really good example is my "Snow Way!" level from a few contests ago. It apparently managed to stump two people who live streamed it. After watching the streams myself, it appears that the beginning area is what really trips people up. Hence, I have severely underestimated its difficulty and as a result the feedback I received from one user was to uprank the level for my upcoming Lemmings Memories pack. I originally had it in the third rank of 5, but now I currently have it in the 4th rank.

Most importantly, I try to make sure that my levels are the enjoyable kind of difficulty, not the frustrating type. I guess that's why I keep getting the impression that no one cares about my stuff, is due to thinking my levels are of the latter type, when I intend for them to be the former type. Also I generally don't have that much self-confidence in my abilities  

Anyway, I extend my thanks and congratulations to all the LDC 32 participants as well on all the wonderful levels made and submitted for the contest! I really enjoyed playing and puzzling my way through them They all gave me an immense feeling of satisfaction when I was able to figure them out!

As for the 3 new rules, I'll probably have them ready in 1-2 weeks after I've had some time to think about them. However, as Icho has mentioned, we're going to see first with the contest poll adaptations before starting the next one

Quote from: Crane on July 21, 2025, 07:05:53 PMCongratulations kaywhyn on the grand slam!

Thanks!        

Copy/paste from Discord what I wrote/discussed:

That was exactly my concern from the start with the 1 vote system, where creators would likely just vote for their own level because, why wouldn't you? There's no reason to vote for anyone else's level this way. That's why under this change my hope was that creators/participants would use the honor system and not vote for their own level or just not vote at all, but this is asking a lot of the contest entrants, and unless there's a setting only admins can set for that, I don't think it can be prevented.

To be honest, I don't think I've even voted in any of the rounds since the contest voting system overhaul and shift to the 1 vote system, especially if my level is in the running. I personally don't believe in putting a vote for my own level to win, but at the same time I haven't been helping any level or anyone to win this way by not putting in a vote at all.

Another possibility to consider might be to not show poll results at all until the poll expires, which the poll creator can select when making the poll. This would mean a change to a longstanding thing with contests of switching from results being visible after one has voted to not being able to see results at all until the poll has ran its course, but again just a thought. In this way, it will now be the same for everyone by not allowing results to be seen until the poll expires. Before, with the results being visible after one has voted option, this would allow only those who have voted to be able to see them, but those who haven't voted will either have to vote to see the results, or just wait for the poll to expire. Of course, people are still free to discuss the levels via PM or offsite, but at least now in this way e.g, it won't be possible to know if levels are tied at any given moment until after the voting ends for the round.

Honestly, thinking about this, I really should had spoken up a lot sooner about my concerns with the first point Instead, I decided to give the 1 vote system a chance to play out, hoping that contest participants would have some kind of honor system in place when it came to the voting and not vote for their own level just for the heck of it.

In any case, what we're currently doing now with the reduced number of votes and rounds is still a huge improvement in general over what we were doing before! However, as can be seen, we can potentially still do better!  

All rightie, my videos on the LDC #32 levels are now up

Part 1 (NL Rule 1) - https://youtu.be/JxN7R41z_xo

Part 2 (NL Rule 2) - https://youtu.be/aA_hcRlZhHY

Part 3 (NL Rule 3) - https://youtu.be/0YXLZrVdf-4

Part 4 (my levels) - https://youtu.be/RAJngicjJ4Y

Also re-attached my complete replay collection, as well as the intended solution to my levels

Sorry, re-backrouted with just a slight tweak to my previous solution to get it working again. Unfortunately, updates close today, and so no further updates to the contest pack will be made. So, this is the best we can do. Don't feel bad, though. I still have no idea what the gold talisman solution looks like, but it's definitely gold worthy! The fact that it's really difficult to find and that it's not clear at all what other skill you need to spare besides one stoner that's unusable anyway! Also, I have one past level from a few contests ago that I wasn't able to backroute proof before the update phase closed, though Icho was remarkably close to the intended way for it with his final solution he showed me.

Anyway, I'll get vids up to these contest levels within a day or so!  

Another solution that gets both talismans in the same solution. I still use a lot of precision here but no steel abuse this time though!

@Crane

Monster Munch resolved again. The 3:30 talisman wasn't a problem, but the <= 12 skills one was very hard to figure out and took me a really long time. There were plenty of things I've tried that would had worked but ultimately most use 13 skills or fail because of pixels with too high step ups. In the end, the <= 12 skills talisman also satisfies the time attack talisman, and again I'm not sure if you intend for both to be obtainable in the same solution. If the latter one is acceptable, I'm quite curious what you intended for that one! At least in my solution, it needs a lot of precision!

Monster Munch resolved once more. Got both talismans in one go. Not sure if this is intended or acceptable, though. Thank you for the clarification on Discord, because I honestly fail to see how you came up with the thought that I don't think highly of your R2. Quite the contrary! I think it's a fine level itself! So, relax, smile, and enjoy life