Author Topic: [Bug][Player] Preview screen still says "Release Rate"  (Read 1616 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline namida

  • Administrator
  • Posts: 12399
    • View Profile
    • NeoLemmix Website
[Bug][Player] Preview screen still says "Release Rate"
« on: June 13, 2018, 11:18:46 PM »
If I remember correctly, when the release rate scale was changed (so that new RR 50 is equivalent to old RR 1, with new RR 1 to 49 being even slower than old RR 1), the general consensus was to also change the name to "Spawn rate" to differentiate it.

This is correctly reflected in the editor; while file formats (levels, replays) use Spawn Interval rather than Release/Spawn Rate in the first place.

However, the term "Release Rate" is still used on level preview screens.

Very minor detail, but figured it should be pointed out nonetheless.
My Lemmings projects
2D Lemmings: NeoLemmix (engine) | Lemmings Plus Series (level packs) | Doomsday Lemmings (level pack)
3D Lemmings: Loap (engine) | L3DEdit (level / graphics editor) | L3DUtils (replay / etc utility) | Lemmings Plus 3D (level pack)

Offline Proxima

  • Posts: 4569
    • View Profile
Re: [Bug][Player] Preview screen still says "Release Rate"
« Reply #1 on: June 13, 2018, 11:26:21 PM »
I strongly disagree with this suggestion, for reasons mobius has brought up in past discussions -- "spawn" is too mechanical; it treats the lemmings directly as objects in a simulation, ignoring the fiction that they are creatures trapped in a hostile landscape that the player has to look after. This has been a huge part of the appeal of Lemmings ever since I first played the game in 1991, and I think we ought to hang on to it for the sake of new players.

Offline Nepster

  • Posts: 1829
    • View Profile
Re: [Bug][Player] Preview screen still says "Release Rate"
« Reply #2 on: July 08, 2018, 03:35:36 PM »
While I strongly prefer the term "spawn rate" in the forums to distinguish between the new and old rates, I am with Proxima here - at least for now. There are two reasons I see:
1) The old "Release Rate" and the new "Spawn Rate" are extremely similar, but players new to NeoLemmix already recognize the term "Release Rate", so they know what to expect. On the other hand, "Spawn Rate" sounds like something new that requires (at least a bit of) learning.
2) "Spawn Rate" is rather similar (language-wise) to "Spawn Interval" (which is already called this way in the preview screen, if you use it), however there is a far larger difference between them than between "Spawn Rate" and "Release Rate" (physics-wise). So distinguishing the two ways of displaying this physics already by their first word seems a sensible thing to do.
I am not saying that we should keep "Release Rate" forever, but I would like to keep that word at least for another year. Let's see what NeoLemmix is by then, and then look at this question again.