Guess what, my culling-alarm sensors are going off again...
This is another case of "I'm not personally affected by this", since all my sprites are mere recolours.
BUT I immediately thought of GigaLem's edits when I read this, and as such, I cannot support an outright removal of custom-sprite support.GigaLem put a lot of effort into actually changing the shape of the sprites. You don't want to punish content creators who put in
more work than others. Otherwise, you're going to demotivate specifically those people who could provide the most interesting new things to the game.
([virtue-signal]See, kids? That's called empathy. Caring about other people being affected even when your own stuff isn't. Probably could have prevented some other culls as well...[/virtue-signal] )Wasn't this one of the main appeals of New Formats that you originally advertised to me during the transition period? That adding custom sprites is a lot easier now than in Old Formats?At the same time, having to change the image files for all sprites whenever one wants to do a mere recolouring is a nuisance, and makes adding new sprites more work than it actually needs to be if it's merely about recolouring.
Therefore, I think the obvious solution is the hybrid approach you suggested:A third option is of course a hybrid approach - leave support for custom sprites in, but also implement the recoloring option.
This would allow a "quick way" for everyone who wants to do mere recolours, and might actually encourage people to give more styles custom-coloured sprites (which is a term I'm going to use from now on to explicitly distinguish them from custom-
shaped sprites).
Custom-shaped sprites should still be allowed, and would obviously require separate image files for each sprite.
Especially given Nessy's plans to introduce the L2 sprites for all the respective styles across the board, this feature actually needs to remain. Remember that all L2 sprites have custom exiting animations (e.g. the Medieval lemmings raise their sword, the Outdoor lemmings sneak into the tent from the sides, etc.).
I haven't even got the chance to have shimmiers made, and now those are an instant must since I have no choice
I've already seen namida's "fallback" feature in action, i.e. the security routine that detects missing sprites and just automatically switches back to default sprites. If that routine works consistently,
I don't really see the problem - neither with missing sprites being a danger to the stability of the game, nor with GigaLem being under any time pressure to create Millas Shimmiers?Removing support for custom-shaped sprites would definitely be an overreach with this feature already implemented. Without this security measure, I would have had some understanding and would have seen it as a tradeoff between stability and creative options. But with that routine in place, there's really no justification to remove support for custom-shaped sprites.
If a lemming-sprite creator is "lazy" and doesn't update their sprites with the newest skills (like e.g. the Jumper being next on the list),
then they will simply automatically be "punished" by no-one actually getting to admire their work as long as the sprite set isn't complete: The game will simply automatically resort back to default sprites, and no player will ever get to see what this specific content creator's custom sprites look like - until they are complete and thus automatically added again.
(And to be clear, I'm not calling GigaLem specifically "lazy" for not having made Shimmier sprites yet. I simply acknowledge that some people may have more good reasons to not update their sprites than others... )So it's like a general "temporary ban" of incomplete sprite sets. Not bothering the player with stability issues, but also not outright banning the content creator from ever making custom-shaped sprites again.
So yeah, easy choice - total support for option 3.
That would be an improvement of the current state in every way.
Absolute and complete rejection of options 1 and 2!