Re: Repeat request.
 

Im all for that. It has generated discussion which is logged here for the devs to see. And shown support for it either direction.

By the way;
now that things are slowing down abit I will toss some gas on the fire that I was leary of posting. (I hope this doesnt piss off Johan) but people seem to try and motivate the devs the wrong way. From my personal experience, it seems that if you really want to get Johan to add something to the game, get it worked on by someone else. At least 3 major additions that we never expected to see seemed to get added as soon as a fairly decent 3rd party version seemed likely.

Re: Why no Save game Feature
 

Well, some people might think they are good but you can't presume that as fact. I think most of the reasons against it are purely for the sake of argument in the absence of actually having a good reason. In fact, to me, it appears that -some- of the arguments are so thin, that I am not even sure the people saying them actually believe them. Don't get me wrong, some of them are debatable but, imo, some of them are really 'stretching it'.

They also mentioned Civ4, which is an excellent game by most accounts. If I had to list some of my favorite old games, I think they all had it. Masters Of Magic, Masters Of Orion, X-Com, Alpha Centauri, Civ1, Civ4.

Best thing about those games, for me ? Replayability. Somehow they were all great games (with great replayability) despite the scourge of having a save game feature.

Re: Why no Save game Feature
 

Thank you very much for using phrases such as "some people" "cant presume that as fact" "I think" "to me it appears" and "imo". More of that would be a good thing for all threads here and keep them off of the moderators watch-lists.

Of those, I dont remember if all of them had cheat-saves or not. I remember it with Master of Magic. You could save just before a fight or checking treasures, then restore if you didnt like the result. On the other hand, some games roll the randoms far in advance so that by the time you find something, its result is already decided so that saving didnt do you any good OR restoring from a save specifically made the result worse. Its a common topic in programmer forums on how to make saves available without ruining the game (in the developers view of the game of course).

Re: Why no Save game Feature
 

I think there's some truth to the statement that what we're expressing here are both opinions and facts. I don't think that makes too much of a difference, even as far as to who's "right" and who's "wrong". It's a question of priorities. Do we ask the Devs to do something that we can do ourselves, and may or may not want, or do we make the decision ourselves.

It's kind of the same question you get with censorship: Do you require a company to make your decisions for you, as to what's appropriate or not for you, or do you choose to turn the channel when you find something offensive and allow others their freedom?

Re: Why no Save game Feature
 

Theres nothing against asking the devs for anything. But Id rather we didnt push them into having to defend a decision not to. As we can obviously see from threads like this, that can go down a road which can cut off all communications.

Re: Why no Save game Feature
 

No I have nothing against asking the Devs for something someone wants in the game. I'm just suggesting that it not be demanded as a point-of-sale, when there are other options to persue.

It's all in how you say a thing, not in what you say.

Re: Repeat request.
 

Since a few known workarounds exist for the desired save game feature I seriously doubt the developers will take time away from fixing known bugs and developing new content.
Lets see... should the devs fix the known undead blessing bug which can effect any nation OR add a feature for those too lazy to use a known workaround. Not a difficult decision for most people.
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Personally I would rather they also spend their time making sure each nation has at least 3 heroes instead of adding a save game feature which has a known workaround.

Re: Repeat request.
 

Lets not be that harsh. It might not be laziness.
Some people really have no idea how to do things on their computer unless its on a menu. If they cant find the dominions files, dont know how to make a file there or a shortcut, then they are going to have a hard time with the answers that have been given.

Re: Repeat request.
 

That's true... yet it's only a percentage which lack the knowledge for moving/adding files within the windows directories. I feel sorry for these people because this means if someone develops a unique and very fun singleplayer map available for download... they won't be able to play the map.

Re: Repeat request.
 

A few people seem to assume that this argument is in the majority. All sarcasm and straw men and smiley winks aside, this view is maybe only in the majority among some of the 'local' crew, if that. The reason I got into this thread in the first place was my personal reaction to this very assumption and I wanted to make it clear that just because a group of the 'locals' think that, it doesn't mean everyone who plays (and buys) the game feels that way (no offense to the locals, I only mean that it seems to me that most of the people who are against a save game feature are regular posters in this forum while the people who are for it are a mix of regular posters and newbies like myself).

I don't disagree that priorities are worth considering but I don't think that there is an overwhelming majority, such that you can simply discredit arguments based on what you perceive as the popularity of your point of view. If it was so overwhelmingly popular, you would only have two or three people on the opposing side and that doesn't appear to be the case.

Note: By 'locals', I only mean people who have been active on the forum for a while and/or participate regularly.

Re: Repeat request.
 

I'm not strongly against the save game feature... I'm more strongly supporting other issues which need attention first. If you've scanned the largest sticky bug thread you'd see there's plenty of work which needs to be done and that's not including the long list of OTHER features people want added which is well over 70-something from the patch improvement thread.
Thus when I see a topic requesting a feature which has a known workaround... it's like complaining to your congressman or government official about banks not being open on Sunday, when there's obviously much larger issues which need attention. Another point is 98% of all the other features which have been suggested don't have workarounds unlike the save game feature request.

Re: Why no Save game Feature
 

Civ4 took rather interesting approach to save games. Reloading the game was so insanely slow that nobody would want to reload unless one absolutely must had to turn the computer off http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif I don't know whether it was an intentional decision or just a result of overall poor coding that plagued otherwise very good game http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

Re: Why no Save game Feature
 

I wish I had the time to use all the modding features available within CIV_4.

Re: Why no Save game Feature
 

Actually that is one of the options that gets mentioned in programmer forums. A way to give it to them but not really give it to them. As if "well this was the best I was able to do".

Things like:
slow save

slow reload

save only when quitting the game

save only at special places in the game that are far apart

randomly generating as much as possible and including it in the save so reload cant cheat

not allowing naming of saves so that you only get one save at a time (keeps you from long-term backtracking)

Of course the people doing it those ways are given a hard time about giving in to players over the quality of the game. But no one gives them too hard a time for avoiding the flak by giving crappy saves. And before anyone says anything, no I dont think that happened here. What we have is standard Linux saves for a pbem game. Nothing else would have made much sense in Dom1 and only seems reasonable now because of the improved menus in Dom3.

Re: Repeat request.
 

add a feature for those too lazy to use a known workaround.

I am not lazy, I have a baby! I usually look like this smily http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/yawn.gif and cherish what time I have with the game. Learning some DOS codes to create a batch file is not what I want to do with my few stolen personal moments.

Re: Repeat request.
 

I think those are probably the best 'anti-save' points that have been made (minus the analogy). The only problem with them is that they presume the quality of this requested feature to be poor when, apparently, there are several people that would disagree.

Let's be fair, though. It isn't a question of a save game feature vs. a game killing bug. Since new content and features are released with patches, it's really a question of the save game feature vs. other features that have been requested. I acknowlege that you have said as much, I just want to be clear.

For these two arguments (which are really shades of the same argument), it all comes down to the idea that people disagree on:
A) What priority a save game feature should be.
B) How much effort it is to code it (can't recall if anyone but Gandalf made this argument but it is relevant to (A), in any case, so I am throwing it in).

I don't even know what priority it is in the spectrum of other features and I think it's a fair question, though maybe it wasn't posed all that fairly. Honestly, that's what got me involved, I jumped in because the other anti-save arguments were just begging me and I succumbed.

Just a phrase ? No! They were begging me, I tell you, I could hear them saying "You can't let me go, you know you can't...fine, but my friend here is an even greater exageration, can you resist him ? How about a straw man ? Smugness ? Sarcasm ? Oh come on, Wyehl, you can't resist us all, you know we will get you..."

...and they did. The little bastages got me and here I am.

Thanks for indulging my...umm, imagination.

Re: Why no Save game Feature
 

Sorry, that was a bit shrill. However, the point stands that different people have different priorities, wishes, dreams and fantasies about what might happen to the game and our reasons for those wishes are just as diverse.

As a point of reference, fear the new parent! Buy them coffee and return after 12 months…

Re: Why no Save game Feature
 

I truly hope the score graphs are fixed soon.

The loss of functionality from Dominions_2 is quite noticeable.

First anytime an opponent is killed their entire graph history vanishes... thus making it impossible to review the overall history during middle, late and end of the game.

Second if a computer or human opponent wins the game from a victory condition then all human opponents are deleted from the graph history! Making it again impossible to review how you as a human were doing during the game.

It's actually quite sad the graphs provide LESS than what the Dominions_2 graphs provided.
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

Re: Why no Save game Feature
 

I agree with this wholeheartedly. Looking back at the graphs and seeing the major events at the end of a game is fun. Or was fun.

Re: Why no Save game Feature
 

Not to downplay this but there is a crappy alternative.
--scoredump will create an html file of the scoreboard information. Of course if you want historical info then you need to set up the --preexec to rotate the copies. Its something I do for most of the games I host.

But I do wish there was an easy way to get a screenshot of the scoreboards each turn since I like the graph better. However if someone with a background wants to tackle
--scoredump, to import into spreadsheet, to graphing package
then we could have a nice feature there.

Gandalf Parker
--
Its a computer. Nothing is impossible. The word impossible is a
technical term meaning "I could get it to work but it would be more time
and trouble than its worth"

Re: Repeat request.
 

Why not to use someone else's script?

Re: Repeat request.
 

Cycling back to my earlier point, we could build a car where you start it by walking outside and turning a crank. However, most people want to do it from the inside.

NTJedi is right about the graphs and, while I may well be able to go outside to do it with someone else’s script, I do not want to. It is more work and, in my opinion, should be inside the game. The logic is the same in both situations, for both sides of the argument. If you are happy doing saves outside the game, you probably have to be happy doing score graphs outside the game. If you want them inside, logic suggests you need to argue for both inside. But then again, consistency is said to be the bugbear of small minds.

Re: Repeat request.
 

that is actually faulty logic since the only existing modes are not A => B (desiring one means one must desire both) since A !=> B is also an option. (desiring one, and not desiring both) as such, within formal logic, neither statement is in itself true, since the contradict each other. and no statement can be both true and false.

I merely suggest that one should educate themselves on formal logic before trying to make logical assertions, lest they find themselves making faulty assertions based on bad logic.

Additionally each issue has different repercussions on how the game plays, and thus, despite apparent similarities, should be regarded differently from a developers viewpoint.

also, something about small minds, bug bears, and sacking up.

Re: Repeat request.
 

Hmm, I remember something in university about small minds getting in the sack with bears when the big mind was turned off…

Re: Repeat request.
 

Actually I think the graph history is a good thing to add if it can be done easily. Trying to see all sides of it, I cant come up with anything about a graph history that would be bad for the game. As for 3rd partying the graphs; I brought that up because some people thinks its fun to do such projects and it seems to spur some competitive action in the devs.