Problem Saving Games

[PDF]

It'll be cool that some of the Net-nerds you're talking about (Huh hello Gandalf, did we call you ? ) make a simple java or whatever mini-app to manage savefiles...

[solops]

Arralen said:

CHEATER !!!


[i]Honestly,
opening up the dominions3/savedgames/*gamename* - folder isn't that hard to do, isn't it? And you should have a ZIP-program (or another packer) installed .. just mark the *nationname*.2h, *nationname*.trn and ftherlnd file and zip them up e.g. into "turn1.zip", and the next turn into "turn2.zip" etc.
That way, you can always decompress any turn you like... . Simply reload the game afterwards.

edit: additonal text .. sry, hit the wrong button...

Cheater? A bit of a bizarre response (?). I replay a lot of games, sometime after 100-200 turns, just to see how things might go if I try something different.. I imagine most people do.

As far as making manual copies, sure, I can do that, even if it is a pain. Doing so constantly disrupts the game and interferes with play flow and enjoyment. But I suspect a LARGE number of players or, more importantly, Potential players would read your note on the mechanics and their eyes would glass over. My kids have already complained about the demo and my wife would not attempt to even understand such a process, but she spends a lot of money on games (and other stuff!) and it is silly to turn such folks and their $$$ away. One of the kids is interested in the game but, again, this issue may keep it off of the Christmas wish list, even if she thinks my full version is “totally cool.”

The whole save and load UI feature is really a no brainer, IMO. Put it in and let people play and have fun!

[Amos]

From a user perspective, the way it is handled in Dominions is just plain silly. Dominions 2 was not an "MP only" game and Dominions 3 is even less so. A considerable number of players play singleplayer only or primarily. Thus, not having save game functionality in-game because the game is multiplayer based is a poor choice, since having the ability avaible does not impact multiplayer adversely.

Yes, you can copy files manually by hand if you want to, but that takes considerably longer time than e.g. choosing save, enter filename, hit save button would do, [and given how Dominions 3 ****s up when alt-tabbing, you probably do have to leave the game to make that copy by hand] and as a result it is something you either write your own script to do automatically (requiring code literacy) or, for all practical purposes, don't do at all. Which leaves you in the cold when the game ****s up and corrupts a save file since this on the spot ends your game. It also presents the "irreversible-death" scenario to new players. YES, they learn by irreversible death, as I'm sure some of you will argue, but they learn much more if they after suffering defeat can retrace to an earlier save and retry their approach to see how they could have changed the outcome, than if they just have to say, tough cookies, let me start all over from the very beginning again.

As for the line of player groupthink that goes "the developers don't like people to cheat on random events/battles/whatever by not rolling with the punches"... as any good developer knows, as far as fun goes, the point of a game is for the players to have fun, not the developers (or even worse, the computer), and anybody not wanting to load an older savegame is free to not do so without any lessening of his gaming experience. (Though it is nice when the developers too have fun, even if it is vicious or satirical fun, it should never be the priority)

It is a baffling newbie-unfriendly design choice that is no doubt a legacy of the MP design of the game and which should have been reconsidered a long time ago. Players cannot be assumed to be Nethack-nerds used to that approach or assumed to be happy with an forced ironman-mode.

Hear Hear!

[thejeff]

Note that when the developers are working on the game part-time around their real jobs, the developers having fun is a priority.
If they don't, they'll stop developing.

[dirtywick]

I agree that it is a little behind the times, but I think it's a conscious decision to add depth and strategy. In a weird way I think it's fun that an unlucky random event can knock off your unprepared pretender and you're forced to deal with it instead of reloading like the event never happened.

[thejeff]

I agree.
I think it does change the feel of the game. It's part of the game and shouldn't be changed lightly. While individuals could always ignore it, that being the accepted default would change both the game and the community around it.


The game does many things against the conventional wisdom. This is one of them. It's a niche game. It will always be by nature a niche game. It's also the largest pre-order Shrapnel's ever had. (Which will hopefully translate into the highest sales as well.) It must be doing something right.

[Ballbarian]

Sadly, I have no willpower. For example, Rome Total War has a save feature. I quit having fun because I became obsessed with saving & reloading between assassination attempts because I just couldn't bare the idea of losing my high level assassin. If a battle went poorly, I was immediately frustrated and would hit the reload button. For myself, the addition of a handy in-game save feature would be a bad thing.

Maybe a nice compromise would be a command line switch that would allow a user to enable/disable an in-game save feature... then if I could just resist the urge to enable it.

[Amos]

You would see pro-permanent death posts on every forum for every MMOG that ever proposed this idea. All of those games have failed. If we couldnt save in our backward sort of way like we do in Dom2-3, I dont think many people, that like playing SP games, would buy it. All I asked for and will continue to ask is that Save could be made an ingame option so that I dont have to go outside the game, and could even play in full screen mode. Flame away.

[Manuk]

Well mainly saving a game and reload does not make much of a difference due to the scale of choices you make in DOM. Consequences you pay in the current turn are of decitions made several turns ago.
And mainly you don´t loose a game just because you mismove 1 army. but saving last turn in backup could be useful for this cases of mismove or forgetting to give orders you already decided.

and for the save-reload mechanic or cheats like "research all" or "1 million bucks" are pointless and I don´t see why some people cheat. What point is to win a game that way?

If I cas Haruspex searching sites in a province and detects no sites I could reload and search elsewere. AI would not have a chance to this kind of cheating. Reload if a fire destroyed my lab. etc

[thejeff]

MMOG/TBS :: Apples/Oranges

I'm curious though. How do you usually use the save games? How often do you reload? What circumstances? Just to the last turn or farther back?

I tend to not use saves often in strategy games, even when they allow it, so I really am curious (I'm bad about remembering to save in games that rely on it, too.)