Problem Saving Games

[Mortibus]

I don't play it for that reason alone either, what made you think that? Don't be ridiculous.

You may say that nobody likes the fact that it doesn't include the save/load feature, but the game programmers, the posts of some other people in this thread besides me, and the fact that D3 is selling well despite the fact that it has no convenient save feature just like D2 say otherwise.

[Twan]

IMHO Dominions is selling well because the number of comparable games is very small, not because you need to copy/paste files if you want to keep a save.

[DominionsFan]

There is an old Hungarian phrase..it sounds something like this in english: "It is a bad man who thinks bad things about the other man."
Most of you lads [especially the old players] tends to think, that the newbies would use a save feature for "cheating". You've never realized that it could be helpful for them. I guess it was discussed already that why. I think that most of the newbies will surely miss this feature. Personally I absolutely don't need it, and the same is true about the Doms 2. players. However try to accept their opinion also in this topic, a save function is not necessary bad. Not to mention that as someone has pointed out, young kids would surely need it.

[Mortibus]

Yeah, that's true. I think at least a named save file in case of corruption like some one pointed out before would be a good idea.

I just consider it another flavor of a familiar game, like some MUDs I have played with permanent death for the character.

It personally does not matter to me how you choose to play the game, knock yourself out.

[Amos]

DominionsFan there was a program made for Dom2 with one function- Save. There where threads for Dom2 and 1 about need for Save. I myself copy pasted in Dom2 for years. So its not a correct assumption that only newbies need Save. I've never accepted an enforcement of Ironman mode in any game (not even Nethack). It should be a personal choice whether to save or not.
But if the devs withhold Save function out of personal ideology then this argument is moot.

[PvK]

This IS save game abuse. This game is not balanced on the "backsies" principle, unlike other games which become pointless because they expect you to cheat until you win. If things don't go your way, live (or die) with it. Live and learn. Die, and learn faster. Otherwise, you're cheating yourself, and breaking the game balance, removing the tension, etc.

If you insist on doing this, you can. Just back up the game file and save it under a different name or under a different folder. It's fairly easy, but not so easy that players will start to rely on it and end up ruining their experience or misunderstanding the game design and thinking it's like the bazillion other games out there that are balanced on the bizarre concept that players will cheat when something goes wrong for them.

PvK

P.S. If you wish for a Doom Horror and he doesn't show up and eat your soul, consider yourself more lucky than you deserve.

Potatoman said:
I think you're mischaracterizing our motives for wanting a real save/load feature.

To illustrate, put yourself in the shoes of a person who has spent the last two hours fighting to enter land as EA R'leyh. Your morale 8 troops are completely unable to breach PD anywhere on the map, so you need to rely on summons. You've taken and pillaged several smaller provinces, but Maverni his beginning to dominate the land mass and you know that once that happens, you're history. Fortunately, you've just managed to reach lvl 9 alteration and have scraped together (via alchemizing all your gems to astral) enough pearls for one casting of Wish. You need somebody big, bad, and amphibious to Thug their way through the armies of Maverni.
You've heard somewhere on the forums that Doom Horrors are the toughest unit in the game- and toughest sounds pretty good. You wish for "Doom Horror". Next turn: the sum total of all your gems are gone, your pretender is dead, horror marked, and feebleminded. Your nation has no way to heal and it'll take you roughly 100 turns to empower another person up to the level needed for another casting. The game is now over because you did not know that wishing for that particular minion will not work- an unsatisfying way to cap off two hours of gaming by any estimation.

Loading when that kind of thing happens is not "save game abuse", it's a way to avoid having to throw an otherwise entertaining session away because of a fluke, bad decision, or honest mistake.

[Arralen]

Doing save/reload GUI interfaces which work on Linux, Mac and Windoze equally well is not an easy and fast done task.

And don't forget - this game is programmed by Johan in his spare time.

I'd rather see him fix bugs and alter some things in the game engine than have him do 2 more GUI windows which call the different OS APIs to present those players a comfortable reload feature which seemingly can't live without. You know what - if you really need that feature, play windowed and move the files yourself. Of write some script to do it for you. Or even wrap up those scripts or do a 'real' application as George McGinn did with the "backupper" for Dom2 in 2001.

[Gandalf Parker]

Personally Id like to see it NOT be included. I for one would abuse it to death which would ruin one of my favorite games. Yeah yeah "just have willpower and down save". Well hell if I had that kindof willpower my whole life would be different, but it aint. DONT TEMPT ME SATAN!

Gandalf Parker
--
Deja Vu is proof that God is into game saves

[Kristoffer O]

> And thats just stupid. Illwinter is in the market to make money. So your saying poeple would would like saving and reloading just shouldnt buy the game? Instead of you just not using that feature.

Actually were not in the market to make money, not me at least, and I think JK shares this sentiment to a degree. Money is nice, but I don't know what to do with it.

Still, we like it if people like our game and might change it in that direction, even though it is more important if we like our game

I'm personally quite fond of the no-save functionality, but I can understand if people prefer saveability. It would probably mean some 'meckande' to make it work, and there are other features and bugs that will need a fix, so don't count on a change in the first patch.

Still, it is nice to hear what people think, so keep up the discussion.

[NTJedi]

I would say don't add the save feature because I have some nephews which sometimes play the game and if the save feature is added they will cheat not only in SP, but MP games against each other causing arguments, accusations and other messes.
The nephews know nothing about editing game files or even just browsing with windows explorer so this game provides great fun and peace when they visit.