OT: Save Loactions or SaveAnywhere

[OG_Gleep]

I hate it when games don't let you save anywhere any time. Anyone remember the first vampire game? There was such an uproar on the forums, they quickly released a patch to put it in. Many console/pc games when developed together will have a save point system instead of a save anywhere anytime system that we are used to. IMHO thats lazy game design. Now a days with harddrives coming standard on consoles, it will be less of an issue down the road.

But by and large save point systems suck. It forces you to replay the same sequence of events, often scripted, over and over again. If someone wants the challenge, in a save anywhere system, they can just avoid saving often.

[Gandalf Parker]

I take it for granted this is not a Dominions discussion?

While I do understand the advantages of save-points, there is another way which I like better. I love it when games thwart my efforts to cheat by making random rolls well in advance.

[Agrajag]

Gandalf Parker said:
I take it for granted this is not a Dominions discussion?

Yep, that's why there's an OT right up ahead at the topic.

thejeff said:
1)I'm not sure that specific saving locations is anymore an artificial way of raising the difficulty than saving at anytime is of lowering it.

I dislike the ability to win a fight by just saving and trying it 5-10 times, and try to avoid the temptation. I don't always succeed It does seem many games are designed expecting that behavior.
How would Dominions play if it was standard practice to restore and run a turn again if a battle didn't go your way. Maybe tweak the orders a little...

2) I'd agree with this, though I'm not in the habit of saving often and thus wind up doing this even when I can. More frustrating to me would be not being able to save where I am when I need to stop playing.

3) Backward in time? Was this ever standard on PC games? Back to old text adventures (dating myself) saving at will has been common.

Of course, I'm an old nethack addict so I've always been fond of the save and quit approach. It takes a different style of game though.

1) Then you shuoldn't "screw" the rest of us just because of your weak will
3) SaveAnywhere is standard now, so abandoning it is going back in time

Vicious Love said:
I've always favored games that autosave pretty much everywhere, and don't tear you away from the gameplay to manually handle the act yourself. Constant metagamaing = bad, but constantly replaying the same scenes and dialogues = really aggravating.

I don't know, a quick jab of the old F5 doesn't tear me away from the gameplay.