Problem Saving Games

[solops]

Potatoman said:
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.

Not to mention simply forgetting things because of a screaming child, not recognising the itty bitty people characters for what they are or, for that matter, remembering what they are or what they do or, worst of all, playing for 4 hours, have some nutty thing happen that ends the game for you and not being able to re-play it without going back for 4 hours.

I had no idea that not having a save and reload feature (like almost all other games do) was such a critical design component. What a shame. It detracts from my enjoyment and I suspect that, if widely known, would negatively impact potential buyers, helping keep this marvelous game in a niche rather than expanding its base to a much, much wider market.

I think that it is rediculous that a request for a simple and standard UI feature should generate such a voluminous debate about the philosophy of GAME playing.

Look Mr Developer Guys, just please give us a flexible save and reload in the UI and let people choose for themselves how they will enjoy the game.

[Mortibus]

Well, I disagree, no harm in that, is there?

I find it refreshing to play a game that's different, one in which the usual save/load shuffle is no longer an issue.

Like you said, almost all other games have the save and reload feature. Some people don't like that. This game is for those people.

The save and reload fans have enough games already, don't you think?

[KissBlade]

Save and Reload can appease both types. If you're a stickler, then just don't use it. Simple as that. Unless you're saying you don't like it because you'll want to reload? That makes little sense to me actually. And to say "The save and reload fans have enough games already, don't you think?" just sounds a little off to me.

[Frostmourne27]

KissBlade said:
Save and Reload can appease both types. If you're a stickler, then just don't use it. Simple as that. Unless you're saying you don't like it because you'll want to reload? That makes little sense to me actually. And to say "The save and reload fans have enough games already, don't you think?" just sounds a little off to me.

That is pretty much what I'm saying. It's not that I'm 'weak-willed' (a better test of willpower would be like, refraining from personal atacks on the forums for a week or two) it's just that I don't want that option. It's like saying DnD is too easy: play without a cleric. I want to use all the options out there. I don't want this as an option because I don't want to be paying for a game that has features that are (IMHO) spurious and unneeded - that would be a waste of the developers time, my money, and my time. Would you be happy if Dom3 came with a 500$ gold ingot attatched, and you had to pay an extra 500$? even though gold prices are rising and you could maybe offset the extra expence of shipping it all the way to wherever?
When people complained about the lack of difficulty in Heroes of Might and Magic 5, Nival's lead developer suggested playing without saving/reloading. People were furious, saying that it was a demonstration of the grossly capitalistic game industry that tries to make money, not games. Atleast Illwinter isn't like that. However, they aren't conventional. They do some strange things. This concept, along with the idea of allowing certain spells to be banned from cast by mages, has been around for quite a while, and is fairly simple to implement, I think that they probably look upon it as a bad thing.

[KissBlade]

Exchanging $500 dollar gold ingots and ignoring a save/reload option are not apt analogies. And Heroes of Might and Magic 5 is a totally different game because it was too easy because the AI was inept. To suggest playing without saving/reloading would've made very little difference.

[Frostmourne27]

KissBlade said:
Exchanging $500 dollar gold ingots and ignoring a save/reload option are not apt analogies. And Heroes of Might and Magic 5 is a totally different game because it was too easy because the AI was inept. To suggest playing without saving/reloading would've made very little difference.

What (should) make a game difficult other than AI? A game should be sufficiantly hard that losses vs. the AI are common (like maybe 30-40% of the time) but it should allways be close. As for the analogy, it's not the greatest, but it's not too bad, even if it's far fetched: It's an added 'feature', since it is basically decreasing the eventual cost of the game, but it isn't really something that many people will want. The differance (other than the rediculous scope of a 500$ gold ingot) is that MOST people want save games, whereas most people don't want to become envolved in speculating on the prcie of gold.

[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.

[Amos]

You could release a patch like addition. If people want to use Save they could download it, if they dont then they are not being tempted by Save in the game. That should satisfy most objectors.

[Theonlystd]

Id like one cause when you get into 80,100 provinces empires its easy to forget to do something that gets you pwned.


I was rather baffled y it wasnt there. No one makes you use it. Cause some have a weak willpower not everyone else should be kept from using it.


And save and reload fans?!?!? LoL do poeple make fanclubs for this or something?. No one makes you save and reload. There arent save and reload games those are just options that come with those games.. Games arent designed and sold on the premise of save and reload. You wont see them advertising that feature on the box