Castle Paradox

[Leonhart]

There are these questions that has been the topic of a childish argument among my friends.

Why can we save anywhere in the world map? What is in the world map that enables us to save our game anyhere and anytime? Is there some sort of a magical force outside, where there are monsters roaming around? Why is the save system gone when we enter a town, where it is safe and quiet?

Also, which of the following do you prefer in a game:
a. saving anywhere
b. save spots
c. saving anywhere as long as you have something that will enable you to save
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The man who smiles when things go wrong has thought of someone to blame it on.
- Robert Bloch

[Phil Arts]

I perfer saving anywhere on the overworld.

[Joe Man]

I think that savinganywhere is nicest, at least on the overworld. But I don't have anything against save points if there's a good reason for them to be there (it's early; I can't think of nything now)
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"Everyone has 200,000 bad drawings in them, the sooner you get them out the better."
~Charles Martin Jones

Last edited by Joe Man on Fri Dec 13, 1957 1:21 am; edited 2,892 time in total

[PlayerOne]

Saving anywhere can lead to quickload syndrome, where you save before doing anything significant so you can go back if something goes wrong. This kind of takes away any pressure and any real danger.

The reason you can save anywhere in the Overworld is because nothing important ever happens there. All the combat is random. There are no significant decisions to make.

It is usually easy enough to save in a town, but the minor inconvenience of having to go to the inn does tend to stop you messing about reloading all the time until you win at roulette or whatever.

Dungeons are where the spacing of save points creates real peril. It needs to be done carefully, though. If a section is too big and too difficult it can just bring you to a halt. I lost about 3 hours of play right at the end of FF7 when I died foolishly, and have never been able to face playing through it again (and have since lost the save game to a memory card failure, which makes it even worse), and hence never finished the game.

Suspend saves should be compulsory, though - a means to save your current position so you can turn the game off. A short-term save that disappears when you resume play.

[Santa Claus]

I prefer the saveanywhere path. Imagine the following scenario:

Your parents are away from home, and you're supposed to be writing a 50-page essay, but you say "screw that" and go play video games. Thirty minutes into a dungeon, you hear the garage door opening and you don't have enough time to get to a save point. That's thirty minutes of play time down the crapper.

Anyways, as for the quickload syndrome, you could always put a price on each save, ala the SegaCD version of Lunar 2, where the cost of each save was approximately the same amount of Magic Points you gain at the end of each battle. You CAN save after each battle, but you won't make any profits.

[Joe Man]

[Santa Claus]

VIDEO GAMES, asshole.

[msw188]

I turn to Dragon Warrior once again. The idea is that you cannot save anywhere except for save points (usually in towns), but dying does NOT send all your playing into the proverbial crapper. Rather, you lose half of your money and need to revive most of your party. In addition, there are spells to transport you back to somewhere where you can save. This is how I have set my OHR game up as well.

[TMC]

[Mr B]

I thought of a possible work-around a couple of months ago while watching my brother slaughtering stormtroopers in Jedi Academy. We started talking about how none of the sequels ever had the same heart-thumping feel of the original Dark Forces. We decided that the main reason (besides the "hear-it-before-you-see-it" whisper of the Dark Troopers) is that you only had a certain number of lives per level, and you respawned at certain points.

Although a modern game probably wouldn't be able to get away with that (especially the primativeness of the save system that required players to beat each level in one sitting), we decided that being able to severely limit the saving ability of the player made the experience much more important -- the fact that you couldn't just keep throwing yourself at a room of baddies made skills more valuable and loosing more significant.

We decided that a good combination of save-anywhere and limited saving would be to have a save meter in the game. When the meter fills up with 100 points, you can save (or put off saving for a while, as you like). Cheap-o stormtroopers were worth 1 save point each. Squad leaders were worth 2-3 points. Dark Jedi were worth 5-20 points (depending on type), and bosses were worth maybe 50 points each. This would allow you to save sort of anywhere, but would still give importance to skills and significance to loosing.

[Gizmog1]

I like the save anywhere on the overworld method, combined with strategic save points in dungeons and whatnot. There could even feasibly be fake save points which attack you, or make you fight them before you can save. A good dungeon save point should be somewhere relatively safe, and aways from any real danger. That way you've ogt a little bit of a walk and some fighting before you reach the major trap.

I also am a big fan of Resident Evil's ink ribbon system. If you use all your ink ribbons in the beginning, you've got a lot of game to go through without being able to save, and if you save all your ribbons, you might give yourself undue stress redoing things you've done 15 times before when you die. And there's always the risk of reaching the end of the game and having 500 ribbons you haven't used, thus making you feel stupid. Another good way is if it penalizes which ending you get for saving too many times.

[LeRoy_Leo]

A poll would be a nice way to organize this.

Save anywhere, man. Save points can be an element to game play. They are best used in games where you only go short strides to each one, like a dungeon crawler, or something. So, you may see that saving anywhere is generally a good feature, but not in all cases. I can see a game relying on the positioning of save points.

The designer isn't responsible for saving; the player is. Save early and often, I always say...
In any case, it's the designer's job to make it easier for the player to save.
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Planning Project Blood Summons, an MMORPG which will incinerate all of the others with it's sheer brilliance...

---msw188 ---
"Seriously James, you keep rolling out the awesome like gingerbread men on a horror-movie assembly line. "

[PlayerOne]

I don't much like the idea of giving the player limited saves to use where they like (ink ribbons, cash to save, save point inventory object, whatever), because there's no way to know in advance when they are going to be needed, when you are going to get more, and what's coming up. It's asking the player to make decisions based on information they cannot possibly have first time through the game.

Getting stuck with no saves and a lot of game to play = never play the game again, in my book. I can think of two examples of this off the top of my head:

Ishar - old school Atari ST first-person RPG - Had a financial cost to saving. I reached a point where I could no longer afford to save, and didn't seem to be making any more money. That's where I still am, 15 years (or whatever) later.

Final Fantasy 7 - (possible minor spoiler) - I used the mobile save point too early, because I didn't have any way to know better. After a very long session ending in death, I never played it again.

[FyreWulff]

Too much saving, and the game becomes incredibly easy.

Too little saving, and the player becomes extremely unmotivated after putting an hour in and losing their progress.


It's a learned art.

[Raekuul]