Game saving - this is what devs should implement

[Mr Pantomime]

I think it should be customisable. You can choose to have the prompts or not. Prompts would be default though

I think what games need is a fast-boot system. One that takes you right to the starting menu. Its annoying to go through a lot of intros for a game youve booted hundreds of times

 

[prytoluk]

"press start" is classic and cool. I like the idea of the curtains opening as pointed out, specially if there's a nice title screen.
on topic, what bugs me big time is when you can't have parallel saves. I was playing super meat boy, and so was my brother (we share the same pc). I played the first few levels, and when my brother wanted to play, well, he didn't. You can't have different profiles/saves, so that's that. There are many pc games that do this, and it's simply unforgivable.

 

[Netrigan]

Why do I have to hit the START button at the beginning of every single game? I started the game, I think I want to play it. Why put an extra button push between loading the game and the main menu?

This always bugged me forever as well. I wonder why Devs use that function.

Looked it up. These days a lot of devs use it to pre-cache the menu. Basically a hidden load screen.

Don't quite buy the open the curtain argument some people use. There's exactly one start screen I remember: Fallout 3. Which is actually pretty damn cool when you're not seeing it every two hours because of freezes. I remember a fair number of pre-menu animations from my PCdays that were pretty cool... but I usually edited the config file after a handful of viewings to turn it off... faster loading trumps cool cinematic once then novelty wears off.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

so you couldn't think of a logical reason either

It's a tradition that is affectionately held in the medium by designers and gamers. Whether or nor you feel that is logical depends on whether you feel the human need to follow tradition is logical.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

I think it should be customisable. You can choose to have the prompts or not. Prompts would be default though

I think what games need is a fast-boot system. One that takes you right to the starting menu. Its annoying to go through a lot of intros for a game youve booted hundreds of times

As far as I know Black Ops has this... an option to default straight to the multiplayer start screen when you put the disc in.

 

[Netrigan]

so you couldn't think of a logical reason either

It's a tradition that is affectionately held in the medium by designers and gamers. Whether or nor you feel that is logical depends on whether you feel the human need to follow tradition is logical.

Traditions often aren't logical, as the answer to why you do something is usually "because that's the way we do it." It might have been logical once upon a time, but clinging to tradition is often seen as a double edge sword. While it maintains a certain continuity that brings you closer to your fore-bearers, it can also stiffle progress.

If the article I read earlier is correct, it's done for a purely technical reason. They're pre-caching the main menu and it helps hide the load time. Cartridge based systems didn't need to do this, so those games often opened straight to a menu. For example, I checked out the opening title scene for Super Mario Bros. 1 & 3 on YouTube and it opened to a menu. Selecting either of the options *started* the game. Flash forwarded to Super Mario World and it, again, opened to a menu.

On the PC side, I really don't remember Start screens. Lots of the early games opened up with a demo running (and you could actually record your own demos and use them instead). Can't remember if you had to press a key to call up the menu or if the menu was on-screen during it. As loading times got longer, it became common-place to have a "Press Any Key To Start" to avoid players getting caught off-guard by at the start of a level. I had games where I was loading a level for two or three minutes, so it was nice to be able to go to the bathroom and not *have* to watch the progress bar slowly fill up.

In the Arcades, title screens (if they existed) were just looped into a demo reel along with the high scores. Again, pressing start signaled the start of the game, not something you did to get to the main menu.

The Atari 2600 usually just dumped you into the game select mode. Only games I remember that didn't do this were one-player games which often featured an intro (like Raiders Of The Lost Ark or E.T.). Press whatever started the game.

Out of curiosity, I wonder where the Start screen started. I sat out a lot of console generations, so it's really something I don't remember being a part of games until I picked up my PS3 and I find it really odd.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

snippy
Out of curiosity, I wonder where the Start screen started. I sat out a lot of console generations, so it's really something I don't remember being a part of games until I picked up my PS3 and I find it really odd.

If I were to hazard a guess I'd say it came from the arcade days. I remember going into arcades as a kid and you would press a button to stop the visual demos and start the game.

 

[Netrigan]

snippy
Out of curiosity, I wonder where the Start screen started. I sat out a lot of console generations, so it's really something I don't remember being a part of games until I picked up my PS3 and I find it really odd.

If I were to hazard a guess I'd say it came from the arcade days. I remember going into arcades as a kid and you would press a button to stop the visual demos and start the game.

But pressing Start actually *started* the game. On the Atari 2600, you opened up into a kind of menu and pressing the Game Reset switch started the game. The NES had a Start button, which if my fuzzy memory is correct, was used to start games, but three of the first four Super Mario games dumped you right into the main menu at start-up.

These days, we press Start to get to a menu. It serves no logical function. It doesn't even emulate the function of those previous systems. It's just odd.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

These days, we press Start to get to a menu. It serves no logical function. It doesn't even emulate the function of those previous systems. It's just odd.

Well.. I kinda like it. Call me old fashioned but it's part of the ritual for me, it's like 'yeah I pressed start... now I'm ready to get mah game on!'

Lol.

 

[Faladorian]

The "are you sure you want to load?" prompt is so unnecessary. So what if I loaded the wrong save, all I have to do is load the right save file. There's nothing to lose but a few seconds of my time loading the wrong file.

Really the reasoning behind this is if you just got past a hard part and want to save, but accidentally hit Load. Then, you load even farther back than you were. Hence the prompt.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

I just hate that they lock the save games. So you can't back them up incase something happens to your PS3, like, I don't know, the YLOD. If they're going to do that, they should reinstate the memory card. Infact, a memory card would help with what you're talking about.

I really do hate the locked saves on the PS3, it's pure bullshit. I think it's done for trophies but trophies are meaningless whereas having a backup of save can be very meaningful. I actually blame Sony for this (even though it's the devs that decide to lock the saves), it shouldn't even be allowed in the first place. If you have a PS3 hardware failure that's not a HD crash then you have no way (outside of fixing the PS3) of getting your saves back even if you did a system backup.

Its actually only an extremely small amount of games that you cant backup the saves for. The vast majority you can still copy the saves to a flash drive or whatever you want.

There's a decent amount of games that have locked saves. Just off the top of my head, I know Bayonetta, Demon's Souls, and Assassin's Creed 2 have locked saves. It just shouldn't be allowed by the firmware to have the ability to lock saves in the first place.

 

[LightningBanks]

I just hate that they lock the save games. So you can't back them up incase something happens to your PS3, like, I don't know, the YLOD. If they're going to do that, they should reinstate the memory card. Infact, a memory card would help with what you're talking about.

I really do hate the locked saves on the PS3, it's pure bullshit. I think it's done for trophies but trophies are meaningless whereas having a backup of save can be very meaningful. I actually blame Sony for this (even though it's the devs that decide to lock the saves), it shouldn't even be allowed in the first place. If you have a PS3 hardware failure that's not a HD crash then you have no way (outside of fixing the PS3) of getting your saves back even if you did a system backup.

Sony shouldnt have followed microsoft in implementing trophies. Especially since games dont get cheats because its hard to disable trophies should you wanna put in a cheat. Also, I cant remember what game it was, but it comes up loading trophies at the start of every game, and takes about 5 minutes to finish >< Its almost as annoying as the installs.

 

[MrGalactus]

Christ, is it really that big of a deal? It just takes patience. The only saving thing that drives me nuts in the one in the old Pokemon games. It takes aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaages. I'm not that patient!

 

[SimuLord]

This is why quicksave/quickload are godsends on the PC. They're essentially what you seem to be wanting.

F5, F9, problem solved. I love PC gaming!