Poll: Saving story telling in games

[Outright Villainy]

I do, but I'm trying to break the habit. The last time, when playing fallout 3, I led Lucas Sims to mr burke and simms was killed. I reloaded and rectified, but in hindsight I should have ploughed on accepted my mistake. It's definitely an immersion killer.

 

[fd18e3d0-816e-11e4-b4a9-0800200c9a66]

I do safety save when i feel a big decision is coming up but i have never given much thought to how it affects the story. To me dying and making wrong decision is all part of the gameplay element. I don't see how you can ever overcome this unless the game somehow remembers stuff throughout the whole game regardless of when you saved and loaded, but that seems a bit pointless to me because it means i'd have to get everything right the first time round.

By the way, nice intro story

 

[joshthor]

i safety save. and i dont lose the immersion. the only way to not lose immersion in theory is to not save at all - minus perhaps when you take a break, but deleting the save when you come back. saving is just that. safety. if you die, you can restart from the point before.

 

[Melkai]

I'd like to thank everyone for their posts.

Addressing Lullabye's argument that there need not be consequences in storytelling. I think it is very true to say that there are no consequences for me personally when watching a film, reading a book, or indeed playing a game. In this regard you Lullabye speaks the truth. However as gaming is an interactive story telling medium, wherein you assume the role of one of the characters (typically the protagonist), it is vital that there are consequences for your character's decisions (and by extension your own) for the story to progress. An excellent point however is the tendency of games to reward the player (with a richer story) for keeping alive particular characters. It seems anachronistic that the game would allow you to risk these characters lives in the first place, and then punish you with a leaner story for your hubris.

 

[JasonKaotic]

Always. Especially in Mass Effect, where it's too damn easy to accidentally select things you weren't supposed to. I ended up attacking the dudes trying to be nice to me in Bring Down The Sky on Mass Effect, which was pretty annoying, I was building up to get the Paragon achievement. Thank god he calls you over before he talks to you.

And I saved before choosing which sides to ally with and whether or not to destroy the Anvil of the Void on Dragon Age so I could farm all the achievements. Forgot to with the Cult of Andraste though. Gotta play through all over again just to get the achievement -.-

 

[Sephychu]

I only really do it before combat. All that's going to happen is that I'm going to be forced to try it again, so I might as well do so closer to where I want.

However, for pivotal decisions, I used to safety save, but now I just try to keep it all balanced and go with the flow. It helps me to get into the mindset of my character, sets up true escapism, if you will, and I tend to have a lot more fun with my games. Sometimes, I look back on a game, and I wonder if it would have been more fun if I hadn't ended up shagging Kaidan by accident and instead managed to get off with Liara, sometimes I ponder going back to my days of safety saving. Then, I go through another game without doing it, and I realise that each new character I make is a new story to be told, not one designed to fix my perceived shortcomings of the previous ones. I find it far more fun that way.

Though I also believe that your failure to do certain things shouldn't always affect the story. To a certain extent I think the story-telling should be good enough for you not to have to fail at some things to be immersive.

I have just noticed my horrible condition of comma-spam.

I think Heavy Rain is meant to have done this but I haven't played it yet..

Oh it very much does. Not only can everyone permanently die, but every decision you make is permanently saved beyond your control. If anyone is in the habit of safety saving, this game will kick it out of you like Bruce Lee.

 

[Purplefood1]

My brother does it obsessively, it's more of a twitch with him than consiously saving.
But me personally no i managed to get through Mass effect 1 with 9 saves but i did play it for a very long time between each save.

 

[Melkai]

Thanks for your posts.

From the sounds of it Heavy Rain is cast from the same mould as Indigo Prophecy (or Fahrenheit, depending on region). I really enjoy the idea of instant automatic saves instigated by the game itself in order to cement your decisions. Sephychu makes an excellent point about escapism, and becoming the character you play. I'm not sure about others but I certainly enjoy the actual role-playing aspect of RPG's. That being said it seems incongruous to behave, as my character would, and not be happy with the results. I have often done just this only to return to a save and act out of character in order to achieve a more positive outcome. I believe an experiment is in order, will I enjoy games more if I only save upon finishing play?

 

[Sephychu]

I think it all depends on the game you intend to safety save on.
For example, some games can be about roleplay for a while, but the vast plethora of obtainable things becomes overwhelming, and a kleptomaniac-obsessive-compulsive such as myself eventually folds to the desire to have accomplished as much as I can in one save, to stop myself playing through the game an absurd amount of times to see it all. I have never found Bethesda games very immersive, they always seem to hammer you in to one type of play or another, never really letting your forge your own path. After so many playthroughs, player fuck-up is going to lead to you not getting something that you started the playthrough exclusively for.
In short, for roleplay and character immersion, save only before combat or the end of play. For maximum attainment, safety save to your hearts content. Your character may become a disconnected husk, but said disconnected husk will have a ton of awesome crap to shoot people with.

(Or look at, in my case. -.-)

 

[Valkyrie101]

Yes, we have to because failure usually means death, and in certain games, particularly Fallout (the originals) for example, it's easy to fail through tiny mistakes, or no fault of the player.