Warning re Div 2

Well, to me having a 'quick save' take more than 30 seconds is not so quick … but the graphics are sweet on pc. As for quality, everyone hasb their own metrics …

Excuse me - but I am AMAZED no one has said something along the lines of "WHO DECIDED TO PUT SAVE IN My Documents ANYWAY!!!!"

For over 15 years save were put in the game folder. And that was a perfectly acceptable place for them! Now, if you have two drives, as many do, you can forget how the 8 games you have installed on that second drive is all saving to the system drive!

Someone should write a little program that allows you to put in where the game folder is, put in where the saves are saved, and then periodically cut them from the My Documents and put in a Saves folder in the game folder. This way, at any one time, the bulk of your save will be in the game folder!

Between saves always going to the system drive and Steam only letting you save to the partition the Steam folder is, productive disk space is going to be impossible! This is yet one more reason why so many more people (like me!) are playing retro PC games more and more from GOG.com and other sources!

It's a matter of standards. Microsoft wants them there, and it's one of the few places where the developer can be 100% the user does have writing rights even if he is not logged in as admin.

Originally Posted by Gorath
It's a matter of standards. Microsoft wants them there, and it's one of the few places where the developer can be 100% the user does have writing rights even if he is not logged in as admin.

So MICROSOFT MS-DOS and MICROSOFT Win 3.1 and MICROSOFT Win 95 and MICROSOFT 98 didn't have standards then?

I think the standards thing is a lo0ad of BS and just shows how the industry copies each other for the sake of it and never thinks of the gamer in it's equations! It's another one of the 1,000 cuts that is slowly killing PC gaming!

Windows 98 SE had "My Documents" as well.

Everybody thinks it's BS.

Originally Posted by Alrik Fassbauer
Windows 98 SE had "My Documents" as well.

I never said these OS's didn't have My Documents folders, I just said that through the late 80's and 90's practically all games saved to the games folder and you knew where you stood! Certainly if you had an OS problem you didn;t lose your saves, now if you have to reinstall an OS due to a problem you lose My Documents!

Eh….. Backup?

Originally Posted by pibbur
Eh….. Backup?

That's what I thought.

It's common enough that games save in My Documents these days, or they save in their own respective folders (Note: Steam games save where ever they would normally).

Or you put "My documents" on an another drive.

Read Goraths reply again

As he said, it's one of the places the game is guaranteed to be allowed write access. Newer OS's can be quite restrictive in this regard.
Also many *publishers* (not MS) will insist that the dev puts the saves there. This way their support departments might be saved a lot of time, since they know exactly where to direct their customers. Remember, people who call a help line is typically not the most tech-savy people to begin with…
And since the publishers are the ones that pay, the devs naturally puts the saves there

It's also an easy way for the game to handle multiple users. If they have separate accounts on the PC they will also automatically have separate config files and saves for the game.

Btw: When you install/reinstall Windows 7 it will by default make a backup of your old Windows installation - so all your save games will *automatically* be backed up

But all being said - I personally also preferred the old solution, where config/ini files and saves were stored with the game. But I guess that's because I'm a "power user" (as most people here) that likes to tweak the game settings and backup save files etc. Casual gamers don't do this, and they don't care where their files are stored on the disk.

I still say, unlike almost any other industry, these things get changed with no knowledge of who decided the change and any debate in the media and amongst gamers about the change. If you don't think games companies could get around the write access you don't rate programmers very highly!

Originally Posted by UK_John
I still say, unlike almost any other industry, these things get changed with no knowledge of who decided the change and any debate in the media and amongst gamers about the change.

Same with ACTA, you know.

Just as an example that these things actully happen.

Originally Posted by Alrik Fassbauer
Same with ACTA, you know.

Just as an example that these things actully happen.

Same with PC games going from big boxes to DVD cases like their console counterparts about 8 years ago. Funnily enough, about the same time as we started seeing the slow decline in PC gaming sales and number of PC title releases.

Originally Posted by UK_John
If you don't think games companies could get around the write access you don't rate programmers very highly!

I'm sorry to say it .. but I think you seriously underestimate what it would take to work around the built-in file protection system in a Windows OS. A program that does this is would generally be considered malware.

Most people would not want to install such a program on their machine.. and I'm sure the publisher would be very very unhappy if they found out that their product fell into the malware category

It's not just about what a game programmer can or cannot do. It's about making a well-behaved product, working with whatever restrictions there might be in the current OS. The time for "cowboy code" and wild OS hacks (like the custom memory manager for the Ultima 7 games) is simply over..

Originally Posted by UK_John
Same with PC games going from big boxes to DVD cases like their console counterparts about 8 years ago. Funnily enough, about the same time as we started seeing the slow decline in PC gaming sales and number of PC title releases.

This was demanded by retail, especially Walmart AFAIR. Smaller, standardized boxes -> more product per m² -> $$$.

Originally Posted by UK_John
Same with PC games going from big boxes to DVD cases like their console counterparts about 8 years ago. Funnily enough, about the same time as we started seeing the slow decline in PC gaming sales and number of PC title releases.

Another fun story..

I'm somewhat of a collector of old retro games. I've collected almost all the Ultima games, with their manuals, cloth maps, metal trinkets and what-not. I normally use Ebay to find those games, and then have to pay a pretty sum of money to have them shipped to Denmark.

One of the last games I bought was "Realms of the Haunting". I specifically looked for a complete "big box" version of the game. And when I got it - what do you think was in the box? The (huge) box contained … a plastic inlay, which held one of those thick 4-cd cases. There was nothing else in the box!! The manual was the sleeve for the cd case. I basically paid like $15 to have a carbon box shipped to Denmark.

And still - the game is great! I'm playing it these days and enjoying it quite a lot. It didn't really need a bigger manual or maps.

I'm just saying - maybe the change from big box to DVD was not done *just* to annoy people like you and me. Perhaps games have evolved to a point where in-game tutorials will teach us what we need to know to play.

I've got a specimen of Ultima 8 … "hard drive edition".
It comes on a CD and you must still install it on your harddisk …