quote: Original post by ThoughtBubble
Ok.. So, couldn''t you look at that as losing to the worm, and then rolling back to a previous state? This is further reinforced as the floors before had plenty of jars to break for re-stocking supplies. It could be seen as a handy auto load upon a minor failue.

The most important difference is that the place to which you return upon failure is defined by the designer, not the player. Oh sure, you can jump off on purpose if you like, but this is a coarser kind of control than you''d get with unrestricted save and reload.

quote: Original post by Wavinator

I think you''d be surprised at how little people want to lose in a game. Even a death that''s easily recoverable is still a death. This is more psychological, but I suspect when you present failure of any kind to the player it is generally unpleasant, save or no save.

In games with unrestricted save/reload people will typically save as a way to minimise risk and obtain a little peace of mind. Some will save more often than others, but the more often they save the less they have to lose. By eliminating the ability to save and reload arbitrary game states you direct the player''s survival efforts toward a particular goal. Instead of saving as a way to minimise risk the player is required to complete a particular task.

Imagine a game where dying means popping back up automatically at the closest safe location. Dying for failing to perform a dangerous jump would set you back no further than just before that jump. Would such a game be any fun? Not to me. If instead you divide progress into stages, where dying means playing the latest stage over again, the meaning of death changes in comparison.

quote: Good example. But I can counter with numerous others, the best (IMHO) being Jedi Knight''s levels filled with stunning vertical drops. For me, the sheer magnitude of the level geometry was enough to create tension, especially when I had to make insane jumps! ("There''s gotta be a better way to make a living..." )

Even though I could easily reload, and many times had to, I still experienced a (pleasurable) anxiety over falling. Again, I think it''s psychological, and the more we''re immersed in a game, the more we''ll take tension seriously.

Okay. I don''t deny that tension can exist without restricting saves. Indeed, atmosphere alone can be enough to create a certain degree of tension, but I feel that tension is made even greater by combining a dangerous looking atmosphere with actual danger.

quote: Original post by chronos
By eliminating the ability to save and reload arbitrary game states you direct the player''s survival efforts toward a particular goal. Instead of saving as a way to minimise risk the player is required to complete a particular task.

The bone I have to pick with this thought is that all too often I''ve played games where due to limited resources or designer imagination, there is one and only one way to achieve a particular goal. The older I get, the less palatible that is for me, and the more games I take back.

quote:
Imagine a game where dying means popping back up automatically at the closest safe location. Dying for failing to perform a dangerous jump would set you back no further than just before that jump. Would such a game be any fun? Not to me.

And yet this is precisely what games like Baldur''s Gate: Dark Alliance, Project Eden, Half-Life, etc. do. A forgiving recovery from death doesn''t detract from the challenge of many death defying jumping puzzles. You forget! You still have to accomplish the dangerous jump!!!

quote:
If instead you divide progress into stages, where dying means playing the latest stage over again, the meaning of death changes in comparison.

This has got to be an age and attitude difference. Its commonly said that young males play games to perfect them. I gave this kind of gaming up with 16-bit Nintendo, because to me now it''s a pointless. Why replay a level over and over again (esp. as my reflexes fade with age) when I can be playing a game that gets me into an adventure?

When I had lots of free time and didn''t know any better, I didn''t mind. But now, my gaming time has to compete with my life.

As I said earlier, just because I can recover from failure easily doesn''t mean that failure means nothing, or that I *WANT* to fail.

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Just waiting for the mothership...

quote: Original post by Wavinator
The bone I have to pick with this thought is that all too often I've played games where due to limited resources or designer imagination, there is one and only one way to achieve a particular goal. The older I get, the less palatible that is for me, and the more games I take back.

Sometimes there's just one way to do something, and sometimes there is more than one.
There's no reason why games with restricted saves can't have more than one way to secure progress. A designer who restricts saving would have to provide the player with well defined, manageable ways of securing progress. If he fails to do that then it's a bad design.

quote: And yet this is precisely what games like Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance, Project Eden, Half-Life, etc. do. A forgiving recovery from death doesn't detract from the challenge of many death defying jumping puzzles. You forget! You still have to accomplish the dangerous jump!!!

Actually, I meant a game where you always popped up at whatever place was closest to the point of failure. I was presenting an exaggerated example of minimal loss. Now, in contrast with this example of absolute minimal loss, even in games with free saving you don't always pop up at the most convenient places (unless you always saved at such places). The element of danger is still there, it's just easier to minimise at will.

quote: This has got to be an age and attitude difference. Its commonly said that young males play games to perfect them. I gave this kind of gaming up with 16-bit Nintendo, because to me now it's a pointless. Why replay a level over and over again (esp. as my reflexes fade with age) when I can be playing a game that gets me into an adventure?

Even as a kid I was never into perfecting play. Sure, I'd try to do as much as possible while playing, but doing whatever I had to do to complete each part of the game was enough for me, and I rarely ever felt the need to go back once I was done.

[edited by - chronos on May 19, 2002 1:23:04 AM]

I''m shooting myself in the foot telling you lot this, but this afternoon I played almost half of Deus Ex (the GOOD half, ie Versalife, the Templar Cathedral, Secret MJ12 facility, the raid on the new-york(Yes, I firmly believe it''s become a common noun, hence the lower case) apartment, etc) all with God mode on. And you know what? It''s still fun. I still love picking those snipers off without them seeing me, even though I know they can''t kill me anyway. I still love spotting patrol routes, filling the whole damn area up with LAMs and then listening round the corner for the devastation. I still love to creep around the turrets and cameras without being seen, even though it really doesn''t make a difference.

Perhaps this is just me being weird, but maybe this whole death/failiure thing is overhyped, and we could stop this spectre of the players rapid and unpleasant demise from dominating every single game situation altogether, taking some of the bite out of the save/don''t save debate.

The reason save/restore has become a serious problem is because of the immediacy and uncompromising nature of puzzles and situations in the modern computer game. It''s quite simple. Every game in existence suffers from this same lack of realism in its sheer rigidity of mission design. Take the average RTS, like C&C. Every damn mission has got to be won to finish the game. This does not happen in real life. In real life, you can actually sustain losses and carry on going, find other ways around problems. What good is trial and error if your first error is fatal?

I think the message here is clear regarding saved game abuse.
Look at any other abused system. Drugs, alcohol, welfare systems, copy protection, you name it. You can''t stop people abusing it simply by making it harder to do that. They''ll always find a way around. The only way is to stop them actually wanting to abuse the things first place.

Ugh, it''s getting late and I''m blowed if I can see a clear moral in all this crap. You can look for one if you want, I''m outta here.

quote: Original post by Wavinator
A forgiving recovery from death doesn''t detract from the challenge of many death defying jumping puzzles. You forget! You still have to accomplish the dangerous jump!!!

You are 100% incorrect, and it''s easy to show why.

Let me give you a simple challenge: slip a coin 100 times in a row, and guess heads or tails correctly on each flip.

Question 1: How long will it take you, on average, to meet this challenge?

Question 2: How long will it take you to meet the challenge if we allow you to "save" and retry after each flip?


Answer to question 1: Most likely years
Answer to question 2: About 200 flips

Does that look like the same difficulty to you?

There is a very important point here that people aren''t getting: when you break challenges up into discrete units, the challenge is only as tough as the toughest individual unit.

For example, Starcraft single player is only as hard as it''s hardest mission. Super Mario brothers is only as hard as it''s hardest level.

When you allow people to *set* their own partitioning in essence the entire game only becomes as hard as the hardest 2 seconds of gameplay. (This is a bit of a simplification but largely accurate.) It isn''t the same difficulty at all.

If you don''t believe that, compare running a six minute mile once a day for a year versus running 365 six minute miles in a row...not the same thing at all.

quote: Why replay a level over and over again (esp. as my reflexes fade with age) when I can be playing a game that gets me into an adventure?

Why aren''t you just reading books or watching movies? Basically what you are saying is that it is your "right" to progress through the game as quickly as possible and see all the stuff that there is to see - you just want to turn the pages. Where is the fun in that? If your gameplay is trivially simple and the only purpose it serves is glue for your narrative just pick up some comic books or something.

Games are fundamentally interactive. If that interaction is trivial what''s the point?

Basically you want a genre that assures that given x time you will get through y amount of the plot. Movies, TV and books and fill that niche nicely. It sounds to me what you are advocating is games without challenge.

I would also point out that challenge IS the point of many, if not most, games. Any sports game, any board game, any multi-player competitive game. There is no "adventure" or narrative. What''s the narrative in Super Mario? What''s the narrative in SF2? What''s the adventure in NASCAR Racing? In the end most games are about mastering play mechanics to meet a challenge. Last time I checked CounterStrike wasn''t a compelling story.

quote: Original post by AnonPoster
You are 100% incorrect, and it''s easy to show why.

Let me give you a simple challenge: slip a coin 100 times in a row, and guess heads or tails correctly on each flip.

...
Does that look like the same difficulty to you?

You seriously need to compare apples to apples and oranges to oranges. Cramming a bunch of challenges together does not make for one entire challenge. Players are still going to be encountering them one at a time. This may make the entire game or level more difficult (and likely annoying), but it doesn''t make any individual enemy or puzzle more challenging.

quote:
There is a very important point here that people aren''t getting: when you break challenges up into discrete units, the challenge is only as tough as the toughest individual unit.

For example, Starcraft single player is only as hard as it''s hardest mission.

No. Its simple, but you''ve got it backwards. You can''t break up challenges that way. Challenges are only as tough as the toughest strategic situation / enemy AI gambit . In moment to moment play, that''s where all of the challenge comes from. The number of the challenges is an extraneous detail, because we address them one at a time. We know this because two people can play the same mission, find it equally difficult, but save at different rates throughout the mission, yet it doesn''t change the fact that the mission is tough.

quote:
When you allow people to *set* their own partitioning in essence the entire game only becomes as hard as the hardest 2 seconds of gameplay.

It''s already this way, even if you can''t save.

Let''s create two distinctions: Endurance, and difficulty. Endurance is the ability to stick with a challenge, difficulty is how hard the challenge is.

If you''re designing to stress the endurance level of your players, well that''s your right. But don''t fool yourself into thinking that you''re raising the difficulty level. All you''re doing is testing your players'' endurance.

Test: Take a level with a series of challenges. Test playing without saving. Record the result. Next, save before every challenge and play through. Record the result.

Now: Over successive breaks, load each save and play through, then stop.

If you do just as well at each challenge, then the number of challenges is simply taxing your endurance and tiring your skills. You''re then relying on degradation in player skill as a supposed difficulty level.

That''s maybe difficult, but it''s not a legitimately harder challenge. A legitimately difficult challenge taxes the player the same way without relying on rests/energy level.

quote:
Why aren''t you just reading books or watching movies?

Because I like games. Progression, control, exploration, change. There''s much more to gaming for some of us than just perfecting a specific challenge, finding all the secrets, or unlocking the next level.

quote:
Basically what you are saying is that it is your "right" to progress through the game as quickly as possible and see all the stuff that there is to see - you just want to turn the pages. Where is the fun in that?

No. I''m saying that, as a gamer, I will vote with my dollar to chose games that are more invested in entertaining me than dictating to me how many times I''ll have to repeat and die in order to have fun.

As designers, we have to remember that this , above even our own pet creative confabulations, is our duty to our players. If half of your gamers come back to you saying they want feature X, it''s your job to give it to them, or figure out how to perfect your design so they no longer want it. As designer, you serve them, not the other way around.

quote:
If your gameplay is trivially simple and the only purpose it serves is glue for your narrative just pick up some comic books or something.

Or, I can play a non-goal emphasizing sandbox game. Widen your perspective of what games are! Do some time playing The Sims, Patrician II, Startopia, Project Eden, Grand Theft Auto, many an open-ended cRPG, Sea Dogs, etc., etc., etc. There''s more to games than just Quake III!!!!

quote:
Games are fundamentally interactive. If that interaction is trivial what''s the point?

*sigh* You''re locked into thinking of interactivity as challenges. A challenge is only one facet of an interactivity element. For example: If a challenge is light, but has long range repercussions, it''s not trivial. If a challenge is light, but it entertains the player, it''s not trivial. If a challenge is light, but requires indirect thinking / new thinking, or opens up areas of growth, change, or exploration, it''s not trivial.

quote:
Basically you want a genre that assures that given x time you will get through y amount of the plot. Movies, TV and books and fill that niche nicely. It sounds to me what you are advocating is games without challenge.

Nope again. I''m advocating being able to save wherever I please. Apples and oranges, man, apples and oranges.

quote:
I would also point out that challenge IS the point of many, if not most, games. Any sports game, any board game, any multi-player competitive game. There is no "adventure" or narrative. What''s the narrative in Super Mario? What''s the narrative in SF2? What''s the adventure in NASCAR Racing? In the end most games are about mastering play mechanics to meet a challenge. Last time I checked CounterStrike wasn''t a compelling story.

LOL! Dude, you''re arguing with the wrong person on this point.



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Just waiting for the mothership...

I think this discussion about the save game feature is thinking for the player.

The last word is held by the player: if he wants to save tons of times, let him save tons of times, if he doesn´t want to save at all, let him pass his frustration when he finds a really big big bad monster, and he hasn´t saved since he started the level...

A good example of this is Soldier of Fortune: each difficulty level represents how many save attempts he has avaiable. Many times a designer has taken too much of the freedom of the player, and the result is appalling...

quote: Original post by cyrax256
Many times a designer has taken too much of the freedom of the player, and the result is appalling...

Worse yet, you end up with complaints and a patch (on the PC side, at least).

Also, the designer and the QA testers, by the end of the dev cycle, aren''t necessarily adequate judges of difficulty anymore. They''ve often times been too exposed to the product to make the same kind of determinations a newbie would, and I have never heard of a shop bringing in our outsourcing fresh QA for new exposure.


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Just waiting for the mothership...

quote:
Players are still going to be encountering them one at a time. This may make the entire game or level more difficult (and likely annoying), but it doesn''t make any individual enemy or puzzle more challenging.

Yes, but it makes the entire game or level more difficult, which is my point.

quote:
The number of the challenges is an extraneous detail, because we address them one at a time. We know this because two people can play the same mission, find it equally difficult, but save at different rates throughout the mission, yet it doesn''t change the fact that the mission is tough.

This is factually incorrect.

Although you address them one at a time, if you can''t save in between the challenge is cumulative. You can''t argue math.

Is shooting one free throw hard? Not as hard as shooting 10 in a row. Even though you you "address them one at a time." Do you disagree?

Furthermore your example is horribly flawed. The fact is that if two people play the same mission, though both may characterize it as "tough" the person who saves more will most likely finish it much more easily.

quote:
Let''s create two distinctions: Endurance, and difficulty. Endurance is the ability to stick with a challenge, difficulty is how hard the challenge is.

You can''t just arbitrarily redefine English to suit your own logic.

Under your definition, shooting 10 3 pointers in a row is the same difficulty as shooting 1? Running a marathon is the same difficulty as running a mile? No, that is simply incorrect, sorry.

Go up to anyone and ask "which is more difficult, running a 5 minute mile or running a marathon at marathon-winning pace?" When they answer marathon, the obvious answer, what are you going to tell them? No they''re mistaken...?

quote:
You''re then relying on degradation in player skill as a supposed difficulty level.

No, you are relying on math.

Let me put it this way: Larry Bird is an excellent free-throw shooter, and very consitent. If I ask him to shoot 100 free throws there is NO degredation between the first and the last. Yet, making 100 in a row is hard. Each individual free-throw may be easy for him, but even so 100 in a row is tough. That has nothing to do with getting tired or bored or any other degredation. That is probability.

quote:
As designers, we have to remember that this , above even our own pet creative confabulations, is our duty to our players. If half of your gamers come back to you saying they want feature X, it''s your job to give it to them, or figure out how to perfect your design so they no longer want it.

Which is why games based on focus groups are usually phenomenal successes.

Once again, all the people who are saying that save anywhere is some sort of "requirement" are provably wrong. Protest all you want reality is reality. Sonic Adventure for Gamecube, which was already out for the Dreamcast, sold a million copies. Was that some sort of mistake? Did those people get tricked somehow?

The idea that you must include save anywhere to please people is not even up for debate. That''s absurd - sales numbers prove that.

quote:
Or, I can play a non-goal emphasizing sandbox game. Widen your perspective of what games are!

I think YOU need to widen your perspective. The "sandbox" game is one specific type of game. Yet you are generalizing this save anywhere need to all games. Note that I''ve said, many times, that save anywhere is appropriate for some games. It must be taken on a case-by-case basis.

Whereas people who are claiming that it is a requirement for ALL games...are all games sandbox games? No. Sim-City I can see having save anywhere. The game isn''t really about challenge and the fun is experimentation. But that is just ONE game, and ONE type of game. Generalizing from that is foolish.


How challenging would Super Mario be with save anywhere? How fun would it be? How challenging would SF2 be with save anywhere? Not very. You want to tell me that SF2 really *requires* save anywhere to be fun? Yet people seemed to really enjoy SF2, didn''t they?

I can''t remember the last time I went to an arcade and saw two people playing Tekken, and one said "gee I really wish I could have saved before you hit me with that unblockable."

But apparently you HAVE seen that, right? Right?

Once again, the idea that some certain types of games benefit from save anywhere is reasonable. The idea that ALL games SHOULD have save anywhere is foolish and flies in the face of reality.

All you are saying (or rather, should be saying) is that you like certain types of games, and for those games save anywhere works well. But that doesn''t generalize to all games.

Go ahead, convince me that Tekken needs save anywhere...I''m waiting...that''s the test. If games are always better with save anywhere, tell me how Tekken would be better.

"Hey Fred, hold up don''t punch me for a second let me save..."