Why no Save game Feature

[Ubik]

It is the developer's prerrogative to design the game as he sees fit. If you do not like the game without a save game feature, you don't buy it. You should have tried the demo before buying it.

Also, I must add I DO play Oblivion with "perma-death". If my character dies once, its game over and start again for me.
Currently, I am a 17th Lvl Imperial roaming around the map and having a blast being cautious and wetting my pants at the least sign of danger... oh! And I play with mods that make the game significantly harder.

[Graeme Dice]

Newthought said:
More Importantly, do I really have to argue for Save Games?

You do on a fanboy infested forum.

[Gandalf Parker]

Graeme Dice said:

You do on a fanboy infested forum.

True. Well actually the only place you wouldnt have to argue it would be a players forum that is just as "infested" with fanatical short-vision gamers. There are plenty of forums that make their effort to gather those instead of "fanboys".

Of course you would also have to debate the point on any forum with people who are willing to see both sides, or people representing both sides of anything.

Gandalf Parker

[paplan]

I've got to say............

Theres a lot of misinformation here.

The arguements against savegames here are extraordinarily flawed.

"A lot of strat games start out with no saves"

Simply not true. Civ series, Homm series, Warlords, SE3-5, Moo series, etc. Simply NOT TRUE.

Cant be added because adding "would require file cleanup options"
If a computer illiterate like me can do this by dragging the save game file to my desktop, I'm sure a real programmmer could institute a real save game utility. This isn't rocket science.

EVERYONE KNOWS THAT DOM3 IS HARD. YOU'D LIKE TO TRY EXPERIMENTS (IE DIFFERENT OPTIONS) WITHOUT STARTING FROM SCRATCH EVERY TIME IT DOESN'T WORK. WTF IS THIS CONCEPT SO HARD FOR THE DEVS AND FANBOYS TO UNDERSTAND!!!!!!!

By the way............for those of you who think save and reloading is cheating in a single player game (me, its how I learn without starting over each time), there is a simple, trivial option. Don't use it!!

[NTJedi]

paplan said:
If a computer illiterate like me can do this by dragging the save game file to my desktop, I'm sure a real programmmer could institute a real save game utility. This isn't rocket science.

It's about having the developers use their time wisely. As I mentioned earlier only 2 developers work at Illwinter and Dominions is a part-time project because they work regular full-time careers unlike other game companies. Take a look at the progress page for the upcoming patch and you'll see this game is more of a hobby for Illwinter there's no team of 15 developers working full-time as seen from other game companies.
Since their time is so limited there's no need for them to add a feature which can already be done manually when there's current bugs in the game which need fixing. Bugs such as sacred undead unable to be blessed, multiple AI opponents blindly sending their pretenders into the death match, broken modding/mapedit commands, holes in battlefield maps for cave provinces, demons being affected by darkness, and so on and so on.

[HoneyBadger]

I'm hardly a fanboy by any stretch of the term. Other than simply being a fan of the game, I'm one of the least satisfied people with it, in terms of wanting it to do more, be more, have more features, etc. The Dev's I'm certain understand the situation perfectly-and have made a personal choice in the matter-just like they made a choice to make Dom3 in the first place. Why THAT concept is so hard to understand...well I don't fail to understand it, I just come to disappointing conclusions.

Anyway, if you're unhappy about the game, you certainly have every right to complain, and I have a right to disagree with you, based purely on my own personal opinion, game experience, and the choices I make. And the Devs have every right not to do anything about either of our wants, needs, desires, etc.

Not that I consider in any way an emotional response to be an immature response, but I have to be a little surprised at how people get so emotional over what is, in the end, a game. We are adults, or atleast this is a forum where you can expect to be treated as an adult (and by the word "adult" I mean "with respect") unless you are giving a good reason not to be, and we can be civil to one another, and discuss this calmly, in a less than insulting manner, and without doing the internet version of screaming at, or cursing, or degrading one another-as adults, I'm sure we all get enough of that kind of thing from the world around us at various times, and there's no reason to bring it upon ourselves in a place basically designed for social relaxation and entertainment.

[RamsHead]

HoneyBadger said:
We are adults, or atleast this is a forum where you can expect to be treated as an adult (and by the word "adult" I mean "with respect")

What? Kids don't deserve respect? Yes, I am being an ***, but we need to calm down. (Not necessarily refering to you HB) Boy, do people get passionate about a save feature!

Now I know noone asked what my opinion is, but that has never stopped me in the past. Personally, I never even noticed the lack of a save feature when I first started playing Dom 2. To me, the game doesn't feel like all the other games out there, it feels more permanent. I know I have to make the right moves the first time, because there is no going back. I get more enjoyment from losing an important battle and then coming back with a vengeance than I would from winning all the battles. Let's be honest, if there was a save feature, most people would use it. Sure, it might start out small. You go back and change your orders for a battle or reload, hoping that random knight attack doesn't occur. It would escalate though. Soon, whenever the slightest thing went wrong, you'd shout "redo!", and you would find yourself playing for that one goal, to win. Nothing is wrong with playing and trying to win, but you should have fun along the way. After all, it is a game. Where does the fun go when it is a constant reload fest? Where is the sense of accomplishment when the chance of failure is removed? When most people reach a certain spot in large games in SP where they are simply undefeatable because they have become so much larger or more powerful than everyone else, they usually quite. Why? Because without the sense of the possibility of failure, the danger is gone. Without danger, where is the fun? Where is the accomplishment?

Finally, like many others have pointed out, you can already save the game, and it doesn't take much time or effort. Again, all of this is just my insignificant opinion.

[quantum_mechani]

The question is: Why should Illwinter implement a feature that 1. goes against part of the basic premise of the game and 2. can be very closely reproduced by moving a few files now and then?

Yes, they do make some money off of Dominions, but that is not their main motivation for working on it. It is quite possible they might lose a few customers due to the hardcore approach to saving. I very much doubt it would be enough to make up for presumably compromising their vision of the game, and the hassle of implementing the feature. And who knows, maybe the unique style could actually increase the appeal to some players.

The real bottom line? I'd say there is about as much chance of an asteroid squishing the Illwinter team as of them implementing such a feature at this point.

[HoneyBadger]

Let's not invoke the asteroid-squishing-Illwinter scenario, shall we? If the Gods surf the web, you know they're probably listening to the Dominions forum, and we don't want to give them any Ultimate Misfortune ideas.

[alexti]

I am really curious how often "pro-reload" crowd reloads. In the current version of Dominions reloading probably takes 15-30 seconds (quit without saving, copy files outside of Dominions, continue game). With super-duper reload UI in game it would probably become something like 5 seconds. How often one is reloading to make such an issue out of having to spend extra 10-25 seconds? It certainly doesn't fit into trying different strategy or reloading after losing critical battle pattern.