Why no Save game Feature

[Archonsod]

Gandalf Parker said:
I didnt say it was difficult, just that its a headache. And yes Im aware of the programming side. Setting up file managment inside a program to work for windows, mac, and linux is not simple and quick. I see enough headaches with this programs file handling already on its installs and game cleanup just between linux and windows.

You are correct that tweaking the AI can be a forever project but the code is already there and is OS generic.

So is the save code. The game already autosaves prior to processing, you're just duplicating that and changing the target directory or filename.
Designing a third party program to manage the saves which works on mac, linux and Windows, now that's hard

[Saxon]

And I say that we do want them spending time on the save game feature!

There is not a consensus on this, but there are some vocal people on either side. That may be all that this thread will establish...

[Olive]

[Vocal people mode on]
There's no use for a save feature. If I really want to test different forms of a tactic or save a game at a point, it just takes a few seconds to backup the game directory in the windows explorer. On Linux it should be even faster with a cp.

Remove bugs and add content to the game instead.
[Vocal people mode off]

[Gandalf Parker]

Saxon said:
There is not a consensus on this, but there are some vocal people on either side. That may be all that this thread will establish...

Im all for that. It has generated discussion which is logged here for the devs to see. And shown support for it either direction.

By the way;
now that things are slowing down abit I will toss some gas on the fire that I was leary of posting. (I hope this doesnt piss off Johan) but people seem to try and motivate the devs the wrong way. From my personal experience, it seems that if you really want to get Johan to add something to the game, get it worked on by someone else. At least 3 major additions that we never expected to see seemed to get added as soon as a fairly decent 3rd party version seemed likely.

[NTJedi]

Saxon said:
And I say that we do want them spending time on the save game feature!

There is not a consensus on this, but there are some vocal people on either side. That may be all that this thread will establish...

Since a few known workarounds exist for the desired save game feature I seriously doubt the developers will take time away from fixing known bugs and developing new content.
Lets see... should the devs fix the known undead blessing bug which can effect any nation OR add a feature for those too lazy to use a known workaround. Not a difficult decision for most people.


Personally I would rather they also spend their time making sure each nation has at least 3 heroes instead of adding a save game feature which has a known workaround.

[Gandalf Parker]

Lets not be that harsh. It might not be laziness.
Some people really have no idea how to do things on their computer unless its on a menu. If they cant find the dominions files, dont know how to make a file there or a shortcut, then they are going to have a hard time with the answers that have been given.

[NTJedi]

Gandalf Parker said:
Lets not be that harsh. It might not be laziness.
Some people really have no idea how to do things on their computer unless its on a menu. If they cant find the dominions files, dont know how to make a file there or a shortcut, then they are going to have a hard time with the answers that have been given.

That's true... yet it's only a percentage which lack the knowledge for moving/adding files within the windows directories. I feel sorry for these people because this means if someone develops a unique and very fun singleplayer map available for download... they won't be able to play the map.

[Saxon]

Hmm, I remember something in university about small minds getting in the sack with bears when the big mind was turned off…

[Gandalf Parker]

Actually I think the graph history is a good thing to add if it can be done easily. Trying to see all sides of it, I cant come up with anything about a graph history that would be bad for the game. As for 3rd partying the graphs; I brought that up because some people thinks its fun to do such projects and it seems to spur some competitive action in the devs.

[Wyehl]

NTJedi said:
Lets see... should the devs fix the known undead blessing bug which can effect any nation OR add a feature for those too lazy to use a known workaround. Not a difficult decision for most people.

A few people seem to assume that this argument is in the majority. All sarcasm and straw men and smiley winks aside, this view is maybe only in the majority among some of the 'local' crew, if that. The reason I got into this thread in the first place was my personal reaction to this very assumption and I wanted to make it clear that just because a group of the 'locals' think that, it doesn't mean everyone who plays (and buys) the game feels that way (no offense to the locals, I only mean that it seems to me that most of the people who are against a save game feature are regular posters in this forum while the people who are for it are a mix of regular posters and newbies like myself).

I don't disagree that priorities are worth considering but I don't think that there is an overwhelming majority, such that you can simply discredit arguments based on what you perceive as the popularity of your point of view. If it was so overwhelmingly popular, you would only have two or three people on the opposing side and that doesn't appear to be the case.

Note: By 'locals', I only mean people who have been active on the forum for a while and/or participate regularly.