Ultra Realism Possibilities?

[Domarius]

Well I have to ask the same question when people are debating the actual concept itself. It's as if everyone doesn't agree with the desicion we made.

 

But in addition to that, I was talking about possibly taking limiting saves further than that sometime somehow in the future, with some of the more interesting ideas suggested in this thread.

Edited May 31, 2005 by Domarius

[oDDity]

Limited saves don't work, unless you actually enforce it with code that the player only has say 5 saves per map, and there's no possible weay he can cheat his way out of it by deleting his save game folder or something.

Save points on the map do work, since the player obviously can't save anywhere else.

[sparhawk]

The player can always cheat the system. If he deletes the files he can no longer save though, or he would have to restart the mission and play it agina and then he would still have 5 savegames again.

Savepoints also can be worked around by taking a snapshot from the memory. If the player wants to go to extremes he can always find a way aroun dit, and that's another reason why it is crap to think about it for so long. Either he wants it or he doesn't. Since this will be optional he doesn't need to go to any extremes.

[Domarius]

Well I agree, this could never be about forcing people to do anything.

 

In my opinon the aim of this is for the FM author to set acheivable goals for the player, rather than the player trying to do this for themselves when they have never seen the mission before and have no idea about how many saves will be needed.

[Ishtvan]

But if the FM designer designs the level at a certain level of difficulty to be completed with the number of saves or the save points they placed, its no different than placing guards or putting secret caches of ammo at key points.

 

If it's an optional system, I wouldn't want to see FM authors designing their whole FM's around a system that not everyone's going to use.

[Domarius]

Oh come on. That would be their choice, and would be no different than FM authours who try to factor in ghostability or ironmanning into their FMs.

[Ishtvan]

Ghostability is a quantifiable thing, either the AI, lighting and floor surfaces are setup so that you can ghost it, or you can't.

 

I'm not sure how you design an FM for Ironmanning, I guess just put in a lot of caches of healing potions and items or something? That would seem rather lame when playing through it with another playstyle.

 

As for saving, how do you go about designing an FM so that you say "I think this mission should take two saves." It's completely subjective, and not like designing for ghosting which is quantifiable. People with the time/patience to spend 8 hours straight trying to finish 1 mission might have no problem with having 1 save, or no saves.

 

Even if you get some people agreeing on limited saves, you're not going to agree on how many saves. Oddity might want no saves, someone else might want 3 saves. Why give the FM author the headache of trying to compromise for everyone?

 

Why not just let people specify their own number of saves in the playstyle options? Personally I don't like abstract information popping up at the start of the mission like "YOU HAVE THREE SAVES FOR THIS MISSION." It reminds me that I'm playing a game, and it also tells me about how long to expect the mission to be.

 

I don't like that; I'd rather just set a number of saves in the options and play it through. Or, as I've suggested, just count up the number of saves and show it at the endscreen, compared with a "par." So you only see the "recommended" number of saves at the end and can see how you compare.

[AtariThief]

I like to save every now and then for one simple reason. Unforseen glitches. You might think that guard can't see you, but when you sneak up behind them suddenly they turn around and kill you. Why unessessarily start over? If you don't like to save then Don't. If you do then Do. That easy...

[Domarius]

Ish, ghostability is also subjective. This is no different.

 

You just have to look at all the games that use save points to see that they have them at specific points, right before a hard bit, etc. Supplying an approrpiate number of saves or placing save points appropriately is no different than placing guards or water arrows.

 

It's the FM author's idea of what provides a good balance between challange and fun.

[Ishtvan]

How is ghostability subjective? Either it is humanly possible to get through the map without alerting any AI past the "green alert" state, or it is not.

 

With saves you can't say for sure how many someone will need; it varies from person to person. Different people have different amounts of patience and tolerance for frustration.

[oDDity]

I suppose this is a debate about how much control FM authors should have over what the player does. THe answer is that the FM author has already almost complete control over the player's actions anyway, every brush on the map, every little bit of story or readable, every guard placement, every loot placement controls what the player has to do to some extent.

I don't think giving the FM author control over where the player saves is too much. THe FM author is trying to his best to craft an experience for the player, and knows his level better than anyone. He puts a shit load of time and effort into making the level and all the player has to do is ataff around it for a few hours.

[sparhawk]

You just have to look at all the games that use save points to see that they have them at specific points, right before a hard bit, etc. Supplying an approrpiate number of saves or placing save points appropriately is no different than placing guards or water arrows.

 

It's the FM author's idea of what provides a good balance between challange and fun.

Savepoints are usually appropriate in linear games. In Harry Potter they also use save points because this game is designed for kids, so the automatic savepoints are usually when you enter one of the mission maps. All the other savepoints are distributed over the map to avoid having to run through the entire map just to get at a certain savepoint.

 

The conclusion is: Savepoints can be used for linear games because the designer knows exactly where it is needed. TDM is non-linear by definition and therfore it is not really usefull. If a designer creates a linear map, which would be possible, this should be a special case, but shouldn't be directly supported.

Savepoints in non-linear games are pretty useless and have the big disadvantage over free saves, because the player would have to run to the point where the savepoint is located.

[Domarius]

Ishtvan, ghostability is as subjective as everything else. Just search the ttlg forums for examples of some of the wacky things that people have tried in order to ghost a map that the FM author never intended to be ghostable. It's not cut and dry.

 

How can you say its either ghostable or not? Its as subjective as saves. DIfferent people can ghost to different levels of abilities, and the place where one person needed to use a flash bomb, someone else had another way around it.

 

Different people have different amounts of patience and tolerance for frustration.

This is not an argument against limiting saves, since it aplies to every single aspect of the game!

 

An FM author puts as many guards in one spot as he or she thinks will be difficult enough for the people they are aiming their mission at. Some people will say there are too many guards, some people will say there are not enough. Hopefully the main target audience of the mission will agree in general that there is just the right amount.

 

This is no different than saying how many saves should be required to complete the mission.

Edited June 1, 2005 by Domarius

[loudogskank]

0... saving takes away a lot of the tension!

[Domarius]

You said it.

[Fingernail]

I think a fairly coherent argument is that placement of guards is something that is part of the game, part of the immersive system. Guards are AI that are part of the game.

 

A saving mechanism is not part of the universe of the game. You should ALWAYS be able to save if you need to go and turn off your oven - there can be no doubt of that. A game which forbids you saving when you NEED or WANT to have a break and do something else, is just wrong. After all, you decide when you want to start playing it - why not when you want to stop?

 

I'm not opposed to limited saves, but my only question is: why? What purpose do they serve?

 

The challenge in a level should be about the ingame interactions between the player and the game, vs the AI, vs the game world. The game shouldn't provide a challenge insofar as to limit saves, or loads, or have a confusing and randomly designed interface.

 

If a game needs to challenge the player in additional ways, such as with limited saves, or not telling the player how hurt they are, or any other arbitrary restriction that is not based on realism or otherwise IN THE GAME WORLD, then I must conclude it is a rather weak game system to begin with, and probably should be made more challenging on harder difficulties.

 

The challenge in Dark Mod will be the player vs the FM Author, vs the AI, vs the puzzles.

 

I would hope the challenge is not: complete this level leaving your computer only once, or HA! Try to load a game! We hid the load screen in a RIDICULOUS and UNDOCUMENTED set of key combinations and passwords!!! GET PAST THAT PUZZLE, PLAYER.

 

You should NOT be presenting challenges to the player AS the player in the real world. You should be presenting challenges to the player AS the avatar in the game world. FM authors should be concerned about the thief character, not about the person sitting in front of a screen in some dirty student hole somewhere.

 

That's just my belief.

[Fingernail]

And as to immersion - if a level needs to limit saves to make you feel more like you're in a world, then maybe the solution is to look harder at the level itself and the story it is telling.

 

I did not, I must tell you, find immersion to be lacking in Half Life 2, DESPITE the frequent loading screens - the game world was so rich and engrossing that it was not necessary. Similarly in Deus Ex, or Thief.

 

You're just pandering to lazy FM authors who make a maze, stick in some guards and the only reason it's a challenge is because you can't save the game. GREAT. WHAT A GREAT LEVEL THAT IS.

[Fingernail]

TRIPLE POST WITH HUMOUROUS OVER EXAGGERATION WARNING

 

Why not just inhale solvent fumes whilst playing to make yourself FEEL more at risk?

[sparhawk]

Finger I can not agree more with you.

 

If this argument continues, we can also provide additional challenges, like "This mission must be played while diving in the pool" or "You are a successfull masterthief, so your environment must reflect that. Play this map from a mansion that costs at least 400.000 USD." Poor bugger you only have a rented flat? Objective failed.

[Springheel]

You just have to look at all the games that use save points to see that they have them at specific points, right before a hard bit, etc. Supplying an approrpiate number of saves or placing save points appropriately is no different than placing guards or water arrows.

 

What exactly do you think is the purpose of saving games? I find it difficult to imagine how a FM author can decide how many save games are 'appropriate' for me to use, when they know nothing about me or my game playing schedule.

 

Some people may have hours upon hours to spend playing games. I usually find an hour, tops, before I have to stop and go do something else. What right does an FM author have to tell me whether or not I should be able to stop the game?

 

I've used this analogy before, but it's like saying the author of a novel should be able to tell you when you can put the book down and stop reading. Sure, you will probably enjoy it more if you read until the end of a chapter, but that should be your decision, not the author's.

[Ishtvan]

@Domarius: Sorry to nitpick, but ghosting is still objective. The AI are setup so that either it's possible to ghost by them without using any tools or using any exploits in the game, or it's not possible. You can say "this FM is definitely ghostable" (without using any game bugs like crate nudging). You cannot say "this FM definitely needs 2 saves."

 

Springheel said exactly what I was trying to say with my "saves are subjective" argument. The FM author might not have 3 kids running around getting into trouble and unplugging the computer all the time, or pets jumping on the keyboard, or frequent power outages, but another player might.

 

Saves are a weird thing in that they do effect gameplay, but they are also effected by your daily life outside the game. Each player's demand for saves will be different. That's why I think the player should set the number of saves they want to allow themselves (in the playstyle settings or something) instead of having that set for them in the FM. The FM author can have a suggested "par" for saves assuming you're playing hardcore, 3 hours at a time, darkened room by yourself, etc, but not everyone always has time to play the game hardcore. Why make it difficult for people to play only an hour at a time or 30 mins at a time if they want?

 

[EDIT: Before anyone counters this with: "Well they can just turn off limited saves if they want to play for a short time." I say, why make them do that? Why not just allow them to set out the number of saves they want at the start of the FM? People who want no saves, 3 saves, 5 saves, 10 saves, unlimited saves, all get what they want. Everyone wins.]

Edited June 1, 2005 by Ishtvan

[obscurus]

That's why I like the idea of the game automatically saving when you exit to the main menu or to windows - you can "put the game down" and "pick it up again" as you need to in order to take a break from the game, take the kids to school, hang the wash etc..

 

But is having more than one save slot per mission really necessary? Playing the game should not be like having multiple system restores in windows or backing up the hard drive...

 

I get your point about players being self disciplined enough not to abuse the save system to make the game easier, and it is something that I am able to do, but I think knowing that there are potentially unlimited snapshots of your game definately detracts from the expereince... for me it detracts from the immersion if I know I can go back to where I was five minutes ago - savegames jack you out of the gameworld.

 

That said, there is a difference between using save games to make the game easier, and using save games to compensate for a buggy game engine that leaves the player stuck or in an impossible situation - an unreliable engine needs savegames for that reason.

 

The corollary to your book analogy is that using savegames can be like skipping ahead a few chapters and then reading up to them, knowing full well what is going to happen - sure you can do it if you want, but you end up with a disjointed experience that is far from what the author intended.

 

As a level designer, I want to give players the incentive to avoid dying and to play the game very carefully and fearfully. They should be afraid of doing something wrong, because it means restarting or playing a large chunk again. For me this makes the game more immersive, because I am thinking about avoiding death and mistakes in the game world, and not about whether or not I should save here or there (an out of game concept). A lot of people might be too impatient for that style of gameplay, but I want those undisciplined savaholics to give it ago (the can say they hate it afterwards), and disabling multiple saves by default is the best way to do that.

 

There is no way anyone can deny that playing a game without saving (apart from saves to do something outside of the game) is a much different experience to playing the game and saving frequently. A game without saves is more tense, careful and dynamic than one where you can simply reload every time you make a little mistake... Playing the game with unlimited saves is like the player having the ability to predict the future, which gives them a huge advantage over the game. Some games are obviously designed with the expectation that the player will be saving and reloading a lot, and it usually means that the game is either too hard, or designed for a target audience of careless, impatient Rambo wannabes.

 

I'm not saying that games with loading screens etc are not immersive, but, it still pulls you back into reality, if only briefly, when one pops up. The original Half-Life was much more immersive than many games because the loading screens only took a second or two (and because the story and environments kept you in the world, more importantly!), and were very inconspicuous. Thief only had loading screens in between the mission, not during it.

[AtariThief]

I'm on the last level of the last game all the way on hard mode and no saves cause I can't. "Mission Failed...."

 

 

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

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FOR THE TAFFIN LOVE OF GOD NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooo

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oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

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oooooooo!

 

I think you get the point.

[Pyrian]

I suggest that if you die playing a character, that character is now dead and you don't get to play that game anymore - no restoring saves or anything. That'd make people be a lot more careful.

 

Seriously, you guys put way too much emphasis on saving.

 

We've heard a bunch of "solutions" to people CHOOSING to save "too much", and by-and-large these solutions are basically horrible abrogations of immersion. I don't want to be thinking "hmm, I've got just a few saves, should I save now or later?" I don't want to be thinking "damn, that was hard, I'd better find a save-point." A save-counter would be okay, but please don't ruin the experience for the rest of us just because YOU have no self-control or perspective. If you're going around restoring constantly rather than just when you die, you really ought to consider playing on an easier difficulty level, because obviously whatever you've got it set to is too tough for you to handle.

 

I save a fair amount if I've been dying a lot, and otherwise rather rarely, and basically never restore unless I die. That whole "restoring to save ammo" is someone else's crutch and I don't want to have to wear it.

Edited June 2, 2005 by Pyrian

[Domarius]

You guys have never heard of a pause key.

 

You also conveniently ignore that save points, passwords, etc. have been used for years in games, and not the sonic the hedge hog variety. I'm talking the eipc 5 CD RPGs that take part of your lifetime to complete because of their sheer size.

 

Pyrian, Unlimited saves = unlimited ammo is the extreme, but there are many degrees in between that, because the game gets easier proportionately to how often you save.

And there is nothing destructive going on here. These save limiting features would be OPTIONAL OPTIONAL OPTIONAL.

 

There are enough of us interested in it to warrant it a different playstyle or something. You guys don't have to accept it, it would be optional. So I shouldn't have to defend the concept itself. All I want to discuss is possible solutions.

 

You've all convinced me that limiting saves, or specifying a save total, could be useless, so I can only fall back on the save point solution. (That is, going to a physical place in the game to save.)

 

Spar, save points aren't specifically for linear games at all. Every single console RPG is an example of a non-linear game that uses save points.

 

Spring, the novel analogy is a bad one because you have no effect on the course of action in the novel. The main character doesn't do better just because you decide to re-read the last few pages and say "well THIS is how it should have happened."

Edited June 2, 2005 by Domarius