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[Tulac]

I still dislike the emphasis on quicksaving in your article, I don't think quicksaving has much to do with that. Hell you can if you wish save every 3 hours in Fallout 3 and it's still very likely that you won't die during the gameplay. In other examples games like Baldur's Gate had an excellent saving systems (which didn't allow you to save when you were near enemies), but still allowed you to experiment which is much more fun than being crude and conventional because the saving system forces you to just repeat a formula that works.

Besides it's silly talking about quicksaving when you can just *gasp* not use it.

[Japo]

Originally Posted by Tulac

Useless rant.

I thought this is what this colum was all about.

Also the quicksave was always present on the PC, while it wan't on consoles due to memory restrictions.

Originally Posted by red_avatar

PC games have NOT always had quicksave. Quicksave only became widely used in the late 90's. Before, you had to manually go the the menu and save your game

"Always" is a long time, there was a time when no games had save feature to begin with. Even if the PC was more suited to offer it from the beginning, there were many games, especially arcade, that don't.

And in consoles it wasn't a memory restriction as much as the fact that they didn't have writable permanent memory. Very few old console games let you save, by using an additional RAM module with a battery in the cartridge.

[The Fifth Horseman]

Besides it's silly talking about quicksaving when you can just *gasp* not use it.

If it's there, you'll use it sooner or later. That's the bottom line.
Not using quicksaves is what single-segment speedruns are all about. Think of it as an "extreme sports" version of gaming. No save, no continue, play through the entire thing from start to finish.

[red_avatar]

Originally Posted by Tulac

I still dislike the emphasis on quicksaving in your article, I don't think quicksaving has much to do with that.

Besides it's silly talking about quicksaving when you can just *gasp* not use it.

Erm ... I didn't even directly talk about quicksaving. The *quicksaving* parts between paragraphs, which I added as a joke, are the only mention of quicksaving, in fact. The joke was that, even while writing the article, you still had a habbit to play it safe.

And, "not using it" is a valid comment - but again, the article was not about quicksaving. It was about how games are simply becoming easier to complete, quicksave or no quicksave. Quicksaving is just the icing on the cake. More and more games make it impossible for you to die. Bioshock anyone? Prince of Persia? Prey? etc. etc.

On the one hand, I admire games trying to find alternate ways to encourage the gamer NOT to quicksave every minute but people have the habbit and Prey's system, while it works, isn't going to stop you from quicksaving and quickloading anyway. (in case you never played Prey: upon death you appeared in a dream world where you had to travel through to get back to the game).

Personally, I admire a game where you can, using skill, complete a level without feeling you have to quickload. If games avoid trial & error circumstances where you can't predict instant death (trap doors, booby traps, etc.) you really don't need quicksaving.