Shodan, you've already been called out on never really having played (much less completed) any Sierra game but you keep harping on and on about how much they suck. I don't understand why you insist on bashing their games. If you hate Sierra style games, you don't have to play them. We already know you hate them and you're not backing down. However, I would appreciate it if you stopped beating a dead horse already.
Really, we're trying to have a constructive conversation here and you're not helping by ranting all the time.
Shodan, you've already been called out on never really having played (much less completed) any Sierra game but you keep harping on and on about how much they suck. I don't understand why you insist on bashing their games. If you hate Sierra style games, you don't have to play them. We already know you hate them and you're not backing down. However, I would appreciate it if you stopped beating a dead horse already.
Really, we're trying to have a constructive conversation here and you're not helping by ranting all the time.
I don't have to have played some random game to discuss the design philosophy behind auto-save mechanics. Everyone conveniently ignores everything I say and says "it makes a difference because I want it to" and that's the best response they have for why they want to manually save constantly instead of the game doing it for them every once in a while.
I understand not wanting a retry button, really, I do, but not wanting the game to EVER save for you is a bit insane. If there's a save point roughly every 30 minutes of gameplay, how does that do anything other than save you the trouble of doing it yourself?
If you really wanted the game's save system to "increase the difficulty", you would be advocating save points rather than manual save, as those require you to progress through a specified amount of content before you're even allowed to save.
I don't have to have played some random game to discuss the design philosophy behind auto-save mechanics. Everyone conveniently ignores everything I say and says "it makes a difference because I want it to" and that's the best response they have for why they want to manually save constantly instead of the game doing it for them every once in a while.
I understand not wanting a retry button, really, I do, but not wanting the game to EVER save for you is a bit insane. If there's a save point roughly every 30 minutes of gameplay, how does that do anything other than save you the trouble of doing it yourself?
There you go again, belittling everyone who doesn't share your exact view. Not only that, but you're completely ignoring the clearly stated and thoughtful analyses of Sierra design philosophy, the pros and cons of deaths, the pros and cons of retries, etc. that many people have written. You're insulting everyone involved in this discussion when you imply that people are just listing the same inane responses, because it simply isn't true. In fact, the only person here insipidly repeating the same argument ad infinitum IS YOU.
Lastly, most people here have agreed that autosaves are okay--they just don't want them every 10 seconds or after every single puzzle/interaction, which is what had been suggested. It's automatic retries that people are mainly discussing here, which DO ultimately negate any consequences of dying in these games, regardless of whether you like deaths/retries or not.
There you go again, belittling everyone who doesn't share your exact view. Not only that, but you're completely ignoring the clearly stated and thoughtful analyses of Sierra design philosophy, the pros and cons of deaths, the pros and cons of retries, etc. that many people have written. You're insulting everyone involved in this discussion when you imply that people are just listing the same inane responses, because it simply isn't true. In fact, the only person here insipidly repeating the same argument ad infinitum IS YOU.
Lastly, most people here have agreed that autosaves are okay--they just don't want them every 10 seconds or after every single puzzle/interaction, which is what had been suggested. It's automatic retries that people are mainly discussing here, which DO ultimately negate any consequences of dying in these games, regardless of whether you like deaths/retries or not.
You quoted part of my post, and then proceeded to ignore exactly what you quoted. I clearly said that I understand having a problem with automatic retries in the part you specifically quoted, it's the concept that any auto-saving at all ruins the experience that I am taking issue with, and it HAS been expressed by multiple posters here repeatedly.
Amnesia has auto-saves pretty much any time you ever accomplish anything, and if you can play Amnesia without caring if you die, I will give you a gold plated Ferrari filled with cash.
I haven't played Amnesia. I'm not planning on playing Amnesia.
I want this game to feel like a real King's Quest game that's worth being called canon. I want it to feel like King's Quest. Whether you personally understand why people do/don't like automatic retries is not the point. The point of this thread is to talk about whether this King's Quest game should have only manual saves like KQ1-6, auto-retries like KQ7, an infrequent autosave feature, or be given a choice between said options.
This isn't about video games in general. This is about King's Quest. This is about trying to inform Telltale how best to specifically make a King's Quest game that is worthy of the franchise.
Stop trolling. It's been established that you haven't played any Sierra games for any reasonable length of time, and are therefore ill-equipped to advise exactly how specifically a King's Quest game should feel. So you don't like manual saves. So what? You have your vote, I have mine, others have theirs. It doesn't benefit the conversation to rant about how stupid Sierra games are or to belittle others for having a differing opinion, and it certainly doesn't lend any weight to any of your arguments to know that you never played any KQ games and so can't frame a proper basis for comparison.
Edit: and by the way, I'm not saying that, because you never played a KQ game, your opinion about what you like in adventure games is invalid. I'm saying that your accusations that Sierra is stupid or that those who enjoy the KQ1-6 Save/Restore scheme are closed-minded fools is not productive and easily dismissed as trolling when it's made known that you've never played the canon KQ games.
I mean seriously, if you could say "I've played a couple of Sierra's games and and I like KQ7's auto-retry better, especially since it resolves frustration I get from unfair deaths" that would at least be a valid point backed up by a fair level of experience, but you can't even say that.
I don't have to have played some random game to discuss the design philosophy behind auto-save mechanics.
Yes, you do.
Everyone conveniently ignores everything I say and says "it makes a difference because I want it to" and that's the best response they have for why they want to manually save constantly instead of the game doing it for them every once in a while.
Well, we're not, but I'm slowly starting to realize that we should, seeing as that's all you're doing. The response isn't "it makes a difference because I want it to" the response is "it makes a difference because psychologically that's how the human mind works." It's an increase in challenge no matter how you look at it. Really, what is gameplay? It's a series if interactions which either increase or decrease your chances of completing a game successfully. Your job as a gamer is to know which ones help you and which ones don't help you. The higher the number of interactions the more challenging it is and the more skills are required. Manual saving is another gameplay obstacle. You may find it childish and stupid but don't insult us for preferring it because it actually adds challenge. That fact cannot be refuted.
I understand not wanting a retry button, really, I do, but not wanting the game to EVER save for you is a bit insane. If there's a save point roughly every 30 minutes of gameplay, how does that do anything other than save you the trouble of doing it yourself?
That's exactly the point. That makes you not have to worry about it. It makes the game not dangerous or perilous in any way. I don't see what's so hard to understand about this. You remove this from game design and rank it as something else. A gamer obligation or something outside the gameplay experience. I and others include it in the gaming experience. It's the same thing as whether you like or dislike arcade sequences in adventure games. Or platforming puzzles in an FPS. It's a gameplay mechanic. Just because you don't want it to be doesn't mean it isn't.
Play Amnesia and then tell me that auto-save diminishes the fear of death or sense of dread in any way.
Never scared or felt any dread in the game due to that very feature. Actually deliberately did stupid things on a number of occasions just to see what happened or do some exploration and then just let the autosave load up to bring me back.
Compared to Silent Hill Homecoming where if I screwed up I was going back to wherever I was able to save last and could lose a solid chunk of work if I wasn't careful. That one had me far more on edge.
Just to play devils advocate (I agree with the manual saving) how would you feel if they only had automatic saves, and they ONLY happen after certain major puzzles are solved (infrequently compared to the length of the game)? This way you feel the need to do things perfectly otherwise you will lose progress without the opportunity to have the game saved? This way a careless death of falling into a moat or river could kill you and force you back. Also if you were doing the cliffs of logic and failed and died it would pull you back to a previous major event. I think this would add into the sense of peril because it is a forced consequence.
Just to play devils advocate (I agree with the manual saving) how would you feel if they only had automatic saves, and they ONLY happen after certain major puzzles are solved (infrequently compared to the length of the game)? This way you feel the need to do things perfectly otherwise you will lose progress without the opportunity to have the game saved? This way a careless death of falling into a moat or river could kill you and force you back. Also if you were doing the cliffs of logic and failed and died it would pull you back to a previous major event. I think this would add into the sense of peril because it is a forced consequence.
OK, when we actually start talking about console-style save points I think that's going too far. Not even Sierra at its heyday was that cruel.
Just to play devils advocate (I agree with the manual saving) how would you feel if they only had automatic saves, and they ONLY happen after certain major puzzles are solved (infrequently compared to the length of the game)? This way you feel the need to do things perfectly otherwise you will lose progress without the opportunity to have the game saved? This way a careless death of falling into a moat or river could kill you and force you back. Also if you were doing the cliffs of logic and failed and died it would pull you back to a previous major event. I think this would add into the sense of peril because it is a forced consequence.
You mean no manual saving at all? In other words, the equivalent of predefined checkpoints? That certainly goes to SHODANFreeman's point that if a game allows the player to save anywhere anyway, what difference does it make if the game has auto-saves supplementing the player's manual saves. Checkpoints are the real way to give player deaths consequence. (Incidentally, SHODANFreeman, contrary to your assertion that you're being ignored, I have read, understood, and thought about your statements; just because you don't change people's minds doesn't mean you've been ignored.)
There's nothing inherently wrong with the suggestion, but why do it that way when the way the old KQs did it is what people really want? Now, I don't really agree with the implication of MusicallyInspired's post that deaths are required for an adventure game to be challenging and fun gameplay-wise; I got just as much satisfaction from playing/solving DOTT and Myst as I did from KQ games. But basically I think Chryon8472 said it best:
I want this game to feel like a real King's Quest game that's worth being called canon. I want it to feel like King's Quest.
However, I don't think auto-saves need to be completely eliminated to retain that feel. (Besides, there are reasons for both auto-saving and allowing manual saves that have nothing to do with the consequences of player death.) If I'm facing death in the game, then I'm not going to be tempted to rely on periodic auto-saves, at least not as they're routinely implemented. For instance, I seem to recall that TOMI auto-saved whenever Guybrush walked past the courthouse in Ep1. But because you could solve puzzles in any order, the auto-saves wouldn't necessarily have been helpful if I'd needed to reload after death. I'd be wondering which of my actions were captured in the last auto-save, eg. was it before or after I set the dock on fire? Whereas if I'm managing my own saves, they'll be in order and I'll have a system to remember which saves encompass which of my actions.
So I think of it like this: the old-school setting could have the usual auto-saves and, in the event of death, a "reload" button that goes to the saved games screen. The other setting could include extra auto-saves right before potential death situations and a "retry" button that would automatically load them.
I don't want save points. That sounds like it's going too far.
I voted for choice, but if I were actually given a choice ingame of which option to use it would probably be an infrequent after-puzzle autosave which I can supplement with my own manual saves when I so choose.
Save points are just as bad in the way that they limit player choice.
This is exactly my point in my post. I think certain people have jumped on the notion that we want to manually save just because to us it makes the game more perilous and nothing else. This is one of the reasons for sure, but not the only one. I think Lamb got it just right here. For me more than anything, choice will ALWAYS be better than no choice.
Unlimited manually saving is not always good.
1) it can break immersion.
2) if you know you can die, you will save every 30 seconds. Manually. Bad.
3) Vantages? I don't see many.
Points to consider:
A) you must save if something happen you while you're gaming and you have to quit: (you're late work, you've to stop, you have to turn off). Avoid frustration. Difficulty is good, frustration no.
Some other options to considered:
- If you die you've to do a minigame to resurrect (do you remember Prey?)
- Limited saves (ie: max 5 savings for each episode)
- If you die you lose parts of the game (dialogues, locations, etc)
- Every time you die you lose a wonderful achievement out of i.e. 10 possible ones that will be displayed at the end of the episode.
- You can die max 10 times, after that game ends and you've to restart.
- Every time you die you've to wait 1 minute to resurrect
- Every time you die you have to go back to your body (WOW style)
- Dying let you enter another dimension with new enigmas.
- Dying makes you repeat actions (ie: if you woke up a charachter, when you resurrect he's sleeping again.)
- When you die the world change somewhat (characters are located differently, so the objects and some enigmas)
- Unlockable savegame slots. You get a savegame each time you solve 3 puzzles
- Static saving locations (like Dead Space)
- Every time you die and restart you lose part of your inventory (you have to take objects again)
- Every death you lose a save slot
- Games automatically save every 10 minutes. Trivia after death, the more you answer correctly, the nearest to the death point you'll be restored. Wrong answer lead you back in saves games i.e. 10,20,30 minutes back. Somewhat I like this one. :P
Many of these go a little off-road, but consider them for which can lead to a better game.
Never scared or felt any dread in the game due to that very feature. Actually deliberately did stupid things on a number of occasions just to see what happened or do some exploration and then just let the autosave load up to bring me back.
Compared to Silent Hill Homecoming where if I screwed up I was going back to wherever I was able to save last and could lose a solid chunk of work if I wasn't careful. That one had me far more on edge.
This is where I am completely baffled, why do you intentionally ruin games for yourself? I just don't understand why you would refuse to play a game as intended simply because it saves for you sometimes.
I didn't ruin the game in any way, and I didn't say it was a bad game. I very thoroughly enjoyed it. But I didn't find it either difficult or particularly frightening. Being "immersed" in a game world to me means that I should be responsible for my own survival, and if a game takes care of the whole survival aspect for me then it's difficult for me to feel like I'm really that immersed in the game.
Autosaves have a tendency to take place right before significant game events, so I'm typically just on othe watch for that to happen to be on the lookout for something interesting to happen. If I'm responsible for saving, then I need to be constantly on the lookout for something good to come up without any warning.
I didn't ruin the game in any way, and I didn't say it was a bad game. I very thoroughly enjoyed it. But I didn't find it either difficult or particularly frightening. Being "immersed" in a game world to me means that I should be responsible for my own survival, and if a game takes care of the whole survival aspect for me then it's difficult for me to feel like I'm really that immersed in the game.
Autosaves have a tendency to take place right before significant game events, so I'm typically just on othe watch for that to happen to be on the lookout for something interesting to happen. If I'm responsible for saving, then I need to be constantly on the lookout for something good to come up without any warning.
But why are you okay with dying and being sent back to an auto-save, but not a manual save? What about auto-saving makes you desire running around like a maniac? How is it satisfying to play a game and die 2036 times? Even if a death only sends me back 35 seconds, I avoid it like the plague because even looking at a loading screen is too much time spent not playing the game for me. I get really agitated when I die in a game, regardless of whatever consequences there may or may not be, because failing is not my desired outcome in any situation.
In all honesty, if Uncharted didn't auto-save as frequently as it does, I probably would've gotten so frustrated with some parts of the game that I'd have given up on it long before completing it. Being thrown right back into the action where you left off is a godsend for me, as I can't be bothered replaying something I've already completed for all intents and purposes. I don't think being forced to replay a section you've previously finished adds to the difficulty at all, as you're essentially just redoing something you've already done before, it just adds to the frustration and kills the entire experience with pointless repetition to the point of monotony.
In the case of an adventure game, this is even more pointless, as most of the gameplay is based on solving puzzles, and once you've done that, there is no challenge left to it, beyond repeating everything you've done before and avoiding whatever it was that killed you the last time, and you can avoid losing any progress whatsoever by just repeatedly saving the game any time you do anything.
Also, either I'm not human, or it's not "basic human psychology" to be more invested in a game by being forced to save yourself, because literally the opposite is true for me. If every game on earth had auto-save I'd be the happiest gamer ever. At the same time, dying massively frustrates me and there is literally nothing I hate more than failing, regardless of the penalty, or lack thereof. I would never in my life intentionally half-ass my way through something even if I knew that I could just re-spawn and lose no progress at all. Amnesia terrifies me every 3 seconds even though I know that there is no "real" penalty for dying.
My penalty for dying is knowing that I failed like a miserable loser, and that's far more severe than having to replay through the 10 minutes of a game that I may have forgotten to save during.
Now, I don't really agree with the implication of MusicallyInspired's post that deaths are required for an adventure game to be challenging and fun gameplay-wise;
I didn't say that it's required for adventure games to be fun (though, personally, I do think that for myself), I said it's required for a King's Quest game.
I got just as much satisfaction from playing/solving DOTT and Myst as I did from KQ games.
So did I. But for completely different reasons. I outlined those reasons above. LucasArts games had witty and funny dialogue and great storytelling to make up for it. King's Quest was great for completely different reasons. That's why there are fans of Sierra and people who hate Sierra. And the same for LucasArts and Myst games. You can't compare the two that way.
But why are you okay with dying and being sent back to an auto-save, but not a manual save? What about auto-saving makes you desire running around like a maniac? How is it satisfying to play a game and die 2036 times?
Overcoming it is satisfying. Being responsible for yourself is satisfying.
Even if a death only sends me back 35 seconds, I avoid it like the plague because even looking at a loading screen is too much time spent not playing the game for me.
Avoid looking at the loading screen? Talk about breaking immersion. My motivation is to avoid my character dying. And it feels more like that to me when I have to save myself. It sounds backwards but it's true. I know this doesn't make sense to you. Honestly, I'm just as baffled as to why it doesn't make sense to you. But both are perfectly valid viewpoints and that's why a choice is the best option. You'll never convince us and we'll obviously never convince you. So why are we even having this conversation?
I get really agitated when I die in a game, regardless of whatever consequences there may or may not be, because failing is not my desired outcome in any situation.
It's not about agitation or frustration. A game can have those with autosaves or not. It's about being in full control of your game. I just think in an adventure game particularly you should be responsible for all your gameplay actions. And like I touched on earlier, autosaves for me break the immersion, weird as that sounds. Because the game is constantly reminding me that it's got my back. It's like the difference between someone teaching me every little facet of playing basketball and holding my hand through the entire process criticizing my moves and strategies and someone giving me a ball and a jersey and saying "go have fun." The former is great for a tutorial section, but not for the entire game! Let me play the game myself! Stop holding my hand! That's how I feel. Or it's like how newer versions of Windows always add these stupid user-friendly tasks and functions that just get in the way of how I want to run my computer. Some people find it useful. Great. Offer an option. Case closed.
In all honesty, if Uncharted didn't auto-save as frequently as it does, I probably would've gotten so frustrated with some parts of the game that I'd have given up on it long before completing it.
Uncharted is not a King's Quest adventure game. I mean really, you're telling us to accept games the way they were meant to be played giving Amnesia as an example (for the immersion, not to win), but that's exactly what we're arguing. King's Quest was on its best day always made the way we're arguing. That's what we want back. If you don't like it don't play a King's Quest game. We're just the fans of a franchise wanting what we loved about the franchise.
Being thrown right back into the action where you left off is a godsend for me, as I can't be bothered replaying something I've already completed for all intents and purposes. I don't think being forced to replay a section you've previously finished adds to the difficulty at all, as you're essentially just redoing something you've already done before, it just adds to the frustration and kills the entire experience with pointless repetition to the point of monotony.
You're going for that FPS comparison again which completely holds no ground whatsoever. Go play a King's Quest game and get back to us. Though, I'm sure you'll get thoroughly annoyed and quit in the first 10 minutes or less anyway.
In the case of an adventure game, this is even more pointless,
In your opinion. Why are we arguing over opinions again....?
as most of the gameplay is based on solving puzzles,
....and avoiding danger. Integral part of King's Quest. Again, play a King's Quest game. You can't make these accusations and arguments over a game you've never played.
and once you've done that, there is no challenge left to it, beyond repeating everything you've done before and avoiding whatever it was that killed you the last time, and you can avoid losing any progress whatsoever by just repeatedly saving the game any time you do anything.
Taking your own responsibility for avoiding having to do it again is a challenge. Because you could get cocky and think you could just fly through it only to find that you weren't as skilled as you thought you were and have to start over....and isn't that what a game is all about? Testing your skill? And don't you do the same thing over again regardless of whether you manually save or not? Manually saving as opposed to autosaving doesn't have any bearing on repeating something you just did, which I guess is your point but that's completely missing our point. The point is it feels more real like a life is really in peril because you have to back yourself up. In real life you prepare everything for yourself to handle situations. Same for a game. Manual save to avoid having to go all the way back. To me that's immersion. Again, I don't separate the save function from the story or gameplay experience. It's all the same to me. It all is the game. It all must be under my control.
Also, either I'm not human, or it's not "basic human psychology" to be more invested in a game by being forced to save yourself, because literally the opposite is true for me.
Only because you refuse to accept it that way. And that's fine. If you gave the idea a chance you might just get used to it but you'd have to completely change your way of thinking. In my way of thinking, it psychologically makes the game feel more real and alive. And that my actions actually matter.
If every game on earth had auto-save I'd be the happiest gamer ever. At the same time, dying massively frustrates me and there is literally nothing I hate more than failing, regardless of the penalty, or lack thereof.
See, you're angry at dying whether you autosave or not. That's a completely different issue. We don't mind dying as much as you and others do. Sure, it makes the game easier for you to autosave....but that's exactly our problem with it.
I would never in my life intentionally half-ass my way through something even if I knew that I could just re-spawn and lose no progress at all. Amnesia terrifies me every 3 seconds even though I know that there is no "real" penalty for dying.
Good for you. But as Wilco pointed out, not everyone thinks the same way as you and would play that game completely differently, as has been proven.
My penalty for dying is knowing that I failed like a miserable loser, and that's far more severe than having to replay through the 10 minutes of a game that I may have forgotten to save during.
You have to replay either way. I don't understand this argument. Manual saving just gives the choice to me as to how much I will fail. That's an advantage in my eyes whether you see it or not.
The sad thing is I understand your point of view but you will not understand mine and you continually belittle it. Not that I'm surprised, it's all anybody has done even since the parser vs P&C debate. The 2D vs 3D debate. The P&C vs C&D vs WASD debate. I guess I can finally call myself and old-timer adventure for preferring something that's been replaced by something easier and increasingly meaningless instead of embracing it.
Shodan, would you just fricken play KQ6 already? Geez. Play the game all the way through and then come back and tell us that manually saving sucks ass.
Stop telling us that TTG's King's Quest should be less like old school KQ and more like unrelated modern action-adventures. Compare King's Quest to King's Quest or at least King's Quest to something else Sierra.
I'm becoming more and more convinced that you either have never played an adventure game where manual saving was required or you have played one but it was for 10 minutes and/or a very long time ago.
The truth is, if you had played such a game for a reasonable length of time, you would know that when one dies and has to retrace their steps because they hadn't saved in a while, it makes one mad at themself for not saving more often not mad at the game for being a douche. Sure, unfair deaths are irritating, but that's a different issue from, for example, learning to save at various points while walking down Manannan's mountain in KQ3 so that when you fall you don't have to walk all the way down from the top again.
Besides all that, manual saving in King's Quest never took any longer than 10 seconds. ~3 seconds if you didn't have to rename your savegame. Why does taking an average of 6 seconds or less to save once in a while break the immersion? If anything, it increases immersion in the gameplay anyway.
I'm not freaking out. His argument just makes no sense in this thread wherein we're talking about really what Telltale should implement in their KQ game. To say that TTG should make it more like Amnesia and less like King's Quest, especially without even having played a KQ game before, is just wrong in a number of ways.
I think that he's coloring aspects of the KQ series as being worse than they really are primarily because he has a lack of experience with the games. If he actually played even the AGDI KQ remakes for long enough, he ought to see that it's not as bad as he says it is.... or if it was, he would have real experiences from which to draw in making his argument, rather than just saying that Sierra games suck and that you don't need to ever play a game with manual saves to know whether it's a terrible gameplay mechanic or not.
I played the first remake for like 20 minutes once. I didn't feel like the ability to walk off of cliffs by misclicking or sometimes having a monster randomly slowly walk towards me added any sense of danger to the game.
I played the original Space Quest until I walked into a room and was shot to death immediately.
The only Sierra adventure game I have ever actually completed was Shivers 2. I enjoyed it but there were very few places you could actually die, iirc.
Also, it's not exactly a Sierra game, but I've played Hugo 3: Jungle of Doom to completion.
Though, to be honest, I don't see how any of this makes a difference, because I spend probably more time than any other human on earth thinking about game design and mechanics, and manual save is nice to be able to do, but I really don't see how a game automatically saving after you complete some large task is anything but a convenience.
Also, the "being mad at yourself vs being mad at the game" argument does not work for me, because I'm mad at the game if it's a cheap death, and mad at myself if it's my fault for being stupid/unskilled, it has nothing to do with who created the most recent save file.
I got just as much satisfaction from playing/solving DOTT and Myst as I did from KQ games.
So did I. But for completely different reasons. I outlined those reasons above. LucasArts games had witty and funny dialogue and great storytelling to make up for it. King's Quest was great for completely different reasons. That's why there are fans of Sierra and people who hate Sierra. And the same for LucasArts and Myst games. You can't compare the two that way.
I find the gameplay equally satisfying, there's nothing about the gameplay in Myst or DOTT that needs to be "made up for" as far as I'm concerned, and to me these games and KQ were all great for very similar reasons. (And in my book, story and dialogue can only go so far to compensate for gameplay deficiencies anyway.) That's why I characterized your post as sounding like the possibility of death with real consequences is necessary for you to be satisfied with gameplay, if not the overall game. Which is fine, lots of gamers would agree. I was just saying that I can go either way on the issue of death and consequences and wouldn't argue, in the abstract, that one style makes for more satisfying gameplay than the other.
In this specific case, however, I argue that if you're renewing a franchise in which death and consequences were centrally important, those aspects of gameplay should be preserved at least as an option. But I think we're all agreed on the need for choice, so I'm enjoying the latter part of this thread as a more general discussion on death and consequences in gaming. It's an interesting one even if KQ is being used as the whipping boy by one side. God knows Myst gets used as a whipping boy by the opposite side (often by people who've never played it!) in these kinds of discussions all the time, so consider the table turned.
Heck, for me, some of the replay value came in trying to find the various ways to kill off Graham/Larry/Roger/Valanice/Rosella/Gwydion/Alexander after I'd played the game a few times already just to see the ways they would rip into me for failing. Personal favorite from Space Quest III: Deceleration Trauma: Its not the fall that gets you, its the sudden stop at the bottom.
Lol. Good times. Personally, I feel completely differently about Space Quest, though. Games where death is a huge source of the comedy I'd actually feel ok with adding retries. As an adventure game I'm against it, but as a Space Quest game at the same time I'm ok with it.
Yeah! Half the fun of Space Quest is seeing all the deaths! I know we put a lot of charm and effort into all the animations and other special fun stuff that accompanies dying in our SQ2 game.
Very well. The game is complete and fully playable. Just squashing bugs and adding polish. Work has slowed down lately as several of our team members are especially busy with work/school this time of year. Summer should hopefully see the last few kinks ironed out. We're very confident it will be out this year, sooner rather than later.
For Space Quest nuts, I recall there is a website that has all of the death scenes in it. I think it was called "The Many Deaths of Roger Wilco" or something like that.
Just like Lambo said - we're working hard on it, but everyone's been busy with their real lives - school, jobs, wives, kids..... heh. But yeah, we're moving along - a few bug polishes, a couple of graphic tweaks, a lot of voice recording.... but it's playable as it is now - we've been going through it like crazy. We've kept all the deaths in, and I think we even added a few. We also took the time to make "death screens" for all of them, ala SQ3.
Like this....
This one, of course, is an homage to one you'd find in SQIII and IV. We've got more..... little animations for all of them. We had a gruesome and fun time making them, let me tell you.
They were so much fun, and we spent a lot of time chuckling over them. I couldn't imagine a Sierra game without the deaths.
Comments
Really, we're trying to have a constructive conversation here and you're not helping by ranting all the time.
I don't have to have played some random game to discuss the design philosophy behind auto-save mechanics. Everyone conveniently ignores everything I say and says "it makes a difference because I want it to" and that's the best response they have for why they want to manually save constantly instead of the game doing it for them every once in a while.
I understand not wanting a retry button, really, I do, but not wanting the game to EVER save for you is a bit insane. If there's a save point roughly every 30 minutes of gameplay, how does that do anything other than save you the trouble of doing it yourself?
If you really wanted the game's save system to "increase the difficulty", you would be advocating save points rather than manual save, as those require you to progress through a specified amount of content before you're even allowed to save.
There you go again, belittling everyone who doesn't share your exact view. Not only that, but you're completely ignoring the clearly stated and thoughtful analyses of Sierra design philosophy, the pros and cons of deaths, the pros and cons of retries, etc. that many people have written. You're insulting everyone involved in this discussion when you imply that people are just listing the same inane responses, because it simply isn't true. In fact, the only person here insipidly repeating the same argument ad infinitum IS YOU.
Lastly, most people here have agreed that autosaves are okay--they just don't want them every 10 seconds or after every single puzzle/interaction, which is what had been suggested. It's automatic retries that people are mainly discussing here, which DO ultimately negate any consequences of dying in these games, regardless of whether you like deaths/retries or not.
You quoted part of my post, and then proceeded to ignore exactly what you quoted. I clearly said that I understand having a problem with automatic retries in the part you specifically quoted, it's the concept that any auto-saving at all ruins the experience that I am taking issue with, and it HAS been expressed by multiple posters here repeatedly.
Amnesia has auto-saves pretty much any time you ever accomplish anything, and if you can play Amnesia without caring if you die, I will give you a gold plated Ferrari filled with cash.
I want this game to feel like a real King's Quest game that's worth being called canon. I want it to feel like King's Quest. Whether you personally understand why people do/don't like automatic retries is not the point. The point of this thread is to talk about whether this King's Quest game should have only manual saves like KQ1-6, auto-retries like KQ7, an infrequent autosave feature, or be given a choice between said options.
This isn't about video games in general. This is about King's Quest. This is about trying to inform Telltale how best to specifically make a King's Quest game that is worthy of the franchise.
Stop trolling. It's been established that you haven't played any Sierra games for any reasonable length of time, and are therefore ill-equipped to advise exactly how specifically a King's Quest game should feel. So you don't like manual saves. So what? You have your vote, I have mine, others have theirs. It doesn't benefit the conversation to rant about how stupid Sierra games are or to belittle others for having a differing opinion, and it certainly doesn't lend any weight to any of your arguments to know that you never played any KQ games and so can't frame a proper basis for comparison.
Edit: and by the way, I'm not saying that, because you never played a KQ game, your opinion about what you like in adventure games is invalid. I'm saying that your accusations that Sierra is stupid or that those who enjoy the KQ1-6 Save/Restore scheme are closed-minded fools is not productive and easily dismissed as trolling when it's made known that you've never played the canon KQ games.
I mean seriously, if you could say "I've played a couple of Sierra's games and and I like KQ7's auto-retry better, especially since it resolves frustration I get from unfair deaths" that would at least be a valid point backed up by a fair level of experience, but you can't even say that.
You did not read one word I said did you? Or if you did, you didn't bother to try to understand.
How many times have you in a Sierra game? No experience, no opinion.
Already said but it's worth repeating again.
Yes, you do.
Well, we're not, but I'm slowly starting to realize that we should, seeing as that's all you're doing. The response isn't "it makes a difference because I want it to" the response is "it makes a difference because psychologically that's how the human mind works." It's an increase in challenge no matter how you look at it. Really, what is gameplay? It's a series if interactions which either increase or decrease your chances of completing a game successfully. Your job as a gamer is to know which ones help you and which ones don't help you. The higher the number of interactions the more challenging it is and the more skills are required. Manual saving is another gameplay obstacle. You may find it childish and stupid but don't insult us for preferring it because it actually adds challenge. That fact cannot be refuted.
That's exactly the point. That makes you not have to worry about it. It makes the game not dangerous or perilous in any way. I don't see what's so hard to understand about this. You remove this from game design and rank it as something else. A gamer obligation or something outside the gameplay experience. I and others include it in the gaming experience. It's the same thing as whether you like or dislike arcade sequences in adventure games. Or platforming puzzles in an FPS. It's a gameplay mechanic. Just because you don't want it to be doesn't mean it isn't.
Quite a hot topic this is.
Never scared or felt any dread in the game due to that very feature. Actually deliberately did stupid things on a number of occasions just to see what happened or do some exploration and then just let the autosave load up to bring me back.
Compared to Silent Hill Homecoming where if I screwed up I was going back to wherever I was able to save last and could lose a solid chunk of work if I wasn't careful. That one had me far more on edge.
You mean no manual saving at all? In other words, the equivalent of predefined checkpoints? That certainly goes to SHODANFreeman's point that if a game allows the player to save anywhere anyway, what difference does it make if the game has auto-saves supplementing the player's manual saves. Checkpoints are the real way to give player deaths consequence. (Incidentally, SHODANFreeman, contrary to your assertion that you're being ignored, I have read, understood, and thought about your statements; just because you don't change people's minds doesn't mean you've been ignored.)
There's nothing inherently wrong with the suggestion, but why do it that way when the way the old KQs did it is what people really want? Now, I don't really agree with the implication of MusicallyInspired's post that deaths are required for an adventure game to be challenging and fun gameplay-wise; I got just as much satisfaction from playing/solving DOTT and Myst as I did from KQ games. But basically I think Chryon8472 said it best:
However, I don't think auto-saves need to be completely eliminated to retain that feel. (Besides, there are reasons for both auto-saving and allowing manual saves that have nothing to do with the consequences of player death.) If I'm facing death in the game, then I'm not going to be tempted to rely on periodic auto-saves, at least not as they're routinely implemented. For instance, I seem to recall that TOMI auto-saved whenever Guybrush walked past the courthouse in Ep1. But because you could solve puzzles in any order, the auto-saves wouldn't necessarily have been helpful if I'd needed to reload after death. I'd be wondering which of my actions were captured in the last auto-save, eg. was it before or after I set the dock on fire? Whereas if I'm managing my own saves, they'll be in order and I'll have a system to remember which saves encompass which of my actions.
So I think of it like this: the old-school setting could have the usual auto-saves and, in the event of death, a "reload" button that goes to the saved games screen. The other setting could include extra auto-saves right before potential death situations and a "retry" button that would automatically load them.
I voted for choice, but if I were actually given a choice ingame of which option to use it would probably be an infrequent after-puzzle autosave which I can supplement with my own manual saves when I so choose.
autosave, not save points.
This is exactly my point in my post. I think certain people have jumped on the notion that we want to manually save just because to us it makes the game more perilous and nothing else. This is one of the reasons for sure, but not the only one. I think Lamb got it just right here. For me more than anything, choice will ALWAYS be better than no choice.
1) it can break immersion.
2) if you know you can die, you will save every 30 seconds. Manually. Bad.
3) Vantages? I don't see many.
Points to consider:
A) you must save if something happen you while you're gaming and you have to quit: (you're late work, you've to stop, you have to turn off).
Some other options to considered:
- If you die you've to do a minigame to resurrect (do you remember Prey?)
- Limited saves (ie: max 5 savings for each episode)
- If you die you lose parts of the game (dialogues, locations, etc)
- Every time you die you lose a wonderful achievement out of i.e. 10 possible ones that will be displayed at the end of the episode.
- You can die max 10 times, after that game ends and you've to restart.
- Every time you die you've to wait 1 minute to resurrect
- Every time you die you have to go back to your body (WOW style)
- Dying let you enter another dimension with new enigmas.
- Dying makes you repeat actions (ie: if you woke up a charachter, when you resurrect he's sleeping again.)
- When you die the world change somewhat (characters are located differently, so the objects and some enigmas)
- Unlockable savegame slots. You get a savegame each time you solve 3 puzzles
- Static saving locations (like Dead Space)
- Every time you die and restart you lose part of your inventory (you have to take objects again)
- Every death you lose a save slot
- Games automatically save every 10 minutes. Trivia after death, the more you answer correctly, the nearest to the death point you'll be restored. Wrong answer lead you back in saves games i.e. 10,20,30 minutes back. Somewhat I like this one. :P
Many of these go a little off-road, but consider them for which can lead to a better game.
This is where I am completely baffled, why do you intentionally ruin games for yourself? I just don't understand why you would refuse to play a game as intended simply because it saves for you sometimes.
Autosaves have a tendency to take place right before significant game events, so I'm typically just on othe watch for that to happen to be on the lookout for something interesting to happen. If I'm responsible for saving, then I need to be constantly on the lookout for something good to come up without any warning.
But why are you okay with dying and being sent back to an auto-save, but not a manual save? What about auto-saving makes you desire running around like a maniac? How is it satisfying to play a game and die 2036 times? Even if a death only sends me back 35 seconds, I avoid it like the plague because even looking at a loading screen is too much time spent not playing the game for me. I get really agitated when I die in a game, regardless of whatever consequences there may or may not be, because failing is not my desired outcome in any situation.
In all honesty, if Uncharted didn't auto-save as frequently as it does, I probably would've gotten so frustrated with some parts of the game that I'd have given up on it long before completing it. Being thrown right back into the action where you left off is a godsend for me, as I can't be bothered replaying something I've already completed for all intents and purposes. I don't think being forced to replay a section you've previously finished adds to the difficulty at all, as you're essentially just redoing something you've already done before, it just adds to the frustration and kills the entire experience with pointless repetition to the point of monotony.
In the case of an adventure game, this is even more pointless, as most of the gameplay is based on solving puzzles, and once you've done that, there is no challenge left to it, beyond repeating everything you've done before and avoiding whatever it was that killed you the last time, and you can avoid losing any progress whatsoever by just repeatedly saving the game any time you do anything.
Also, either I'm not human, or it's not "basic human psychology" to be more invested in a game by being forced to save yourself, because literally the opposite is true for me. If every game on earth had auto-save I'd be the happiest gamer ever. At the same time, dying massively frustrates me and there is literally nothing I hate more than failing, regardless of the penalty, or lack thereof. I would never in my life intentionally half-ass my way through something even if I knew that I could just re-spawn and lose no progress at all. Amnesia terrifies me every 3 seconds even though I know that there is no "real" penalty for dying.
My penalty for dying is knowing that I failed like a miserable loser, and that's far more severe than having to replay through the 10 minutes of a game that I may have forgotten to save during.
I didn't say that it's required for adventure games to be fun (though, personally, I do think that for myself), I said it's required for a King's Quest game.
So did I. But for completely different reasons. I outlined those reasons above. LucasArts games had witty and funny dialogue and great storytelling to make up for it. King's Quest was great for completely different reasons. That's why there are fans of Sierra and people who hate Sierra. And the same for LucasArts and Myst games. You can't compare the two that way.
Of course a game should be played to win. Otherwise it's not a game. Why play it? To watch?.....that takes us back to BTTF and Jurassic Park.
Overcoming it is satisfying. Being responsible for yourself is satisfying.
Avoid looking at the loading screen? Talk about breaking immersion. My motivation is to avoid my character dying. And it feels more like that to me when I have to save myself. It sounds backwards but it's true. I know this doesn't make sense to you. Honestly, I'm just as baffled as to why it doesn't make sense to you. But both are perfectly valid viewpoints and that's why a choice is the best option. You'll never convince us and we'll obviously never convince you. So why are we even having this conversation?
It's not about agitation or frustration. A game can have those with autosaves or not. It's about being in full control of your game. I just think in an adventure game particularly you should be responsible for all your gameplay actions. And like I touched on earlier, autosaves for me break the immersion, weird as that sounds. Because the game is constantly reminding me that it's got my back. It's like the difference between someone teaching me every little facet of playing basketball and holding my hand through the entire process criticizing my moves and strategies and someone giving me a ball and a jersey and saying "go have fun." The former is great for a tutorial section, but not for the entire game! Let me play the game myself! Stop holding my hand! That's how I feel. Or it's like how newer versions of Windows always add these stupid user-friendly tasks and functions that just get in the way of how I want to run my computer. Some people find it useful. Great. Offer an option. Case closed.
Uncharted is not a King's Quest adventure game. I mean really, you're telling us to accept games the way they were meant to be played giving Amnesia as an example (for the immersion, not to win), but that's exactly what we're arguing. King's Quest was on its best day always made the way we're arguing. That's what we want back. If you don't like it don't play a King's Quest game. We're just the fans of a franchise wanting what we loved about the franchise.
You're going for that FPS comparison again which completely holds no ground whatsoever. Go play a King's Quest game and get back to us. Though, I'm sure you'll get thoroughly annoyed and quit in the first 10 minutes or less anyway.
In your opinion. Why are we arguing over opinions again....?
....and avoiding danger. Integral part of King's Quest. Again, play a King's Quest game. You can't make these accusations and arguments over a game you've never played.
Taking your own responsibility for avoiding having to do it again is a challenge. Because you could get cocky and think you could just fly through it only to find that you weren't as skilled as you thought you were and have to start over....and isn't that what a game is all about? Testing your skill? And don't you do the same thing over again regardless of whether you manually save or not? Manually saving as opposed to autosaving doesn't have any bearing on repeating something you just did, which I guess is your point but that's completely missing our point. The point is it feels more real like a life is really in peril because you have to back yourself up. In real life you prepare everything for yourself to handle situations. Same for a game. Manual save to avoid having to go all the way back. To me that's immersion. Again, I don't separate the save function from the story or gameplay experience. It's all the same to me. It all is the game. It all must be under my control.
Only because you refuse to accept it that way. And that's fine. If you gave the idea a chance you might just get used to it but you'd have to completely change your way of thinking. In my way of thinking, it psychologically makes the game feel more real and alive. And that my actions actually matter.
See, you're angry at dying whether you autosave or not. That's a completely different issue. We don't mind dying as much as you and others do. Sure, it makes the game easier for you to autosave....but that's exactly our problem with it.
Good for you. But as Wilco pointed out, not everyone thinks the same way as you and would play that game completely differently, as has been proven.
You have to replay either way. I don't understand this argument. Manual saving just gives the choice to me as to how much I will fail. That's an advantage in my eyes whether you see it or not.
The sad thing is I understand your point of view but you will not understand mine and you continually belittle it. Not that I'm surprised, it's all anybody has done even since the parser vs P&C debate. The 2D vs 3D debate. The P&C vs C&D vs WASD debate. I guess I can finally call myself and old-timer adventure for preferring something that's been replaced by something easier and increasingly meaningless instead of embracing it.
Stop telling us that TTG's King's Quest should be less like old school KQ and more like unrelated modern action-adventures. Compare King's Quest to King's Quest or at least King's Quest to something else Sierra.
I'm becoming more and more convinced that you either have never played an adventure game where manual saving was required or you have played one but it was for 10 minutes and/or a very long time ago.
The truth is, if you had played such a game for a reasonable length of time, you would know that when one dies and has to retrace their steps because they hadn't saved in a while, it makes one mad at themself for not saving more often not mad at the game for being a douche. Sure, unfair deaths are irritating, but that's a different issue from, for example, learning to save at various points while walking down Manannan's mountain in KQ3 so that when you fall you don't have to walk all the way down from the top again.
Besides all that, manual saving in King's Quest never took any longer than 10 seconds. ~3 seconds if you didn't have to rename your savegame. Why does taking an average of 6 seconds or less to save once in a while break the immersion? If anything, it increases immersion in the gameplay anyway.
I think that he's coloring aspects of the KQ series as being worse than they really are primarily because he has a lack of experience with the games. If he actually played even the AGDI KQ remakes for long enough, he ought to see that it's not as bad as he says it is.... or if it was, he would have real experiences from which to draw in making his argument, rather than just saying that Sierra games suck and that you don't need to ever play a game with manual saves to know whether it's a terrible gameplay mechanic or not.
I played the original Space Quest until I walked into a room and was shot to death immediately.
The only Sierra adventure game I have ever actually completed was Shivers 2. I enjoyed it but there were very few places you could actually die, iirc.
Also, it's not exactly a Sierra game, but I've played Hugo 3: Jungle of Doom to completion.
Though, to be honest, I don't see how any of this makes a difference, because I spend probably more time than any other human on earth thinking about game design and mechanics, and manual save is nice to be able to do, but I really don't see how a game automatically saving after you complete some large task is anything but a convenience.
Also, the "being mad at yourself vs being mad at the game" argument does not work for me, because I'm mad at the game if it's a cheap death, and mad at myself if it's my fault for being stupid/unskilled, it has nothing to do with who created the most recent save file.
I find the gameplay equally satisfying, there's nothing about the gameplay in Myst or DOTT that needs to be "made up for" as far as I'm concerned, and to me these games and KQ were all great for very similar reasons. (And in my book, story and dialogue can only go so far to compensate for gameplay deficiencies anyway.) That's why I characterized your post as sounding like the possibility of death with real consequences is necessary for you to be satisfied with gameplay, if not the overall game. Which is fine, lots of gamers would agree.
In this specific case, however, I argue that if you're renewing a franchise in which death and consequences were centrally important, those aspects of gameplay should be preserved at least as an option. But I think we're all agreed on the need for choice, so I'm enjoying the latter part of this thread as a more general discussion on death and consequences in gaming. It's an interesting one even if KQ is being used as the whipping boy by one side.
Bt
Very well. The game is complete and fully playable. Just squashing bugs and adding polish. Work has slowed down lately as several of our team members are especially busy with work/school this time of year. Summer should hopefully see the last few kinks ironed out. We're very confident it will be out this year, sooner rather than later.
Just like Lambo said - we're working hard on it, but everyone's been busy with their real lives - school, jobs, wives, kids..... heh. But yeah, we're moving along - a few bug polishes, a couple of graphic tweaks, a lot of voice recording.... but it's playable as it is now - we've been going through it like crazy. We've kept all the deaths in, and I think we even added a few. We also took the time to make "death screens" for all of them, ala SQ3.
Like this....
This one, of course, is an homage to one you'd find in SQIII and IV. We've got more..... little animations for all of them. We had a gruesome and fun time making them, let me tell you.
They were so much fun, and we spent a lot of time chuckling over them. I couldn't imagine a Sierra game without the deaths.
Bt
Heh, nice Bt.
And note the distinct lack of a namby-pamby "Retry" button on that GUI. Rock on.