About that, if one has no common sense, then you can't ask them to have the common sense to have common sense, because they don't have it, as is presumed.
Agreed, and I like the way you put that sentiment...;) Very Funny!
But I do agree that harping on the devs for adding in some dangerous sidetracks in the middle of a low-leveled area is... silly. We're talking about a proper RPG, not some action game with RPG elements that make it be named a sort of RPG (i.e. action-RPG). On top of that, an RPG that the devs made clear is made with old-school in mind. Those came with plenty of save, resume playing, save again, continue, save just to be sure, etc.
Agree again!...I actually like and really appreciate being able to save anywhere, and I make use of it with relish. It adds to the game for me because it allows me to experiment and make choices just to see where they lead, if I've a mind to do so. It's really part of the rpg experience for me.
True Anecdote:
Years & years ago, when you could actually pick up a game box and dial the phone number of the game developer and actually *speak* with a game's developer on the phone (a member of the development team)...(!)...you could also send them snail-mail letters (this predated the Internet & email as we know it today) and
they'd reply in kind! (*GASP*!)...:D (You also got whatever patches were made for the game via a snail-mail floppy.)
So...I sent a letter to the Bard's Tale II development Team (I *think* EA was the publisher, Interplay the developer, and I *think* B. Fargo produced BTII--it's been awhile)--but one of my chief complaints about the game was that it didn't have a save-anywhere/anytime feature!
Now, here's why--you'd manage to find your party successfully navigating through 20 levels down under the town (one level consisted of a 22x22 square grid which you'd map manually on graph paper!), and then suppose you wanted to save your game. Well, you'd have to retrace your steps for *all 20 levels* back up (which meant fighting re-spawned monsters all the way) until you were back in the "Adventurer's Guild", at which time you could actually *save* the state of your characters (but not their locations, etc.) Then, next session when you reloaded, you'd start again in the AG and have to fight your way down through the 20 levels you'd already mapped just to get to where you were when you quit the last game!
What this meant is that fully
two-thirds of *each* gaming session was spent retracing your steps just so you could save the game state...;) So...you could play an hour and then it would take 45 minutes to an hour to get back to the AG so you could save the game before quitting the session, and then on reload you'd spend another 45 minutes to an hour just getting back to where you originally quit! Lots and lots of wasted time! Mountains of it.
Short of it is that I wrote and asked for a save-anywhere feature for just these reasons and the female member of the dev team who wrote me back thanked me for the suggestion and let me know
they were implementing the save-anywhere feature as it made so much sense...!...;) True to her word, a few days later I got a patch disk in the mail with the new version of the game that would save both party location and game state anywhere and on demand! What a difference in game-play this made! (I've never forgotten this incident as you might imagine--and it also let me know that sometimes game devs develop blind spots you'd never think they'd have...;))*
Anyway...this is what makes me so keen on save-game capability today, decades later! Save-game functionality is not something trivial that should be taken for granted as there is actually a lot to it--and save-anywhere, save-on-demand is absolutely the best version of the save game format that there is, imo--so-o-o-oooo much better than check-point saves (which came later with consoles), and etc.
So maybe you can see why I think it is just so wrong-headed to underestimate the importance and value of the now-ubiquitous save anywhere/anytime game capability! And calling it "near cheating" strikes me as almost blasphemous! Heh...;)
Now, this newer trend of "don't make me save"ers does baffle me a little. Would they rather the game detect where they feel a slight anxiety and save for them, or maybe retread half an hour worth of play time due to how long ago the last auto save was made?
There is no consensus on how it should be done. Argue this way all you want, there's plenty that will argue against. In such cases, the devs are totally free to go with what they choose, because one can't satisfy both sides of a divide at the same time.
So says I, the insignificant one.
I'm like you--what's so *perplexing* about saving a game? It's our choice--left up to the player entirely! How could that be implemented any better? In these games, imo, the wisest thing a player can do is to follow the dev's advice about "saving early, saving often," and *especially* before one takes a risk in the game that *might* result in one's demise...;) Yes, it is common sense--but I can surely remember those days in gaming when save-anywhere was actually a new & novel concept...! But in this game you can even adjust the number of auto-saves the game will make if you absolutely are opposed to saving your own progress--it's just that the auto-save programming is semi-intelligent and won't know to save just before you take a risk, etc. Like playing the game itself, that sort of intelligence is *supposed* to be sitting between the keyboard and the chair!
(*The events related in the above account are true to the best of my creaking intellect, and only the names have been changed to protect the innocent.)
