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Hello, Windows already have a per user folder for savegames, why isn't it used by Larian to store saved games ?

%USERPROFILE%/Saved Games

Now the game is released it may be a bit late to apply the change, but i'm curious to know why it wasn't considered during development.

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I wouldn't know, but it may have something to do with the game being cross-platform via a pretty general translation method.


Unless otherwise specified, just an opinion or simple curiosity.
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Originally Posted by Magissia
Hello, Windows already have a per user folder for savegames, why isn't it used by Larian to store saved games ?

%USERPROFILE%/Saved Games

Now the game is released it may be a bit late to apply the change, but i'm curious to know why it wasn't considered during development.


I don't know any single game that uses that folder tbh...


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I, personally, hate when games stores their data all over my system, making it impossible to just delete it.

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Originally Posted by Goldseeker
I, personally, hate when games stores their data all over my system, making it impossible to just delete it.

Some people just search for the company/game name in their file explorer and delete every file that pops up. There are easy solutions to simply problems, you know... wink


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Personally I don't understand why any game would under any circumstances ever not keep data in the gamefolder.

"But it's not designed that way!" isn't an excuse because there are other games that do this so you can do it that way if you want to.

It's so goddamn annoying. It makes using a small SSD for your Windows install impractical as a good example of why it's a terrible idea that has frustrating results.

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The "Saved Games" folder came with Win 7 or Vista, up until recently many people still used XP

Originally Posted by Tyhan
Personally I don't understand why any game would under any circumstances ever not keep data in the gamefolder.


This is because Microsoft assumes that there are several other persons who play the game on your PC while you're away. To save disc space, the game itself needs to be installed only once and the savegames are stored in everyone's personal folder.

Actually it's for system protection. The standard windows "programs" folder is protected from manipulation, you can still change stuff there, but the program itself will see the originally installed data. A bad place for savegames (or viruses... or mods...)

This may work well for MS Office and true documents, but for games it's a bit silly. Even worse when creative game designers decide that their savegames belong to the AppData folder instead of the documents folder, and outright stupid when the savegames are stored in the documents folder and the ini files in app data.

Last edited by jog; 15/07/14 07:19 PM.
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Originally Posted by Tyhan
It's so goddamn annoying. It makes using a small SSD for your Windows install impractical as a good example of why it's a terrible idea that has frustrating results.


This is only caused by the incompetence of Microsoft in offering a so called SoftLink by the Filesystem (thinks archived by all other OS years ago ;)) so this is no point.

It's simply a SecurityQuestions. In an normal anvironment, the user has only write permission to his own home-folder and some shares and is unable to modify an folder containing binaries. But thats something Valve don't understand nor Gamedevelopers and MS won't get this anymore ...

Regarding gaming security is no "selling point"

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Microsoft aren't incompetent, we do have softlink in Windows, they are just called with another name, you can create symbolic links, hard links and junctions, but there is absolutely NO REASON to store save on game's folder, for any reason, even if the system is able to support symbolic links because it make the game multi users unfriendly. I don't understand how this thing turned out of topic that fast.

Keeping saves on game's folder is a security breach as it would mean you are allowed to write on game's folder, in addition to breaking multiple user compatibility.

You are technically able to place your Windows' profile and/or save game system folder on the drive you want by changing systems variable for this, any software calling the path using the variable will be on the right place whatever happens.

Last edited by Magissia; 16/07/14 03:40 AM.
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Originally Posted by Magissia
Microsoft aren't incompetent, we do have softlink in Windows, they are just called with another name, you can create symbolic links, hard links and junctions...
And the free Link Shell Extension is worth a call out for making it easy to create them. MS's inability to provide similar facilities in Windows itself is good cause to question their competence though.
Originally Posted by Magissia
...but there is absolutely NO REASON to store save on game's folder, for any reason, even if the system is able to support symbolic links because it make the game multi users unfriendly.
Having saved games in the game folder makes it easy to uninstall since all you have to do is delete that folder. And multiple users could be handled via subfolders within the game folder.

In contrast, the current system almost guarantees data being left behind after an uninstall, since doing so under one account will leave behind data created in other accounts. And Microsoft made things worse by having a multiplicity of "data" folders (Application Data, Local Settings, My Documents, My Games) which have only increased with later Windows versions (ProgramData, AppData, etc).

Last edited by Stargazer; 16/07/14 03:54 AM.
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Originally Posted by LordCrash

I don't know any single game that uses that folder tbh...

There are a few, ex. - crysis 2 and 3, fable 3.

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@Stargazer Not using this system folder because other are doing bad work isn't a good reason.
You need administrative privileges to uninstall the game, it's technically possible for the uninstaller to look at each users savegame folder, but it would mean you force your users to lose their progression and that's not nice.

if you don't put user's saves on that user's homepath, it also mean said user saves won't be delete if you delete the account and this is worse than leaving users progressions while removing the game.

If space is an issue, you can enable quota on the hard drive shared among users, they will clean the saves they don't need when they reach their quota because as a system administrator, you did what is required to educate your users to correctly use a computer.

Microsoft should not give an easy GUI to use the symbolic link as they are ADMINISTRATIVE TASKS, on linux you use ln, you don't right clic a folder and it's perfect that way, it prevents users creating a junction and not understanding what they do, only to hear them complaining blaming the system administrators for their own misuses of advanced functions of a system they don't understand.

Problem isn't Microsoft giving multiple locations for each specific data, problem is developers not writing data at the right place and not cleaning correctly behind them, cleaning isn't system's task, it's the uninstaller's task to uninstall correctly. When Microsoft take in hand the installation and uninstallation process, like with the Windows 8 store, i don't hear anything about leftovers.

Hope i made things clear on why it would be a good idea to rely on system's saved game folder as it's here for that very reason and will help system administrators to do their work. If Microsoft did it right is not the question and should not even been invoked here at all, when you build for a system, you respect the system's convention.

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Windows has no real "softlinks". Try to link Network share to C:\Userdata without breaking any application wink

The other MS Fault was made years ago, with their lazy multi user concept. MS introduced the "FolderPolicy" lately and they don't offer a system-wide packet manager (introduced in windows 8)

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Originally Posted by Stargazer
Having saved games in the game folder makes it easy to uninstall since all you have to do is delete that folder.

And the registry keys. And the services. And the shared files. And the components in the assembly cache. And the policies. And whatever else the program has installed in this modern age of multi-user, multi-process, secure operating systems.

To put it simply, programs (.exe, .dll, etc) go in C:\Program Files. My documents (including savegames) go in <myprofile>\Documents. My settings go in <myprofile>\Appdata. It doesn't matter whether we are talking a game or a productivity app - they should all be consistent.


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