Playing Tribunal (Morrowind expansion), such an effin' blast to see that I can be put in a position where my save (before entering the final room) leads to (spoilers ahoy):

There is no greater shit sandwich in gaming than the Unwinnable situation that results from such design choices.

please watch your language. and this is more of a rant then a topic/discussion....

~ is your friend, my friend.

Also they never put save points where I want them (in FF3 in General, walking through the final dungeon WHERES THE FUCKING SAVE POINT!)

Autosaves are good in those situations like in F3 at the end and they dont give away the story unlike in Fable 2 which is "This is the end, once u talk to this guy you have to complete the game story".

I hate save points in general. I have video game OCD (it comes with the territory when you grew up playing games like OoT, Sanitarium, Starship Titanic, etcetera), so I always want to save every 5 minutes, but I can't if there isn't a save point. Using save points = automatic -10 points to a game for me.

Can you not quicksave in Morrowind on the Xbox or something? I think save points should be done away with entirely in favor of quicksaves (though I wholeheartedly endorse autosaves), and I know you could use them in the PC version.

As far as I'm aware, there's two types of saving. Autosaves/Checkpoints and Free-Range.

Checkpoints are never, ever done right. In every single game that uses them, there's always at least one that's appallingly placed, and makes it damn near impossible to continue from. With Free-Range, you can save anywhere as much as you want, but as a result it can make the game much easier.

I prefer Free-Range, but when playing I do my best to limit my saves. I'll only save every 30 minutes, for example. I find it a good combination of challenge and accessibility.

With regards to the original point raised - yeah, it's bloody annoying. I haven't encountered anything like it in a while, but every time it happens I end up cursing whoever was in charge of the damn system. Never pleasant.

This isn't about save points as much as it is about a game blocking all avenues of escape without warning you beforehand.

This is what i hate in S.T.A.L.K.E.R if you don't have 30 bandages and 20 medkits you are fucked. In the very end of S.T.A.L.E.R: Clear sky i would have died if the game wouldn't have ended. In S.T.A.L.K.E.R Shadow of Chernobyl I couldn't complete the game cause I was out of bandages (Veteran difficulty). Really pisses me off.

Good morning blues:
I think save points should be done away with entirely in favor of quicksaves (though I wholeheartedly endorse autosaves)

Agreed. Some developers seem to think that saves are a privilege that can be taken away instead of a right that every player should have. A game that lasts for hours and gives you an overarching narrative should let the player save whenever the hell they want. There's just no excuse for having savepoints anymore.

Games that score you are a completely different beast, of course, but usually those don't have saves to begin with and the games don't last terribly long either.

I got stuck on that same part in Morrowind...sucks balls.

Good morning blues:
Can you not quicksave in Morrowind on the Xbox or something? I think save points should be done away with entirely in favor of quicksaves (though I wholeheartedly endorse autosaves), and I know you could use them in the PC version.

Of course I can quicksave (and do frequently because of Morrowind's many and varied crashbugs), but the practical effect is that I have effectively wasted a giant chunk of my time going through the dungeon with no practical means of escape.

EDIT: Then again, I've already got the sword with the 15-75 Chop rating (Nerevar's Sword of Extreme Badassery, as I like to call it), I might as well revert to the save before I get the damn thing enchanted and just get out of Mournhold entirely and go to Solstheim or just commence the Inevitable Morrowind Killing Spree.

ffxfriek:
please watch your language. and this is more of a rant then a topic/discussion....

1. Who made you a mod?

2. He has a fucking good point. If a game is going to switch between the freedom to move from place to place to a linear track with no fucking return, it should at the very least have the common fucking decency to tell you so. The only game I know of that does so is Final Fantasy XII, which tells you on the save screen if you're in a point of no return area. I mean if Final Fucking Fantasy can get it right, why can't anyone else?

I prefer the "save anywhere" style. Even on console games. Remember Pokemon Red and Blue? THOSE games let you save anywhere you wanted. HOW can it be that modern games are inferior to the original GB Pokemon games?

The only time I'm against being able to save anywhere is in a game where such a feature can break the difficulty of the game. Such as, say, Fire Emblem 7.

GloatingSwine:

2. He has a fucking good point. If a game is going to switch between the freedom to move from place to place to a linear track with no return, it should at the very least have the common fucking decency to tell you so. The only game I know of that does so is Final Fantasy XII, which tells you on the save screen if you're in a point of no return area.

Doesn't Mass Effect do that too? At least I remember it telling you pretty clearly that you should make sure you've done everything you've planned to do before going to the last planet.

Dommyboy:
Autosaves are good in those situations like in F3 at the end and they dont give away the story unlike in Fable 2 which is "This is the end, once u talk to this guy you have to complete the game story".

agreed to the F3 i have never really completed the game seeing i play when im bored and lately Ive been reading a lot so i havent been too bored and quicksaves are a life saver when im at a point of no return where i cant go back later to collect his or that or fight the optional side quest boss.

I remember the first time this happened to me. I was unable to complete "The Dark Queen of Krynn" because you can't go back and level up/restock after a certain point, and my party was not up to the challenge. Also, it was not worth a replay either so it remains on my short list of unfinished games. I've been careful with saves ever since:)

Bocca:
This is what i hate in S.T.A.L.K.E.R if you don't have 30 bandages and 20 medkits you are fucked. In the very end of S.T.A.L.E.R: Clear sky i would have died if the game wouldn't have ended. In S.T.A.L.K.E.R Shadow of Chernobyl I couldn't complete the game cause I was out of bandages (Veteran difficulty). Really pisses me off.

Aha! I knew I couldn't have been the only one who never beat Shadow of Chernobyl! The end of it is not only freakishly hard, it is completely different in style from the rest of the game (I'm talking about the sarcophagus, everything leading up to it was pure, unadulterated awesome)! I mean, I'm damn good at STALKER. I play on Master difficulty with no crosshairs... I set the difficulty from Master to Novice and turned crosshair on; no luck. Still haven't beaten, and I don't plan to.

About the saving, though. For some games a free-range saving system can break immersion; ooh, big bad cave with fire, scary, better save... Not good. Also, though, autosaves can be placed wrongly. So here's what I think, the game can autosave, but not overwrite any custom saves that you've made, and there'll be autosaves in all the places the developers particularly don't want immersion to be broken, and a few other places, like gates or doors. That way, a person can romp around and never save, but still be okay, or romp around and save all the time, and still be okay, or have a mix of both.

That's what I think.

Darth Marsden:
As far as I'm aware, there's two types of saving. Autosaves/Checkpoints and Free-Range.

Checkpoints are never, ever done right. In every single game that uses them, there's always at least one that's appallingly placed, and makes it damn near impossible to continue from.

Checkpoints can also go horribly wrong, first time I played God of War I saved maybe every 2 hours and let the checkpoints do the work for me.
That is...until I got stuck in a death loop after falling in the trial of Hades and had to load a save from 3 hours back.