Is Saving Good?

I don't care if anyone else saves. But I generally don't. I used to, but I got tired of how it ruined the game for me.

Redundant question really. Everyone's free to play the game how he likes. In a casual or a hardcore manner. Some people seem to regard saving almost as cheating, which is nonsense. Not using the save function sure adds to the challenge - and tension, since the punishment for death is more severe. I quicksave more or less regularly, depending on the map. And considering how many modern maps are filled with gameplay situations that often seem to require prior knowledge (for they are very unfair without it), saving before or afterwards is an apt countermeasure to frustration.

Now that the suject is going, I was always wondering how to disable autosaving at the beginning of each map in Zdoom, couldn't ever find it =/

Anyone know the command/cvar for it?

Under your ZDoom[x].ini where [x] is your name, find "disableautosave" and set it to 1.

neg!ke said:
Redundant question really.

A silence about this topic furthers save game usage, and saying the topic is pointless is a way to advocate that practice because in isolation people just deal with engine's capability to save. It's there, hence it will often be used. Play without saves only becomes more evidently useful, outside isolated cases, when this sharing, not only in the form of discussion but also in play such as in demo sharing, online, or at LAN with friends occurs.

This is why often these discussions start with a revelation; "I used to save, but I tried non-saving play and liked it." They often saw someone else was doing it, which made them confident enough that it is possible and fun, tried it, and got hooked.

Bishop said:

Now that the suject is going, I was always wondering how to disable autosaving at the beginning of each map in Zdoom, couldn't ever find it =/

Anyone know the command/cvar for it?

Menus: main -> options -> miscellaneous options.

myk said:

Play without saves only becomes more evidently useful, outside isolated cases, when this sharing, not only in the form of discussion but also in play such as in demo sharing, online, or at LAN with friends occurs.

What the fuck is this, a legal document???

magicsofa, meet Myk.

@Gez and BurningCadavre: Cool! thanx (I didn't see that in the menus of the earlier versions of Gzdoom)

magicsofa said:

What the fuck is this, a legal document???

LOL!

magicsofa said:
What the fuck is this, a legal document???

I guess you're lost, but you could also be interpreting my comment as some sort of mandate. If the latter, it's a descriptive statement, not a rule.

In isolation, we tend to play by the rules set forth by the engine specs, simply going by its capabilities. Saves are there, in an important part of the menu, and let us explore level sets more easily so we tend to use them. In groups, we tend to learn from each other and adopt habits that suit playing among each other or sharing what we play. In things like demo recording and relatively public online play saving is pretty useless, and when one gets used to it, the habit of being more daring and competitive and not relying on saves is carried to other playing activities, such as the single player where we had previously been using saves regularly.

I admit to being a bit of a save whore - though the majority of the time I only reload if I get the shit knocked out of me and can't easily recover (e.g. a direct hit from a Cyberdemon) or I do something stupid like accidentally rocketing a wall in front of me. I just hate getting into a position where I *have* to reload and realize I have to replay a bunch of stuff I just did - hence I save fairly frequently (before springing an obvious trap, opening a locked door, etc.).

If I've at least got (give or take a few %) 30-40% health/armor, I usually just keep going without reloading. I figure that if I can at least grab a little health soon, I'll be OK, then I'll probably run across some armor eventually or I can double back to pick up some armor I intentionally skipped earlier (to avoid wasting it or replacing blue armor with green armor if I've got a good chunk of blue left).

This rule may go out the window if I'm playing a map with a lot of hitscanners, which are absolutely brutal on health if you have little/no armor, though I'll try to play it out if I can. Unless I'm playing something difficult like Hell Revealed, there's usually a decent margin of error if you're careful.

I save because I suck, and would probably get frustrated without it.