T w e n t y S i d e d
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I loved all the crazy science machines spread throughout the complex. We were all used to videogames where we explored mostly static worlds, so these massive pounding, spinning, glowing, shaking machines really were something new. Their moving parts cast crazy shadows on the walls that really showed off the engine and gave monsters fun places to hide. Their deadly interiors made for a feeling of paranoia at the ongoing hazard. Their moving parts provided a fun justification for the various “puzzles” you have to overcome. As the guy who’s in charge of walking around in videogames asking, “What is this thing FOR?!?”, I loved that the game took time to do some fun worldbuilding by explaining their purpose. Okay, everyone thinks it’s completely superfluous worldbuilding, but I loved it anyway.
So I see Chris has quite the organizational system for his savegames. “ASDF” and “ASDFW”. I’m in the habit of naming my first save “new” or “start”, but then I’m too lazy to make another, so I replace it as I go. Eventually I have a save just before the final encounter in the game labeled “start”. Which means my system is objectively worse. Chris names his saves gibberish, but I give them completely wrong and misleading names that will no doubt confuse my later self.
How do you name saves?
TitleWhat’s Inside Skinner’s Box?
What is a skinner box, how does it interact with neurotransmitters, and what does it have to do with shooting people in the face for rare loot?
Spider-Man
A game I love. It has a solid main story and a couple of really obnoxious, cringy, incoherent side-plots in it. What happened here?
Please Help I Can’t Stop Playing Cities: Skylines
What makes this borderline indie title so much better than the AAA juggernauts that came before?
Grand Theft Auto Retrospective
This series began as a cheap little 2D overhead game and grew into the most profitable entertainment product ever made. I have a love / hate relationship with the series.
Stolen Pixels
A screencap comic that poked fun at videogames and the industry. The comic has ended, but there's plenty of archives for you to binge on.
It depends on the game. For some games, I just use quicksaves, “save1”, or the game won’t let me choose. But for other games like Skyrim or Planescape: Torment, I like to get creative. “Waking where I did not sleep”, “At the foot of the mountain”, or “Now we are three”, etc. It can be nice to look back on my saves afterwards and see how they tell my own little story.
I name all my saves ‘1’. It’s a similar system to Shamus’ – slightly more efficient, perhaps, but exactly-as thoroughly unhelpful.
I got inspired by Spoiler Warning’s episode titles, and now I’ll often give my saved games slightly punnish names. They’re all on a different computer so I can’t give examples, I’m afraid.
Otherwise I just describe what action-of-dubious-merit before which I felt it worth saving.
Whereas my Planescape Torment save files were named ‘buh’, ‘huh’, ‘guh’ and ‘duh’.
…which still pretty much sums up my journey through Planescape Torment.
My savegames are thematic, provided I’m able to name the save. In Rome: Total War (I or II), my Julian campaigns are given lines from “Julius Caesar,” my Junian playthroughs are all references to either of the Brutuses. (“Death to Tarquin!”). Cornelius Campaigns are references to the Second Punic War.
No One Lives Forever get James Bond references.
I confess, I have no idea what Doom saves would have to reference. Maybe Red Planet or Ghosts of Mars…
The Martian world, it is explodin’
I used to play a MUD (text-based precursors to MMOs), and with the particular client I used you had to manually tell it to start logging, it didn’t support date/time filename wildcards, and it wouldn’t log events that happened before you started logging. I was also a GM so I’d usually get several important messages soon after I logged in.
Since I needed to start logging as quickly as possible (and I obviously wouldn’t know in advance what that day would bring) I named log files using the tried and true “keyboard mashing” method.
I regret that so much now. I want to go back and re-read some particularly epic moments, but several thousand log files covering ten years with helpful filenames such as “sdfadsaffdsajklsfda”, scattered over a dozen directories (I made a new log folder once random name collisions became too frequent), definitely makes it harder to find a particular log.
If I’m not saving something as “Recent Game”, it’s usually “(MyName)Save” with maybe a number attached.
…It… kinda works?
Save names:
Start – This is the very first moment I have a chance to save. In case I decide to restart from this pristine point.
First – This is the primary save.
Second – This is for “I’m doing something weird, this is right before I need to make a choice.” If I stick with it, the ‘divergent’ line will be saved as First.
Third – A further choice spot if I haven’t yet decided I like this ‘alternate’ path.
And so on. Though I very rarely exceed Second, and I’ve never gone more than Fourth.
Generally I use whatever the automatic name is if one is provided, and will always save in a new slot if a slot is available.
If a save name is not automatically provided I will either just raw numbers or possibly the location or recent event.
This approach may have lead to about 7GB of Skyrim and Fallout 3 saves.
This is more or less what I do, although it’s pretty rare that I’ll go ‘save 1’, ‘save 2’, etc. etc.
I do the same as well. A new save file from time to time and Chris method of imputing random “under the left hand” keys as a file name while the other hand readies itself to click the continue button. : )
Usually, most games I play tend to have a nice thumbnail as well so if I ever need to, I can quickly locate a specific save by having a glimpse at the capture.
For RPGs, I have a bad habit of coming back after a couple months and forgetting what I was supposed to be doing, so my save names tend to be reminders on where I was. e.g “Deal with Rancor” and “Got Bastila” were my last two.
I wish more RPGs would have an in-game text editor, or have stuff properly show up in a quest diary. Like Planescape…but not glitchy, buggy, and prone to erasing critical quest data you need. ^^;
It varies by game. Lots of games don’t give you a choice – their save system populates the name automatically in some way. If a game has levels, I’ll usually name the saves after the level name, with a number after if I make more than one on that level. If it’s a game I replay a lot, I’ll name my saves after the year I’m playing, with numbers following (I almost never overwrite saves, unless a game caps the number you can have, then I always overwrite the oldest first). RPGs usually get named after the PC I’ve created, if they’re customizable, with a number after, or sometimes with something descriptive, to let me know where I am in the story, if the game stores saves by “career” already.
Depends on the game, but I try to have a series of saves that I name numerically and rotate through, so save1 through save5, and whenever I save the game I overwrite whatever’s on the bottom. It’s really helpful, especially on buggy games, that if I need to go back a bit I can.
I basically have a version of this system, which comes from growing up with several siblings who shared my interest in video games.
My hard drives are full of files named things like:
Josh1.sav
Josh2.sav
Josh.BeforethThing.sav
Josh.Quickstart.sav
I do the same kind of thing, having two or three saves to cycle through, with extra saves near big choices or the beginning of DLC or stuff.
When it comes down to naming saves, I try to name them relevant to whatever I’m doing, although that can lead to saves labeled “combat against dudes,” “more combat against duded,” “even more combat against dudes.”
In most games same, usually a “word#” the word being either the name of character, or “save” or something like that (for some reason too short names of saves irk me) and rotate it from the bottom. Thank goodness sorting savefiles by date is pretty much an industry standard by now.
I do make more descriptive saves in games that don’t sort the files by timestamp, before major choices (such as starting a big war in a 4X game or siding with one faction over another), or in games that mix several systems. Like in the old UFO/Xcom games I had two alternating saves for when the UFOs/missions appeared, one for right before starting a ground mission, one for right after finishing it, several to alternate during a mission and at least two-three more for other decisions (such as starting a new base or hiring a bunch of new soldiers).
I often try to do numbers (1,2,3,4) when playing big save-heavy games, but after I while I get forget the exact ordering and just start typing bigger numbers. I think my Skyrim save is at 58008 right now.
Rather than repeat what everyone else has said so far about naming their saves (location in game, numerically, etc.) I’ll just point out that in games with class systems, I often name my save after the class I chose to play.
For example, in the classic Quest for Glory series, you could be a fighter, a thief, or a mage. So my save files would look something like this:
-Mage 5
-Mage 4
-Thief 3
-Fighter 4
-Mage 3
-Thief 2
-etc.
I almost never use more than one save slot, so usually all of my saves are named “quicksave” and “autosave”. I’ve done that “start” thing, though–usually when I’ve forgotten what the quicksave button was. I find having a lot of saves pointless–I’m not going to go back to an earlier save. It’s just not how I play.
I usually keep 3-5 saves on any given game named blah1-5 (when I can name them myself) and I just rotate them out always over-writing the oldest save.
Clearly you didn’t learn to play the computer in the days of Sierra’s adventure games. “Save early, save often, and save in different places.”
Josh @6:30
Counterargument.
Even 11 years later,after seeing it from every conceivable angle,and learning all about it,that this is still creepy as hell.And it cannot even kill you.
I’ll also admit to still being a little freaked out even when they’re dead on the floor. Usually with the feeling of “It’s not really dead. I bet it’s not dead. OH GOD IT’S GONNA COME UP AND SURPRISE ME BECAUSE IT’S NOT DEAD AND AAAAAAAGH”.
I really really hate those things. The fact that they connect to the part of my mind that hates bugs probably doesn’t help.
I just type whatever for my save games- I usually look at the time stamp when it comes to trying to figure out which is which.
Yeah,the facility and all the videos about it are great.The only good thing in this game.
I usually have a “level start” save if a game doesnt automatically save at the start,and then I have “test1” through “test6”,which I rotate.Which is why I hate games that dont arange saves by the last one made,or that dont show the date of the save.
With tbs games however,I also sometimes have a “level end” and a “campaign start” and “campaign end” saves as well.
Others have mentioned most of the systems I use (sometimes I get auto-names, sometimes I have a 1-5 that I rotate through). The other thing I wanted to bring up is that (At least for me) it depends on the studio.
For anything Bethesda, I in paranoid fashion keep all my saves, and save frequently, because I’m never sure whether I’ll fail to trigger a scripted event, or I can’t progress because the NPC I’m supposed to talk to spawned on the other side of an unlockable door he’s supposed to open for me, etc., etc. I’ve gotten used to the fact that sometimes I’ll find on a forum that there’s no way to undo some problem that happened 2 hours ago other than to go back 2 hours and try it again. (as a member of the PC Gaming Master Race, in theory I can use the console to fix some of these, but unless I wait 6 months to start playing a game the proper invocation is often not known when I need it).
Also, “So, I don’t want to cop to doing anything illegal while on Spoiler warning, but…” is a pantheon-level quote for me.
My save games are usually named “krellen” or, if it’s a game I might play more than once, my current character’s name. I don’t keep back-saves; just one save file per game. I do that because I’ve been gaming since disk space was at a premium and have never changed my habits.
I do pretty much the same thing, and in the event I do make a second save for a character its usually named with the characters name and then either a number or a word describing why I made the extra save (backup, alternate route, etc).
I used to do that back in the day,but a corrupt save taught me that having multiple saves is preferable.Especially if a game is going through a patching period.
If my game gets FUBAR I just start over–I usually do this 4-5 times mid-game anyway before I’m happy with my character. (I’m an RPG player predominately.)
I’ll have dozens of characters and 2 complete playthroughs :P
Surprise I had to come down this far to find this answer. For years my default save was my own name, a habit from my early days of PC gaming when I shared Baldur’s Gate 2 with my dad and brother. More recently I’ve done the same as Krellen and named my saves after my characters. It’s pretty necessary when starting another playthrough of an RPG.
Likewise.
Or if it’s a game that has factions / characters, it’ll be their name.
If it’s a game that’s a bit unstable (or doesn’t autosave very well), I might stretch to a ‘Dave-2’ and alternate between them when saving, so I don’t lose too much if everything goes tits up.
All my savegames are called “game”.
It works because I very rarely replay a game once I beat it. Nor I try alternate routes. So in reality I just use the timestamp which comes with the save – the most modern one is the game, the rest are deprecated.
Yeah, most games don’t actually have much replay value, I find. Even stuff like the Fallout games. Like, I’ll try a new character, remember that all the locations of items, quests, NPCs, etc are all exactly the same as the last character I played, and give up, because playing the same quests with a lockpicking character, and with a science character feels exactly the same. :C
I place very high value on games where playing different characters actually feels substantially different. This is the primary reason why I’ve been playing DDO since 2010. When they say they have trillions of character options, they mean it. And no two classes play alike–not even the ones with significant overlap in pen and paper D&D. A Wizard is not the same thing as a Sorcerer.
Oh, me too! I’ve been playing DDO since it was in beta! It’s still my favorite MMO of all time. My only complaint is that some of the older dungeons can take HOURS to complete. I always wished that they had implemented some type of save feature, or at least had divided the larger dungeons into sections that could be completed independently.
Hours? I can’t think of any that take THAT long. Maybe if you’re running it for the first time, but most take between 7 and 25 minutes for me.
For 4X games, my saves usually have an abbreviation of the race I’m playing followed by a number. I.e. I overwrite the “ter1” save a few times, then make a “ter2” save, and repeat until I get to around “20” or “30”, then cycle back to the “ter1” save again. It lets me go back a ways if I want to, and is fairly flexible.
For RPGs, I usually have around 2-3 saves which I cycle through, which is enough if I discover I didn’t like the result of a recent decision.
Oftentimes I don’t even give my save games names. Usually in more modern stuff, a date/time is associated with the game, and I use that if I’m not just loading the top/most recent option anyway.
It seems I’m in the minority. If I think a game is hard at all, I like to leave a trail of saves with actually clear names – maybe something like:
L1-01 starting
L1-02 got key
L1-03 just before boss
L1-03b just before boss, healthier
L2-01 no oxygen! sprint left!
…
This can be a lifesaver in RCT3; it’s generally handy but probably overkill for most games. It’s nice when you need to backtrack a lot, or start playing again after a month off.
Good games help with this. HL2’s combination of level titles and snapshots made navigating the save list very easy.
I also prefer to make clearly identifiable save game names, mainly because I might not remember what I’m doing otherwise.
I don’t know if it’s specific to this video or not, or if I’m only noticing it now because barking dogs made me cranky, but the audio levels are really bad. I can sort of excuse the game volume being low, except I can barely hear the guys talking most of the time. Sometimes I can hear them best when Chris is shooting demons, sometimes I can’t hear them when there’s nothing going on””neither of which makes any sense, by the way.
What makes it weird is I can go to any Errant Signal video and the volume will be alright. No having to crank up my system volume or turning up my speakers. I didn’t have to do that for the Battlefield: Hardline videos, either.
I don’t remember if it was this episode or the last episode but at some point chris’ audio just dropped to like less than half of normal volume. Not sure what was up with that
My savegame names only make sense in my head. I don’t know when this system started (Morrowind, maybe?), but it’s been around for a long time.
“1” is the savegame I use for big changes, like changing to a different area. Mostly “point of no return” stuff.
“3” is my normal savegame. So whenever I start a mission, or arrive at a location, or whatever. “3” is only ever saved in a definitely safe place.
All “smaller” saves are named “3a”-“3z”. They can be in situations that are slightly unsafer than the “3” saves.
And then there’s the quicksave slot, of course, which is even more granular than the “3x” saves.
I have no idea why I never had a “2” savegame.
@2:30
One of my jobs last week was setting up a “here at <work> you are doing <this thing>” TV.
One of my jobs next week is resisting the temptation to smuggle in a copy of “this is how the giant space laser works”
So, I’ll chime in here, since it’s the first comment on this topic.
I can totally see them producing and displaying “Here at work, here’s what you’re doing!” videos, but not for the normal workers. This is stuff for people visiting from other departments, or more likely, visiting investors. They’d want to know how their money is being spent, so when they come to visit, it seems likely that the research corp would have some videos like this lying around the place.
Yes, I feel like these would be pretty standard. I enjoyed them a lot, too, though I realize now that none of the details stayed with me.
I though they sold the spin pretty well: you could tell they were written to make the achievements sound way cooler than they actually were.
AileTheAlien is correct. I’ve worked at places that had screens set up near active and former projects with looped videos explaining what the project was supposed to do or showing footage of it operation, etc. Since advanced technology is usually either broken or down for maintenance you need something ready to show to visiting VIPs, investors, politicians, school groups, etc.
I’ve been in -not worked in, just toured -three places that worked with weapons of mass destruction. Ft. Leonard Wood (NBC training center), and two army depots (Kentucky and Kansas) that were decommissioning chemical and biological weapons. All of them had videos set up to explain what they were doing and how.
My assumption is that when you’re destroying sarin gas in proximity to a city, it’s just good manners (not to mention PR) to allow the people from the city to come over and see exactly how you do it so they don’t worry so much about the stuff being released.
The shells are so old the two-part mixtures have congealed inside the shells, so they put them in a giant furnace and heat them up until the shell explodes, then they incinerate everything in the furnace. It’s pretty cool -and the video explains why they do it that way (the congealed stuff means they can’t disassemble the shells safely), and why it’s safe (the furnaces are air tight inside air tight buildings, and you destroy sarin gas by incinerating it). They have to use a different system for mustard gas, et cetera.
I guess I used to replay games a LOT because some years ago I started finding it optimal to prepend “1-” to first play-through, “2-” to second play-through, etc.
Otherwise I pretty much go sequentially, using examples from System Shock 2:
x-1 is dropped when I get through any initial world building and character establishment, so when I get out of the depressurization sequence.
x-2 at either the first major choice or level break if there is such a thing, like when I go through the loading-screen bulkhead into Medical.
If I go back and branch, then I start using letters, so x-3 is my initial run through the Crew quarters, x-3a is where I replayed the section but chose some different upgrades. I “usually” resolve which of x-3 and x-3a I like best before proceeding. Since I “ended” x-3 by saving x-4 when I went down to Engineering, when I get to the same point in x-3a I decide then whether restore to x-4 (making x-3 canonical) or overwrite it (making x-3a canonical).
If the game has a long-term branch I know of, I’ll try to save right before it, then put the subscript before the -, as in Deus Ex, I’ll have an “x-n” right before deciding where to send Jaime, then “xa-(n+1)” after sending him to hiding or “xb-(n+1)” after sending him undercover.
I generally don’t overwrite those saves ever – I either have an in-game quicksave system, or I make one by naming of the saves “temp” or something. In case of “limited save slots”, I’ll start replacing at x-2… I try to keep 1-1 around forever because in many games, I’ve made no choices up to that point and start any new runs from there. But, of course, in Deus Ex and SS2, I value 1-1 less because 2-1 will have a different initial buildout.
same as Chris, though it’s usually a variation on “blup” or “grep”
– I rarely overwrite game saves, and if I do, there is a meticulous plan for doing so. (For example, in games where defeating a major boss tends to close off a level behind you and you can’t go back to explore, any time I am obviously about to face a major boss, I will overwrite the last ‘about to face a major boss’ save, making this save file the ‘canon’ save file. This save file is different from all of the ‘exploration’ save files that tend to be made in the middle of levels, which I will never overwrite in the course of gameplay.)
– If I can name my own game saves, I use descriptive text so that if I reload the save, I am likely to remember where I’ll be or what I was doing. (“Just after Mega Boss” or “About to enter garden”)
– If there are branching options in gameplay, a save named ‘About to [make choice]’ or ‘Right before [choice]’ is kept. Sometimes I play both branches immediately and choose one to make canonical, as silver Harloe does above, and sometimes I just keep the file so I can come back after completing the playthrough to check that branch out. (Dragon Age Origins was prime for this.)
– After finishing a game (either a playthrough – “I’m done with this character” – or the game as a whole – “I’m putting this game away for the foreseeable future”) I select 2 or 3 saves which I feel might be useful in the future or which display my completion of the game to keep, and delete all other saves. (For example, for an RPG, I might keep a ‘just before the final boss’ save, a ‘game complete’ save, and a very early ‘character set up just how I like’ save.)
Borderlands makes me absolutely bonkers because multiple saves is not really a practical thing.
The shooting in this game looks surprisingly awful for the guys who made Doom 2. Worse than Half-life 2.
I’m never quite sure what people mean when they say the shooting is awful. The gun sounds are terrible, I’ll give you that.
But… beyond that, why should that be surprising? The technologies, the game style, everything is very different. There is at least one full game generation between Doom2 and Doom3, there is no guarantee of a smooth transition in that case.
I found the shooting mechanics in this much more enjoyable than half life 2. I prefer the gun sounds in this and I never liked the HL2 combine pulse rifle. The guns in doom 3 always felt more powerful and it jut put ammo out there to use – there were never the “oh look, a never ending rocket box! I must be entering a bit where I’ll be allowed to use the rocket launcher for a bit” that pervaded hl2.
I’m not saying doom 3 didn’t have probelms or that hl2 wasn’t good – I just found that for me the guns were the weakest part of hl2 and one of the better parts of doom 3.
A lot of it is because Chris doesn’t have much ammo for the shotgun. The pistol and rifle are probably the two least pew-pew-y guns in the game.
I typically do a 2-save system with the character’s name (when I get to choose it) or “attercap” and “[name]-alt”, trading out at important spots. I usually try to save prior to what might be a cool scene/battle that I’d like to replay and then re-title the current save as “[name]-bossfight1” or such, then go back to my name/alt rotation system.
I overwrite saves, but my naming conventions pretty standardized through all games where I can name my saves. It’s either the main character or ‘1stRun’ ‘2ndRun’ etc.
2:20 @Chris
It actually makes sense, because the videos aren’t for tourist…they’re for investors. Consider that video and where it’s at, at the front entrance behind the welcome desk. What better place to put a promo vid of your work? There’s other places later in the game where these vids are in the corners of hallways that overlook labs/machinery/etc. and it’s quite obvious they’re setup for tours of the facilities.
5:15 @Chris
Maybe there were more leaks than I was aware of, but the one I played was pretty much the same, and even included some less polished set pieces that would end up in the final game.
7:00 @Josh
I’d buy that argument for other games, just not this one. It’s important to note no other games looked like this at the time…not even HL2. Doom3 was as much a demo of its engine as it was a game, so hiding the assets don’t jive. I’m pretty sure their motivations for evaporating the enemies were purely technical.
The evaporation effect itself is a tech demo – it’s *pretty*.
Every game of that era removed dead enemies in some way, and I believe most of today’s do as well.
When the game doesn’t offer me an automatic name, I’ll usually just go with the incremental “Save N”, or “CharacterName N” for RPGs I might ever want to replay. But I’ll always go with automatic names if they’re offered.
I also almost never overwrite a save file, unless I save twice in rapid succession, such as after changing my hotkeys or loadout for a specific situation so I can more efficiently get back in the action when I inevitably die again. The only exception to that was while playing Deus Ex: Human Revolution, where for some reason the save slots are capped at twenty (at least on PS3) so I was constantly overwriting that final save slot for the last tenth of the game.
Straight gibberish, with longer strings as I progress. I don’t care enough to do more, and most of my games do autosave and/or don’t bother having me name the save.
I do EXACTLY what you do: name it “start”, and then use it for the entire game. The only exceptions are if I think I need to save somewhere and don’t want to overwrite the existing save, at which point I’ll name it after that … and then use THAT save for the rest of the game, and Wizardry 8, where I get distracted by itself and so create a new party while playing one, and so use something like “stickstart” to show what party it is.
(And yes, I DID create a party more than once in Wizardry 8 that was based on “The Order of the Stick”).
I usually name my save file “Game 1” …particularly for games that I only plan on playing once.
For games like Europa Universalis I usually name my save file for the country that I’m playing as, with a second file called “war” for when I start a particularly stupid conflict.
From my Gothic 2 days I just name my main save “quick” (if there is an option and no quicksave option)
Sometimes in major plotpoints I make different save by name of the quest/place.
Hah, somebody else played Gothic!
For big RPGs, , usually beginning with Nido 001. If slots are limited, like in classic X-Com, I’ll go down the slots with A1, A2, then overwrite A1 with B1 and so on. And then the whole thing is pointless because I never rollback because that’s heresy and the systems are only for if a save gets borked.
I ACTIVATE THE HELL-TECH OF THE INCOMPETENT CORPORATE SORCERERS OF UAC AND SUMMON THE INFERNAL BARD-THING CALLED “SHAMUS YOUNG!”
Now that I have your attention, Shamus: If you don’t compose some kind of electronic ballad of which at least 30% is Chris’s outburst of “Motherfucker hit me with a wrench!” at 15:07, we’re going to have to rescind your SoundCloud account.
I haven’t even seen the episode yet, and I’m already enjoying it! I’m imagining this said in a tone similar to that used by Tim Roth’s character in Reservoir Dogs when he’s complaining about being distracted whilst tryin’ to watch The Lost Boys. Mr. Orange, was it? Mr. Orange.
Surely the best example for those weird rooms that make no sense in Half Life and similar games is this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqRdT8m1Suo
Definitely.
Rutskarn jokes, but that kind of employee-focused corporate propaganda is a thing.
I think a big part of the videos and audiologs and all is just pacing. It’s there to help break up the shooting. It’s quiet time.
I really loved all of that stuff about the game. I think my favorite part is where you come across the research lab with the dead demons preserved in the tanks, and the logs tell you the story of how they were sending marines into hell to get the specimens.
Quiet time is all very well
until a zombie beats your brains out with a spanner.It has to be in a safe location.
“[gamename_or_charactername/level]_[level_or_location]_000”
So, for DOOM 3, “Doom_AlphaLabs3_007”
Or, for Fallout NV, “Ragina7_Novac_003”
I never overwrite. I wait about 10 saves deep before I delete a batch of the 3 oldest.
Sometimes I’ll have a temp file, like “FNV_TEMP_000”, to use and constantly overwrite in place of quick saving. I know quick saving works but it feels weird and unsafe. Like the paranoia of editing in Final Cut Pro X, which has no save button.
I am a digital imaging technician for a living so, obsessive neurotic file naming is kind of my profession.
My system is a little complicated because it depends on game type.
If it’s a game that is in beta or has frequent possibly save-breaking changes, I start off with the version number.
Then I usually have some identifying word relevant to the game or what I’m doing with that save, like “NormalRun” or “Test”.
Then I’ll have my playthrough number, which I increment each time I play the game again from the beginning if the identifying word isn’t enough.
If it’s a branching game I’ll sometimes add a branch letter next. Branch letters will accumulate here with each branch.
Then I have a save number for that playthrough. Each time I save a game in a playthrough I increment this number.
Finally, I may occasionally have a comment I put in parentheses to remind me of something.
So a sample save name would be something like “v34 Prison 1-09 (stuck prisoner)”, which would tell me that it’s the 9th save of my first run of a v35 Prison Architect game and a prisoner is stuck somewhere.
In games where you create worlds, like Minecraft and Terraria, the worlds get named sequentially, “Primeria”, “Secondaria”, “Tertiaria”, “Quadaria”, “Pentaria”, etc… Sometimes with added modifiers (like “Large”) if I don’t go with the default settings.
So, that’s my basic system.
P.S. It’s really weird to see this system that’s been in my head for so long actually written down.
So, at the beginning of this video, Ruts mentions the shotgun ammo getting scarce.
Last time, he argued in favor of shotgunning everything that moves and ignoring the other weapons.
I think there’s a connection there…
The title of this episode really should have been “Tomorrow’s Hamburger, Yesterday”
My saves are usually called Ryan or Sandro, my americanized name and a character from Heroes of Might & Magic.
When I’m playing something with my brother we name the saves “Rymes”, which is a mixture of the americanized versions of BOTH our names, Ryan and James.
And I think most of the videos in the Mars base are for investors or something. It also felt odd to me how the game explains EVERYTHING while completely failing to explain why you, of all people, can’t be possessed. The weirdest thing is, this is the first game I played when I finally could legit read and understand English completely. I mean, I learned English from X-Com, but just kinda-sorta. When I played this game my understanding of English was finally at an useable level, so I read everything and went through every e-mail and PDA. Since this was my first experience with the actual story of a game I left with the belief that EVERY game was like that and probably every movie, I just had to keep a lookout for it.
Yep, DOOM3 made me have too much expectations for the worldbuilding of all fiction from then on. Needlessly to say, I was usually very disappointed.
Oh, and the best weapon is the Plasma Rifle, of course. Always will be. BFG has this wind-up time that I always found annoying and the pace you’re supposed to be playing these games I’d find a room full of demons, start winding-up the BFG, and when I finally released it I was facing a wall… The Plasma Rifle, on the other hand, is fast, it stuns enemies, and causes a lot of damage. You can easily strafe around monsters and keep them in focus and stop shooting when you don’t need to anymore.
the best mod i ever found for doom3 (and sadly lost) altered some of the weapons. the shotgun was amazing, given a realistic spread so it was powerful at distances, even for enemies. you ended up ducking behind boxes fighting zsecs it was so much more fun than its default uselessness past 10 feet.
the plasma rifle was really well done as well, being a really strong single shot rifle with the light effects cranked. always hated getting weapons that are basically just upgraded versions of old ones. tried remaking the mod but the settings would never take effect in game :(.
rushing through doom 3 makes it look waaay less fun than it is, if i hadnt played it, this wouldnt make me want to.
My save system is usually save1, save2 etc. In more level-based games like Warcraft, I’ll do things like Human1, Human2, and so on. If I’m making an important backup save before I do something stupid I’ll usually give it a more descriptive in-context name like “before invasion” or something.
My save organization is weird because I’m not a very organized person.
I always go with ‘1’ for everything and ‘2’ for a backup checkpoint kind of save
I just go with whatever name the game provides. I also have a habit of overwriting old saves with new ones, so most games usually only end up with one regular save and an autosave.
When I first started playing Dragon Age, I was considering doing a blind, text-based LP of the game, so I started giving each new save game a descriptive name to go with the blog post the screenshots from that save would get. Then I realized how much work all of that was (and that my crappy little laptop couldn’t possibly handle the game at even minimum settings during the bigger fights) so I gave up on it. When I do name save games, it’s usually a message to my future self (like “YOU_NEED_TO_SELL_THOSE_CIGARETTE_BOXES” in Fallout 3) or an insult about something stupid I’d just done in-game (“YOU_IDIOT_WHY_DID_YOU_PISS_OFF_MEGATON”) if I was committed to canonizing my lunacy.
I usually use ‘temp’ and ‘temp2’ as ‘quicksaves’. Sometimes I’ll also create checkpoint saves at important decision spots, those I’ll name more diliberately.
Most modern games, tho, don’t allow save naming because gods forfend that they offer a convenience consoles do not…
Ha! My save files are usually my name, a shortened version of it or with a “_b” or some such thing attached to them.
I don’t know why because it’s not like I share my PC or consoles with someone else!
It depends upon the game, but generally I will have two rotating saves that I use for my “Logging off” purposes, named “Temp” and “Main”. I alternate between the two in case I really screw up something that night. I also create permanent saves whenever I start a new Act/Level/Mission, and before major boss fights.
I’m usually boring and if I can name things, it’s somewhat relevant to whatever’s going on, but brief, like numbers if levels are numbered or linearly marked, having a “mid” if it’s part-way through something.
Sometimes I’ve end up putting “Everything has gone wrong”, but that’s reserved for special occasions.
Although really, not had a chance to name many saves lately, not been playing those kinds of games. :(
The reason why I barely consider Doom III to be a ‘Doom’ game is simply because the first two were, at least to me, the perfect FPS constructor sets, every enemy represented some basic role, new maps were easy to make and because of how simple the designs were you could use them in such a multitude of ways. What personifies everything cool about the first two games are just the custom WADs where long-time fans of game could make maps far more intricate, interesting and actually, genuinely better designed than the original ones, and still do, not the gore or the locked doors.
Contrast the imps between D1/2 and D3: in D1/2 they’re a basic non-hitscan projectile attacker and with the infighting mechanics in tow, you could use them in a bunch of specific roles from being put on the sides of a large abstract battle arena and used to keep the player on the move thanks to fireballs everywhere, as improvised meat shields against stronger monsters placed behind them, as a surprise blocker in a narrow passage or as a deadly gigantic swarm that makes the screen look like a danmaku. The D3 imp just plays the sole simple role of being a relatively weak non-hitscan enemy, you don’t encounter them in large groups, their health is balanced to be a valid one-on-one fight and there’s very little improvisation anyone can apply to it via map design.
Doom 4 is at least a step in the right direction, if slightly cargo-cultish.
normally i just use autosaves and quicksaves, but for manual saves i just accept whatever name they give me which is either the quest i was on or the date and gametime.
In CK2 i sometimes do name my saves though its usually Sweden 1 and sometimes ill name it something i just did or am about to do like “Founding Empire”
“What happens when you murder a demon?”
Well Josh, I’ll tell you: that’s not what the word “murder” means.
It’s a well-defined term for a particular crime. If what you’re doing isn’t illegal(for example, on an an extra-terrestrial colony where the human population isn’t large enough to support a formal legal system), then what you’re doing can’t be called “murder.”
And of course, if you do actually murder a demon, Satan’s lawyers are the best of the best, so you’re proper fucked.
When allowed, I follow a very specific system. My main save is always named Primary; this is my rolling save and it’s the only one that gets overwritten. After that, I have saves named for level/quest that’s currently active.
Witcher 2, it’s interesting to note, never overrides saves. By the end of the Witcher 2, unless you manually deleted them, every auto and quicksave you ever made, will still exist. It lets you basically jump in anywhere during the narrative.
I used to work in a Corporate-run fast food restaurant. What Rutskarn describes about hearing non-stop commercials in the restaurant while you’re trying to work actually happens. There was a company-themed radio station, and between the ‘easy listening’ music, it was non-stop commercials describing how amazing the food was in excruciating detail. How it’s made, where the ingredients come from, the process of assembly. And OF COURSE it was piped into the kitchen as well…
By the end of the first week every new employee could recite the damn things by heart.
Not as bad as the breakroom tv though, which only played training videos set to dated music. Look up “Spoony Experiment Wendys Training Video”… Imagine something like that playing all day when you’re on break.
I imagine some PR folks came up with the “info for investors” video, and some HR ass decided it would be motivational for the employees to watch it over and over again.
For save games: When I was growing up, I had to share all gaming devices with three other siblings, including the one PC we could play games on. Since the old Windows 95 could only have one or two games on it at a time, we had to get used to the ‘new game dogpile.’ So I got in the habit of naming the files something practical or recognizable. Usually either MyName1, 2, 3, ect or CharacterName1, 2, 3, ect. You couldn’t stop the occasional and accidental overwrite by other siblings, buuuuut it helped me keep my saves sorted fine these days.
1, 2, 3, 4… Original, eh?
I usually save with a Month/Year format for games. So I end up with Games labeled August 2013, or July 2010. Since I’ll usually finish a playthrough in less than a month and not go back to the game again for a while.
With RPGs I tend to name the saves by the character’s name, without the month year format.
My save names are equally useless: “here”, “here!”, “finally here”, “past that bit” and “something”.
Ha, ha, ha – games where you can type a save description? I think that feature died out a decade ago. What was the last AAA cross-platform game you played where you could name your saves?
*is half way through the episode*
Regarding the fiery enemy death animations, while watching this I figured it was also there to simply let you know when the enemies were dead.
Like if they’re in the dark then slumping over might not be too obvious, but if you’re madly shooting at something somewhere in the darkness then it lights up all deadified, you know you can stop wasting ammo.
the moose is loose!
no shit sherlock
where’s the beef?
..in fact, anything that will both puzzle and amuse me later on, since I have been keeping every savefile since mid nineties.
I recently found my Warcraft II saves from way back. All named stuff like:
zug-zug
stop rocking the boat!
yes my liege?
I’m easily entertained.