Mike McCoy of Ubi Soft Montreal Comments by Gestalt

That's some huge screens there guys...

I like want! Like now!

One aspect of this that drove some people up the wall was the lack of an in-game save system, and this is set to continue with Raven Shield. "It was something that we looked into", Mike confirmed, "but once you get in-game saves in, it really changes the pace of the game, because the pressure's off. With in-game saves you would clear a room, save it, clear a room, save it... That's a different gameplay.

but later...

As Mike pointed out, "it's the customers who are paying money for the game, and we should allow them to play the game in any way they want to play it".

Anyone else spot the inconsistency here?

The lead designer is trying to impose his own immature view upon the rest of the world. As far as I'm concerned the designer should never impose their will on the player outside of the game. If the player gets bored, frustrated, or a real world event interferes, the option should always be there for a player to save the game.

He does have a point though - if you can quick save it completely destroys any tension and reduces the sense of danger. That's why something like Operation Flashpoint (where you only get one or two saves a mission usually) is a lot more atmospheric than Max Payne (where you're quick saving every five or ten seconds). IMO anyway. YMMV. :)

He does have a point though - if you can quick save it completely destroys any tension and reduces the sense of danger.

I fully appreciate the point. But, he's still trying to squeeze people into his game design when external pragmatics suggest otherwise. A good compromise I'm in favour of is the option to allow or disallow game saves at the start.

It's all very well understanding level design and people. But, you must understand the complex relationships between the two. In that respect I treat his opinion as being the equivalent of beta-software.

elvis - on the one hand he says, go ahead, ignore all the meticulous planning and positioning which is the whole point of this game and dive in for a killfest - then he says "ooh no mid-mission saves" cos that would change the 'gameplay' by ruining the tension. You can't have it both ways. Personally, I'm all in favour of allowing the player to play it any way he wants: tactical and highly realistic, or plain vanilla shooter. Like the man said, we pay for the damn thing. As long as the option's there to play the "designer's cut", why should he care? One thing's for sure, though, without mid-mission saves I won't go near it.

"A good compromise I'm in favour of is the option to allow or disallow game saves at the start"

It's a nice idea, but I'm not convinced it would work in practice. If you design the game to be challenging for someone who saves it will be very hard for someone who doesn't, and if you design it for someone who doesn't save it will be too easy for people who do. You'd need a seperate difficulty setting, maybe with different AI reaction times and accuracies, for each so that the save version would be less forgiving than the no-save.

It's funny. Since it doesn't have a save feature ingame, people will bitch that it's too hard. If there were a save feature ingame, people would complain that the game is too easy to beat. Simple as that.

Imho AvP Gold had a excellent feature. You had a diffrent number of saves depending on the difficulty level. The harder the game got, the lesser saves you got. Wise choise.

skal - true, people will always bitch no matter what - but ultimately they can't justify their bitch if the designer allows them to choose their own difficulty level (pace Gestalt's comment). Then all the 133t hardcore types can set it to Nightmare level with saves disallowed, while wimps like me can enable full quicksave every two metres, and normal people can save at checkpoints or something.

Gestalt said: "You'd need a seperate difficulty setting, maybe with different AI reaction times and accuracies, for each so that the save version would be less forgiving than the no-save." I disagree. That seems to be making it a whole lot more complicated than necessary. Balance the game for 'normal' difficulty, allow saves at checkpoints as suggested, then let the wimps play it easy (let's face it, we're going to cheat anyway) and the loonies play it ultra-hard. Why make the AI easier for the people who select the hardest difficulty, just because they can't save??

edit - tidied up

If you design the game to be challenging for someone who saves it will be very hard for someone who doesn't, and if you design it for someone who doesn't save it will be too easy for people who do. You'd need a seperate difficulty setting, maybe with different AI reaction times and accuracies, for each so that the save version would be less forgiving than the no-save

Isn't that over complicating things. Specially as AI have a hard time already with trying to shoot through walls, or get stuck in doors just because it knows I'm there.

Gestalt;

It's a nice idea, but I'm not convinced it would work in practice. If you design the game to be challenging for someone who saves it will be very hard for someone who doesn't, and if you design it for someone who doesn't save it will be too easy for people who do.

A game is essentially a progression through a series of experiences of variable difficulty. Saving options can theoretically be pure auto-save, save-points, limited saves, and unlimited saves. There is also the relationship between the game and the gamer to consider.

The justification for design controlled saving is that an inability to save at will forces the game to be experienced as the designer intended. Pay careful attention to the word "experience", it's what this discussion is revolving around.

The experience can be distilled into the two extremes of designer and player controlled saves. If the save options are set at the point a new game is started the player has a clear choice to experience the game as designed or as designed with experience modifications imposed by the players choice to manually save or not.

The design difficulties you talk about are false. There is no need to compromise a design because of being able to save or not being able to save. But, compromising the players ability to save at will must be justified.

In some respects I see the save/not-save design decision as being no more than a fad. So-called "serious" designers are grabbing hold of the latest trend in how to inject urgency and atmosphere into their otherwise shallow and unengaging games, without fully thinking through the ramifications of their decision. This is not the sort of thing that should arbitarily be imposed on gamers. Ideas, like software, can be guilty of suffering from the patchware syndrome. Some designers mouths shouldn't be let out in public without beta-testing.