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[Brannon]

Do you hate when a friend comes over, plays a game and saves over your more advanced save file, wiping out all that progress? Sure you do! Those little bytes represent hours of your leisure time and effort, and to have it wiped out so casually is not in your best interest. You say you have multiple saves? But what if the save that got wiped out was at a point you had interest in replaying for a different experience?

Now I've gotten your attention. And I present to you... passworded save slots.

Yes, the new and impr... well, just new for now, passworded save slots. Imagine having regular save slots, and set aside from them are a row of passworded save slots. They both work the same and can be deleted from the memory manager the same way, but ingame, with the passworded slots, you'd have to put in a short string of button presses that you choose. Input it once, then again for confirmation, then you can delete or overwrite that save as you wish. Otherwise you would be denied access and told to use a regular save slot or choose a new passworded save slot for use.

Now I'm sure that this has been done before, but damn if I've seen it yet, so I put it out to you, the developers of the games we love so much. Give them to us. Give us an added layer of protection. The ghosts of my perfect Ratchet and Clank files beg of you.

Or I could have used the really awesome hard drive to make a backup of said files, but I forgot that feature. And that is no excuse. Drat.

 

[Amir0x]

God, I have enough passwords I can't remember as it is!

 

[Gek54]

A general password like Xbox Live uses wouldnt be too bad.

 

[Gazunta]

That's not a "developers / publishers" area, it's more of a "console manuacturers who define the technical requirements of what is supposed to happen when you save a game and send the game back to the developer if it doesn't match their requirements to the letter, costing tens of thousands of dollars for the time lost" kind of area.

A simple "control-z" type functionality would be nice.

 

[NexusEggy]

genious

 

[Troidal]

That's not a "developers / publishers" area, it's more of a "console manuacturers who define the technical requirements of what is supposed to happen when you save a game and send the game back to the developer if it doesn't match their requirements to the letter, costing tens of thousands of dollars for the time lost" kind of area.

Yep, developers and publishers have to follow the compliances set by the console manufacturers. You know when sometimes a game gets delayed for a few weeks? It's not always about the bugs, it's when the console manufacturers are being a pain in the arse telling them to fix it according to their rules...

 

[echoshifting]

What I'd really like to see is consoles with a "login" similar to an O/S like XP that pops up before they load the game - optional password, and then a guest option when friends come over. Passwords could be entered on individual saves, too, so you can choose whether or not to share them with friends/family members. That way the console would automatically load your set of saves - other peoples' saves wouldn't even pop up on the list (by default, anyway).

That way we wouldn't have to deal with passwords unless we wanted to, but we'd still have some form of protection.

This would actually be a huge deal for me. My girlfriend used to play a pretty decent amount of console games...until one day when she actually wrote over my 100+ hour FF Tactics save. She felt so guilty about it (and still does, years later) that she refuses to play console games unless they have a built-in "goof proof" save system.

 

[Bigfonzie]

Ill start the biding at ONE MILLION DOLLARS! $$$

 

[Scrow]

just tell your friends not to be inconsiderate pricks

 

[Scott]

I think Fable handles this aspect well:

Upon selecting "New Game," the game creates a new profile, and allots dedicated save data to that new game/character (6 manual save slots, and 1 automatic). So even if you have multiple profiles, you'll only ever see things related to the one you're currently using, which makes it impossible to overwrite anybody else's save games, options/settings, etc.

I think it works really well, and would probably be very easy to implement.

 

[Monk]

I have a idea that next gen games should incorporate.

You know how there are "case sensitive" commands in todays zelda games. Imagine a world that has everything "case sensitive" but a bit more advanced. For example you are running and there is a tree branch just above you. You "lock on" to it, then you could either jump on it or grab it. And for a table, you can jump on it, dive under it perhaps even grab it and throw it somewhere if you are hercules etc.

If someone made an engine that makes this kind of thing easy and has a bucnh of standard options for items it would really be great. This is something that should have really evolved naturally from early text based games, but the concept sort of died. Can anyone explain to me what exactly happened to "it"? Is it too much work?

 

[Brannon]

So it's the manufacturers holding it back. I see. Drat.

Well until that issue is resolved, it'll have to be +1 vs inconsiderate pricks.

 

[DDayton]

Didn't the SNES NBA Jam do something like that?

You could save your profile, but to load a character you had to enter the secret PIN... however, you couldn't even see a list of saved characters.

 

[Gattsu25]

BIOMETRICS

Before you save you place your finger on a (USB connected) biometric saving device that authorizes you to save over the special slot...hell maybe for loading too


want to save on my slot now, BITCH?

 

[sprsk]

this is not a bad idea.

one time i saved over my girlfriends la pucelle save file on accident, it made her cry

 

[Drakken]

Yeah, something like this would be very much appreciated. I'm always fearful when other people play games that I've devoted a good bit of time to.

 

[MoxManiac]

I sit by my game collection with a shotgun in my hands in case my friends get any funny ideas, so no, I don't need this.

 

[sprsk]

My brother copied my at the last stage save file of beyond oasis and beat the game right in front of me once.

if we had passwords on our save files that would have never happened

 

[Ranger X]

So it's the manufacturers holding it back. I see. Drat.

Well until that issue is resolved, it'll have to be +1 vs inconsiderate pricks.

Actually there's no rule preventing a develloper having passwords for save slots in any TRC documents (and believe me i know them well). It's just the devellopers that never came with that idea.

 

[Barnimal]

mortal kombat deception does this already and i hate it. why the fuck do i need a password to unlock my own damn save.

 

[Gazunta]

Actually there's no rule preventing a develloper having passwords for save slots in any TRC documents (and believe me i know them well). It's just the devellopers that never came with that idea.

Wyzdom is right - there's nothing in there to say you can't do it - all I'm saying is that it's a real pain in the ass to do something different from the norm. (Though after someone does it and it goes through TRC it's easy, go figure)

 

[Attack You]

Mic accessories... Voice-activation... Hmm...

 

[Ranger X]

Wyzdom is right - there's nothing in there to say you can't do it - all I'm saying is that it's a real pain in the ass to do something different from the norm. (Though after someone does it and it goes through TRC it's easy, go figure)

Easy to figure. It's business. Most devellopers won't do stuff if they aren't obligated to do so.