Savegames based on individual wads.

[Identifire]

Doom2 is still a popular and liked game but most of us no longer play Doom2. We play Mods, player wads, total conversions and Megawads. We many times play them using the same engine. I have a few games that I go back and forth to using the same engine. If I play Wad#1 and save it, it will only reload when I am playing Wad#1. Otherwise It will fault. To get around this, I will create one working doom setup using a particular engine, and copy that folder as many times as needed, replacing the custom wad. Bunch of shortcuts later, I have a selection of different custom games.If the next release of Zdoom had a switch that created save games based on the wad being run I could use one engine to play different wads. The particular save game would be placed in a folder either made by the engine or the ability to load a wad from a folder within the engines folder saving the games in the same folder. Would allow one engine to be able to play any compatible wad and the correct savegame would be within the correct folder, so no more loading the wrong game from the load game screen.

It would even help organize savegames made from launchers.

Good idea?

Thanx,

[m8f]

Have you tried savedir command line option? It isn't exactly what you ask for, since you have to manually set it for a wad/mod combination in a separate shortcut.

The automatic solution may be impossible to add. Players may load more than one wad. Should the engine then create a save directory for each wad/mod combination? What if someone decides to add something cosmetic like Doom Sprite Fixing Project to their load order, will it be another save directory?

[MatrixCL]

When you load a savegame in Civilization IV using a mod, the game asks if you want to reload the game using that mod. If you click "yes", it does that and the savegame will be loaded. So that would be my suggestion: store which mod(s) it's played with in the savegame itself. And if savegame files themselves can be opened from Explorer (in Windows), that would also make this easier.

[SanyaWaffles]

That requires storing a lot of information about the WADs/PK3s being played with. I don't think it's feasible to do that as it'd require storing that information somewhere. I prefer manually setting the savedir command line option if I must be anal about where my saves go.

[Identifire]

Have you tried savedir command line option? It isn't exactly what you ask for, since you have to manually set it for a wad/mod combination in a separate shortcut.

The automatic solution may be impossible to add. Players may load more than one wad. Should the engine then create a save directory for each wad/mod combination? What if someone decides to add something cosmetic like Doom Sprite Fixing Project to their load order, will it be another save directory?

I will try the savedir command to see what it does. It may be a partial solution as long as some preparation is done b4. As said, would mean creating different shortcuts pointing to a different folder for each game, but this would be 'simpler' and save storage space considering my solution of having a complete D2 install for each new wad. 1 folder and shortcut for "each" game. As long as the engine is compatable, having all of each game in one folder, makes it simpler.

I think that creating a separate folder for each custom wad could be done by just searching the install directory for wads, parsing each wad's name and then making a new named directory for the wad. Next would be moving the newly found wad into the created folder and modifying the save dir command to point to that folder. If I were a programmer, I am sure it could be done, but its been a minute or so since i tried to do it.

Although its something I had on my radar since I got stuck wondering why a savegame didnt load, I have a frontend for old games - dos included - called D-fendreloaded. It does some of what I suggested. It makes a folder in a separate directory for each game wanted. and all further interaction with the game goes into that folder. The frontend copied the game binary into the folder and when you play the game, highscores and current player data goes there.

Its so similar that it says it can be done, its just a matter of if there seems to be a need.

thx,
Gonna try savedir.