User-overridable save and automap blocker (MAPINFO)

[Arctangent]

Would noting that a lot of the portable ports of SNES JRPGs and the like solved the issue of "potentially having to drop what you're doing at any time" not by allowing standard saving everywhere and thus allowing save scumming bosses and the like effortlessly, but rather by allowing temporary saving everywhere - you don't need to stop at a save point, but your save is gone as soon as you loaded it so you're stuck with any consequences that happen afterwards.

'Course. You still can't save during battle or anything like that. I get the feeling that quite a few people in this thread have played most of their games via emulators, given how much it sounds like they save through save states and not actual saving systems utilized in games. Either that, or they've only played PC FPSes and feel like that gives them mastery of game design over every single type of game.

[Kinsie]

You addressed half of that sentence, what about the option for overriding save blocking?

Making an override opt-in isn't happening if Graf has anything to say about it based on his posts ITT, and making it opt-out effectively renders the feature useless to the modders that want to use it since they have to beg players to let themselves be inconvenienced... effectively changing nothing from the current honour-system-based scheme of things outside of adding yet more cruft to the engine that needs to be maintained. Implementation effectively becomes a waste of time outside of That One Project, and we've been down that path before.

[Graf Zahl]

For once I am in full agreement with Kinsie.

My main problem here is that this thing is ultimately pointless. It doesn't solve any issue, it merely acts as an inefficient placebo for overly control-freakish people.
It doesn't even help forks which want to disable saving. Ripping out the feature is as simple as commenting out a handful of lines of code.
Those who do not want to have a prominent saving option without crippling the system can just as easily edit the main menu, removing the option from their users' sights and disable the hotkeys connecting to it.

So in the end nobody wins.

Those hell-bent on disabling saving will still investigate every gross hack in the book to REALLY make it impossible to save. I wouldn't ever expect these people to be satisfied with a voluntary user-side option that is designed to be disabled at the end user's earliest convenience.

Those who are satisfied with removing saving from the UI can already do so. To me there is little difference between a hidden save option and a hidden save option guarded by an additional flag. In both cases the user must willingly engage it and is not automatically guided to it.

And the rest our users will just be inconvenienced by a totally pointless option that will most likely be inactive anyway.

[Rachael]

I finally have caught up with this topic after getting a little bit of rest and I have to say I am exceptionally disappointed with how this is being handled on both sides of the debate.

There is a lot of straw-manning going on, and as I said previously this is one of those really polarizing issues that people just can't come to a common ground with. I'm very disappointed in some of you, and I really wish this had gone differently.

First, Graf is clearly uncomfortable with the whole thing, and I think it's time to put an end to the pressure on him to add it. If Graf comes to me and tells you that ANY of you have tried to pressure him privately to do so after this, no leniency will be offered for such actions when we handle it. So don't do it.

Secondly, it's really bringing out the worst in this community. Some of you clearly do not know how to debate effectively whatsoever. Things keep getting taken way out of proportion, sarcasm is used almost to an abusive level, and people get fixed with the worst possible labels and intents that the people opposing them can come up with, whether they deserve them or not.

And thirdly, this is the worst part: My goal was to try and bring people closer to the middle on this issue. Obviously, I've failed. I shouldn't have, though - if you guys were mature enough you could have seen the merits of the other side of the issue without the straw-manning, without pressuring Graf, without the pessimism and sarcasm, and without assuming other people's intent.

Basically - what it comes down to is this: When dealing with issues that you feel passionately about, learn how to deal with the issues themselves without attacking the people presenting their opinions. If you can't do that, then this is why we can't have nice things. (Some of you were, to your credit, very reasonable in presenting your arguments in the debate - and I do appreciate that - please know you are not the target of my scathing remarks, if that is the case)