Most convinient place for savefiles for games with installers.

[AceOfAces_Mod]

You may have noticed that some games now save game saves into the player's Documents folder. Since Microsoft changed how programs can interact with the Program Files (Windows UAC anybody?) they no longer can save on their own folders. The same thing applies with any RPG Maker game (unless you wrote a service program that allow it to do this).

So my question is: Assuming that the game is installed with an installer, where would be convinient for the user to place the save files: On their Documents folder or on he game's? What about their settings?

 

[Ramiro]

I prefer the idea of having a local copy on the documents folder, users may want to take their savefiles over different machines or something.

Even open a save file window and saving the game is not a bad idea.

I like the idea of having everything in the cloud also.

For example in terraria, I usually put my characters in the steam cloud

 

[bgillisp]

I personally HATE the my documents location, as I've lost everything under that directory way too many times to count, and therefore lost all my saves (and this has resulted in me not being able to finish some games too). Now, I force the games to save somewhere else, if that is an option.

 

[Zeriab]

I prefer following method

1. %APPDATA%\YOUR_GAME_NAME\savedata.ext
2. Saves\savedata.ext   (fallback to working path save folder, where game.exe is. Allow option for this to be 1. instead)

Of course be sure to check for permission errors and load failures. Such errors can reasonably expected.

Please code so that a single broken save does not prevent the player from loading other games.

*hugs*

 - Zeriab

 

[AceOfAces_Mod]

I personally HATE the my documents location, as I've lost everything under that directory way too many times to count, and therefore lost all my saves (and this has resulted in me not being able to finish some games too). Now, I force the games to save somewhere else, if that is an option.

Well... I'm quite suprised about this, since the "My Documents" folder is indexed. (No intention to insult you.)

I prefer following method

1. %APPDATA%\YOUR_GAME_NAME\savedata.ext
2. Saves\savedata.ext   (fallback to working path save folder, where game.exe is. Allow option for this to be 1. instead)

Of course be sure to check for permission errors and load failures. Such errors can reasonably expected.

Please code so that a single broken save does not prevent the player from loading other games.

*hugs*

 - Zeriab

A save file backup / restore system? You gave me an idea.

 

[Rikifive]

Here is my personal preferred places for save files (in order of liking)

==> game folder (in \Saves or something) > I like keeping all the game related stuff in one place, when I'm looking for something ~ I'm checking the game folder first; If I'm uninstalling a game - I know everything was removed properly ~ if not - I know where to search for floating files.

==> documents > It's also a good place to keep saves, but documents folder can get messy, because some programs/games uses that folder ~ I don't like any spam in that folder - it's a document folder - I like to keep *my documents* and important files only in that place.

==> Roaming folder (%appdata%) > if that's not the game folder nor documents, then this is the last place I would like to see any save files and stuff.

==> Other places - no matter where it would be - it'd be an unwanted location anyway - I hate when programs/games create folders all over the place.