Saves in Steam Directory

Discussion in 'Other' started by Masscreed, Mar 5, 2012.

?

Would anyone want their saves in the steam directory ?

  1. Yes

    66.7%
  2. no

    16.7%
  3. dont care, nothing bad ever happens to my computer, im 1337 haxor.

    16.7%
  1. Masscreed

    Masscreed Void-Bound Voyager

    Recently I formatted my C: drive because it was full of junk, wasting space, computer slowing etc.
    I have steam saved on a different partition of my hard drive and i chose to only format C: so that my saves and my games were not deleted, partitioning is like splitting your hard drive into 2 or more hard drives, for people that don't know.

    HOWEVER I did not realize that Terraria Saved all my save files some were on my C: drive and so everything was deleted D:

    I am Suggesting that You guys have it defaulted into steam directory or steam cloud or something.

    (assuming it does get released on steam)
     
  2. Drithyl

    Drithyl Phantasmal Quasar

    In fact, if the game was ever sold through Steam, it would be awesome if it supported Steam Cloud (you know, your save files would be stored on the net, not on your computer, so you'd have them in any computer where the game is installed).
     
    aljam, Tardisphere and Ordona like this.
  3. Masscreed

    Masscreed Void-Bound Voyager

    Yeah i Read some were that they are indeed going to try and get it on steam. and yeah Steam cloud would be ideal, that way nothing would ever be lost :)
     
    aljam likes this.
  4. wsensor

    wsensor Subatomic Cosmonaut

    It should save in the games installation directory. So if the game would be installed through steam it would be in the games folder.
    I like the idea of the steam cloud (when possible) but maybe have an manual way to upload your save to it such as an option setting.
     
  5. TheRev

    TheRev Industrial Terraformer

    Yea, I am with wsensor.. Keep the data on the computer where it belongs. Just because it can be on the "Cloud" doesn't mean it should be. "The Cloud" makes modding and other things that revolve around the files a lot more difficult, not to mention if you don't want to log into steam every time you want to play a game.

    It does suck that you lost your data, but backup your data, and it should not happen again. To just say heck with it put everything on steam is just overkill.
     
  6. Drithyl

    Drithyl Phantasmal Quasar

    Well if it does makes modding harder, then a good alternative is having your files in the game's folder (of course), and if you want to synch it with other computers, well, use Dropbox :D
     
  7. Jaber

    Jaber Pangalactic Porcupine

    Pretty much every single game out there saves to My Documents\My Games, because it's just easier to get to and you can access all your saves and settings in one place, which makes backing them up that much easier as well. There's no reason to destroy that system, though being able to pick a custom save directory wouldn't be a bad feature to have, if a slightly annoying one to actually implement.

    Looking at that third poll option however, I feel obligated to point out that your situation was entirely preventable and you have nothing to blame but yourself. You didn't make sure you had everything you wanted to keep saved off the drive before you formated it.
     
  8. TheRev

    TheRev Industrial Terraformer

    About Dropbox.. If you want to use that to move files from your PC to another PC.. as long as it is legit then more power to ya. I was just against keeping important game files on steam when there was no need for it, and it would make doing things more difficult in the long term. :up:

    Edit: Look Below ChickenBandit said basically the same thing I did to this, but a bit clearer.
     
  9. ChickenBandit

    ChickenBandit Star Wrangler

    Programs can't write to the Program Files folder without administrator permissions in Win Vista/7, so this idea wouldn't really work. Though I agree that saves need to be put somewhere simple (see Minecraft for how NOT to do saves).
     
  10. Masscreed

    Masscreed Void-Bound Voyager

    At the moment, theres no industry standard area for saving games, I have a shit ton of games, and my saved games are everywhere by default.
    So if something bad happens to your computer and you must format, you would have to spend a long time tracking them all down. so yeah having starbound saves in the instal directory would be fantastic, if it uses steam then it will be perfection.

    If it is indeed on steam by release, then the install directory is the steam directory.
     
  11. Jaber

    Jaber Pangalactic Porcupine

    I have several partitions and have programs installed on most of them.
    I'm fairly certain that having to hop between 5+ drives to find and go to each individual install location for every single one of those programs to copy each save file one by one then having to go back through them all and copy them back afterwards would be much less convenient than having 90% of my saves sitting in one folder in my documents which I can back up and restore in one go.
    Hell, since they're all in one spot, if I wanted to I could make a small partition specifically for the save data and not have to worry about any of that. Of course, if it's not saving to a central location and is instead saving to wherever the program is installed, that would make that idea - as well as any other kind of organization - an impossibility.

    Basically, having them outside of that one central location is just making unnecessary work.
     
  12. Masscreed

    Masscreed Void-Bound Voyager

    Remain on topic. The thread is for discussing having the game saved in a convenient spot steam/ install directory.
    Its a simple question, would you like your games saved in an easy spot thats convenient for you, and easy to back up...steam/ install directory.

    The thread is NOT for discussing who has a bigger e-peen or what you do for a living.
    This thread is NOT for discussing how it effects modders (witch it wont. since steam and valve have Unconditional support for the modding community)
     
  13. photostyle

    photostyle The Old One

    The gaming news site RockPaperShotgun.com recently started a campaign to get developers to adopt a standard location for savegame files.

    You can read about it here: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/01/24/start-it-the-place-to-put-save-games/

    To me, it doesn't make sense to store saves in the game's directory. Having them all stored in one place make it easier to perform backup operations, and you spend less time hunting for them when you want to purge some old files.

    Think about this: when you make an office document, where does it usually get saved? "My Documents" right? It would be seen as absolutely ludicrous to store your word documents in a "c:\program files\microsoft office\office##\documents\" folder.
     
  14. Masscreed

    Masscreed Void-Bound Voyager

    That's because you're talking about a document witch is something you would visit often, In games you don't need to search for saves to open them, the game detects them for you.
    Word documents are very different than game saves.

    If you must compare saves to something, try something that is actually similar.
     
  15. Yeah, "Office Documents" should go in "My Documents" ;)

    Steam Cloud would be nice mainly for the fact that if your hard drive dies, you still have your save files afterwards.
     
  16. SweenMachine

    SweenMachine Big Damn Hero

    Steam cloud ftw! That would eliminate duping items by constantly overwriting player/world saves like in Terraria!
     
  17. photostyle

    photostyle The Old One

    It's not about comparing a save file to a document. It's about the location of program binaries and resources vs your personal data. When you're on a multi-user computer, such as one shared by siblings, If games are stored in the user's profile (my documents) then each user doesn't have to worry about other users messing with their saves. Granted, there's similar account separation on steam, but steam accounts are more likely to be shared due the cost of re-purchasing each game for each account. There's also the matter of backups, which by default aim for a user's profile. I can tell you it's a pain in the butt trying to specify specific entries for backing up each game's save directory.
     
  18. demanrisu

    demanrisu The Original Agaran Menace NPC

    FYI, save files are kept ON the hard drive, and synchronized with Steam Cloud - if you play while offline, you can send the changes upstream (awful terminology, I know) and have the newer revision of the save file sent to the Steam servers.
     
    aljam and photostyle like this.
  19. Masscreed

    Masscreed Void-Bound Voyager

    Witch is the exact point of this thread...
    Yeah steam cloud is very pleasant extra we all get for using steam, and its fantastic :) (however i don't know why Terraria didn't use this, hmmm)
     
  20. demanrisu

    demanrisu The Original Agaran Menace NPC

    I'm going to assume Redigit didn't integrate it because it would have pissed off quite a few people (changing save systems halfway through a game development cycle is difficult).

    Edit: and by which I mean the game was incomplete when it was released, due to the leak.
     

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