People really want a save feature

From my understanding saving is extremely difficult due to PA's complex architecture.

@garat said:

-- http://www.reddit.com/r/planetaryannihilation/comments/2ii4ej/offline_play_coming_this_week/cl2i2s6

and hell yes.

While I understand that, I actually had the experience where playing singleplayer galactic war or custom game against ai. I don't know which it was. But it was an online server, not offline.
My net disconnected or game crashed. When I reconnected, I got back into the game I was in, at the moment I left it. I resumed playing as if nothing happened.

I don't know anything else, except that the 'save feature' everyone talks about is more or less already in the system. Maybe it's unstable or unreliable? Maybe my situation was a freak accident? I'm not sure. But at the very least I'm surprised I haven't seen any more evidence of this, but I haven't been extensively searching.
If it's true no-one knew about it, then it's worth the attention of uberdevs.

Sorry, I literally don't know anything about the situation. My best guesses are something to do with interrupting game/ram without properly bringing any resolution to the session, so it was stored in ram? There's a way to do it.

playing standard skirmish as well as a few online battles I've never really had the need to save the game at all. Thus far the longest match i have had was 40 minutes and most barely get past 25 minutes. Whilst I would certainly enjoy a save feature for when the game is more supportive of longer play sessions, as it stands at the moment it is not too much of a negative to really stand out as an issue.

My average time per game is 300 minutes, long-term games is very well possible in PA if you're a singleplayer base building type of player, and PA is a lot of fun playing with such playstyles.

PA actually has a lot of immersion and character if you take the time to get into it more but, it seems people rush the game down too fast to notice all the little details beneath the surface, which might explain some of the negative reviews. I wonder how many people actually takes a bit of timeout sometimes and switch to the debug camera to admire a bit of the views from ground level.

Maybe I should post a few screenshots to show what this game can be and what sort of bases and stargate networks you can come up with a bit of imagination, creativity and time. Save functionality is important for a great deal of players, not everyone is a competitive multiplayer rusher.

that's what pause is for broski

I rather have better multiplayer balance, working navy etc.

PA is multiplayer game and save is kind of singleplayer feature, so i rather have good multiplayer in multiplayer game than bad multiplayer with singleplayer save in multiplayer game.

What i am really worried is if Uber have funds to live longer and support PA. They cannot survive from just PA much longer.

That here is exactly kickstarter trap, everybody who was hyped about PA got it long ago, now when game is finally nearing release state (official release was bit to early announced imo.) there is no hype anymore, every fanboy got it already, and every hater is hating it.

save just isn't as important as everyone thinks, pause basically IS a safe feature.

This is a feature of PA.

No, not a freak accident.

Nothing to do with ram.

Saving is being worked on but they having difficulties with it because saving is not as simple as people think.

Saving is important just look at the reviews.

the people writing the reviews are simply wrong, I can't remember the last time I've needed to save a game in an RTS, the pause feature is just as good.

Uber is losing potential player base over it. So it is important.

So? if the game was mine, that's not really a playerbase I'd like to have

Well, you would want as large a player base as possible to generate the most money in order for you to be able to continue to support the game.

Sure, but if adding a save feature means you make more sales, then I'd say thats a fairly safe bet, even if you personally never use it. PA isn't much as a single player game on its own, so I mostly agree, but if adding a save feature means more revenue... shrug.

the save feature is redundant, it's unneeded, and there are many more things that should come first

Counter to people thinking PA is only multiplayer as a sizable portion of the player base is single player. This is a very important feature for single player. Uber plants to support PA as long as possible so repeat customers are required to do this and SP is a giant revenue stream for Uber.

I only play single player, the save feature isn't going to add anything. Pause already does what save can do, so we might as well just finish galactic war first (which is much more important to the single player experience).

"Save" feature isn't what you think it is.

From my perspective, the "save feature" people want is not the one where you simply save a game mid-battle and continue later. That's the easiest of the save implementation, even if it is difficult to implement. Other save features are much more difficult.

What people want (including myself) is the ability to go back viewing Chronocam and continuing from any point in time against the AI to try a different strategy or replay a tactic. Using any replay, any game, from any player. PVP, vs AI, GW, whatever.

Hell, personally I'd like to take a save file from a previously finished 1v1 for example, host that very game in multiplayer with a friend, and start the game halfway in with bases already set up. The mechanics for kind of 'continue from save point' is beyond any save feature in any other RTS to date. You're free to try and name one that allows this, though, I'll let you.

starcraft 2

checkmate bro

In any case, those features are novelties - there are many things that need to be done before the novelties.

Really? Because last I checked, SC2 doesn't have a feature to go back through a multiplayer game already played and finished by someone else, and then host this game in a multiplayer server, and continue the game with all the units and structures intact from the previous game at the point in time where you started it from.

You have a source for these claims?

I agree there are things that are higher priority than this, but it is a big feature, and opens up a lot of possibilities for gameplay and allowing people to become better at the game. It also opens up doors for community-made campaigns where you create a game that the campaign uses at a certain point when the player must survive, or meet an objective, or whatever have you.

There's many doors that kind of mechanic can open, hardly a novelty I'd say.