I need a "Save" function

[Havok.cry]

Lets put things in perspective as well.

While I've not played WoW once, I've a few friends that played it for a long long time. Heck a few got married to the folks they met through WoW. And back then... a raid could take a few days. So in order to take breaks they had saves. Heck, I think LoTRO has something similar now that I think back for the same reason.

So... what quests do we have that can take days?

1-just like people say no quest in ddo should take more than an hour, no dungeon in WoW ever took a few days unless you count all the time waiting for the group to fill, and all the retries after repeated wipe. Seriously even in the original WoW before the first expansions, actual time in dungeon for a single succesful run was only a matter of hours not days.
2-The save feature in WoW is relatively new and did not exist back when wow's raids actually took a few hours in dungeon.

So let me get this straight, the consensus is that it won't help the forum's elite, but might help many less elite players who have real life occasionally interrupt their playing, so it should never ever be allowed to happen? Sorry, but you all have sunk to a new low.

[Havok.cry]

Maintaining an instance for a character that isn't logged in would at the least consume significantly more memory. Multiply that by the number of characters each user has and we'd have the potential to grief Turbine. Hence I wouldn't consider keeping anything open (but disk is relatively cheap in comparison to save everything needed by an instance or even save the instance as a memory dump to disk for loading back later like some kind of quasi Virtual Machine).

The memory could be used on our end instead of their end... just like most saved games.

[Archangel_666]

The memory could be used on our end instead of their end... just like most saved games.

Perhaps, though I would imagine that Turbine would be reluctant to do something like that.

Files on our computers can potentially be manipulated...

[Havok.cry]

Von 5/6 are raids, not quests, they are meant to last longer but honnestly? 20 min each should suffice.
Also, it can't be solo'd due to game mechanics.
If you want to learn how to play them fast, send a in game email/tell or make a forum post resembling this:

Hi, i would like to learn how to do von 5-6 in a fast manner, i do however have a limited window of oppertunity to play: <insert game time/date>
Could a patient group of vets take me along for the ride and explain how it works?
these are my toons <insert names>
i bet some one will help you in no time.

Remember, this is an MMO, the quest are designed to cater to 4-6 people with different class abilities, if you can't do lengthy quests in time on your own, strongly consider grouping up. Otherwise, i recomend playing something like Skyrim or Oblivion, i think it has co-op mods.

So what you are saying is that a tool that would make exploring something like von 5-6 and figuring it out on their own easier for a static, but inexperienced group should never be implemented and they should have to suffer either a gigantic block of continuous time, or not be allowed to figure it out themselves?

Is there any objection to this that does not involve trying to force people to play the way you want them to?

[almaniac]

Perhaps, though I would imagine that Turbine would be reluctant to do something like that.

Files on our computers can potentially be manipulated...

As a software engineer myself, I'd say leave the implementation / architecture objections to the developers. I'm sure there are valid issues, but unless we know a lot about their code base and how it works there's no point speculating about how hard (or easy for that matter) it would be for them.

Lots of good ideas in the thread though. I would so love to see this someday.

[Uska]

1-just like people say no quest in ddo should take more than an hour, no dungeon in WoW ever took a few days unless you count all the time waiting for the group to fill, and all the retries after repeated wipe. Seriously even in the original WoW before the first expansions, actual time in dungeon for a single succesful run was only a matter of hours not days.
2-The save feature in WoW is relatively new and did not exist back when wow's raids actually took a few hours in dungeon.

So let me get this straight, the consensus is that it won't help the forum's elite, but might help many less elite players who have real life occasionally interrupt their playing, so it should never ever be allowed to happen? Sorry, but you all have sunk to a new low.

No it's a horrible idea period no ifs ands or buts and saying wow has doesn't make it a better idea at all

[Charononus]

The memory could be used on our end instead of their end... just like most saved games.

That's a horrible idea, it means that you'd have to trust the client. That was nwo's mistake and it's why they have mod scripts out for that game now where you can have unlimited resources. You never ever ever trust the client in an mmo, if you do someone will hack and exploit it, repeatedly.

So what you are saying is that a tool that would make exploring something like von 5-6 and figuring it out on their own easier for a static, but inexperienced group should never be implemented and they should have to suffer either a gigantic block of continuous time, or not be allowed to figure it out themselves?

Is there any objection to this that does not involve trying to force people to play the way you want them to?

Hmmm I think we all figured it out just fine, I'm not good with their entitlement where they think new possibly game breaking features should be added to cater to their extremely niche playstyle. However I did give you several reasons earlier in the thread why it's a bad idea that had nothing to do with playstyle.

1-just like people say no quest in ddo should take more than an hour, no dungeon in WoW ever took a few days unless you count all the time waiting for the group to fill, and all the retries after repeated wipe. Seriously even in the original WoW before the first expansions, actual time in dungeon for a single succesful run was only a matter of hours not days.
2-The save feature in WoW is relatively new and did not exist back when wow's raids actually took a few hours in dungeon.

So let me get this straight, the consensus is that it won't help the forum's elite, but might help many less elite players who have real life occasionally interrupt their playing, so it should never ever be allowed to happen? Sorry, but you all have sunk to a new low.

I think I played wow in 2007, the save feature was there back then, and it is a massive pita. It was one of the many many things I was glad to leave behind.

[bsquishwizzy]

The title pretty much says it all. I used to play regularly with a group of 7 other people. Now we're down to 2 (including me) for one simple reason; frustration over not being able to finish longer quests in a reasonable amount of time.

We all are pretty busy but we set aside 2 hours a week to play, and we all had VIP accounts. Unfortunately, that meant we could often do only a single adventure, and sometimes not even that. While we love the story telling and richness of the long adventures, we just didn't end up playing them, and after awhile the shorter content gets dry (how many times can you do an orchard run?).

If we could save the progress of the party it would totally transform the game for us, and we'd get the rest of the guys back I'm sure. We can't be the only ones who would like this. It would even be awesome for soloing.

Mechanically it could work like this perhaps:

1) When no combat is ensuing, the party leader can initiate a save.
2) Saving logs those characters out. We don't want it to become a "redo", or a way to keep retrying a difficult part of the dungeon.
3) A timer starts on those characters (1 hour? 3 hours?). Until the timer ends they cannot log back in.
4) Some time later the party logs back in.
5) The characters go to some kind of lobby or something until everyone is in, or the party leader re-starts the dungeon.
6) Once restarted characters that don't come back are affected the same way they would be if they left the dungeon; so is the party.
7) New characters can join the party with all the usual consequences of joining late.
8) A player can pull their character out of the saved dungeon any time after the timer ends, but they will not be able to re-join the saved state except as a new joiner.

Anyway, something like that would be huge for us. It would allow people with only a couple hours (or less) at a time to fully enjoy the game.

I understand the attraction for this kind of capability, but in a real-time game / MMO this will probably never happen. The mechanics to make this happen would be both a resource hog, and a nightmare to implement.

First, they only feasible / safe place to put a saved game would be on the server. Transferring stuff back and forth to a client-side PC and making it all sync up without the potential for loss of communications is a lot of work for little-to-no benefit. That means you have to create an image of the quest somewhere as to where you left of: what mobs you killed, where you were, what loot you had, what level you were on…and so on. That can potentially be a lot of data. I won’t even go into people hacking saved games as an easy exploit.

So you have to preserve that data somewhere, for an unspecified amount of time, on the server. That means a growing disk allocation for saved games. Somewhere in there you need to determine how long do you keep a saved game before determining that it is abandoned, and them blowing it away with some housekeeping process running on the server. This means disk access, possibly more lag and so on. Not a good thing.

And what happens when one of the players decides to drop group, or run it independently of the group? Then you have to remove that player from the saved game, replace the stuff he took and place it somewhere in the game, or delete it altogether. Or, you lock out the player from playing the game until either the saved game goes away, or until the quest is complete. Because there is a possibility that the player may level-up outside of the quest, and that throws off the quest entirely. I mean, there are a gabazillion variables that come into play when you decide to “freeze” a quest in time in a system that is basically considered “real time.”

Either way you slice it, it is a convoluted mess that has ZERO payback for the amount of work you have to put into it. It works on a PC or with limited, static groups. In an MMO like DDO it is a nightmare all around.

[lyrecono]

So what you are saying is that a tool that would make exploring something like von 5-6 and figuring it out on their own easier for a static, but inexperienced group should never be implemented and they should have to suffer either a gigantic block of continuous time, or not be allowed to figure it out themselves?

Is there any objection to this that does not involve trying to force people to play the way you want them to?

you cant figure it out for yourself, it requires multiple players for von 5/6, so yeah, running along vets cost less effort then having an entire feature programmed in by the dev's, especialy since the devs have such a looooong track record of f-ing stuf up with updates.

Have make raids or new packs, not more catering to the functionally impaired, it has been done far to much so far, whats next? tinkerbell like guides to quests and npc's? leaving a pretty stardust line? please
go seek in game help if you cant make it on your own. Use DDO Wiki if you're stomped. A MMO is a social game, be social, if not go play a console game with a pause/save function.
Don't make m waste money on a few , while the rest of the community suffers for it in the form of no bugs, people leaving(taking a break), no raids/packs etc.

so yeah, kinda egotistical to ask for this, now that you know what the impact will be.
We don't build an extra lane onto the freeway so people can practice on their (non motorized) tricycle, we keep m of the road to save money, for all our safety and sanity.

No to special aids, the game is on life support as it is, bleeding players left and right and bug ridden, this new "feature" is a detriment to the game

[Havok.cry]

That's a horrible idea, it means that you'd have to trust the client. That was nwo's mistake and it's why they have mod scripts out for that game now where you can have unlimited resources. You never ever ever trust the client in an mmo, if you do someone will hack and exploit it, repeatedly.

This is the only argument against the idea that anyone has put out that even seems rational to me. I have no argument against it.

Hmmm I think we all figured it out just fine, I'm not good with their entitlement where they think new possibly game breaking features should be added to cater to their extremely niche playstyle. However I did give you several reasons earlier in the thread why it's a bad idea that had nothing to do with playstyle.

No one has displayed entitlement in this discussion. Entitlement is believing you deserve, or are entitled to something. Wanting a feature because you think it would be useful and making arguments in it's support does not equate to entitlement. The reasons you gave earlier, I answered. The fear of the devs breaking something is irrational, as they are 100% guaranteed to break something every time they do anything.

I think I played wow in 2007, the save feature was there back then, and it is a massive pita. It was one of the many many things I was glad to leave behind.

Maybe they had a different save feature back then than the one I am thinking of. The one I am thinking of was new with mists of pandaria, one of their latest expansions. I have used it and found it very useful, it was not a hassle at all. Would you explain what the problem with it was when you used it?

[Hoglum]

Von 5/6 are raids, not quests, they are meant to last longer but honnestly? 20 min each should suffice.

Haha, you figured out VON 5/6 in 20 min.?

[lyrecono]

Haha, you figured out VON 5/6 in 20 min.?

the original post mentioned 20 min each, and yes it gets done often

[Havok.cry]

you cant figure it out for yourself, it requires multiple players for von 5/6, so yeah, running along vets cost less effort then having an entire feature programmed in by the dev's, especialy since the devs have such a looooong track record of f-ing stuf up with updates.

You are terrible at arguing, but I find feeding trolls to be entertaining, so here goes:

1-as I have said many times, the devs will break anything and everything they do. The devs will do things. So being against an idea based on the the idea that the devs might break something while trying to implement it is not rational.

2-The devs that are making new raids and quests are not the devs that are would work on this if turbine ever tried it.

Have make raids or new packs, not more catering to the functionally impaired, it has been done far to much so far, whats next? tinkerbell like guides to quests and npc's? leaving a pretty stardust line? please
go seek in game help if you cant make it on your own. Use DDO Wiki if you're stomped. A MMO is a social game, be social, if not go play a console game with a pause/save function.
Don't make m waste money on a few , while the rest of the community suffers for it in the form of no bugs, people leaving(taking a break), no raids/packs etc.

Alot more people than the functionally impaired would find this feature useful. Anyone who has had a mom interrupt their gaming would use this. Anyone who has had wife aggro would use this. Anyone who has an on call job would use this. Anyone who only has a few minutes in small blocks would be able to use this. It would functionally open the game up to a wider audience. It would also not effect anyone who would not use it at all. You claim this is a social game, but you are seemingly of the opinion that all the social responsibilities of real life should be discarded, or the people who must meet them should be penalized by having to restart quests when real life responsibilities take them away from the game. I have to assume that you do not actually understand real social interaction.

Further as many, in many threads have said, the devs that work on bugs are not the devs that work on content and different from both of those are the devs that make new features. Those devs' time will never be spent fixing bugs. So having them work on a new feature that some, not you, but some, might want will never ever ever take away from devs fixing bugs.

so yeah, kinda egotistical to ask for this, now that you know what the impact will be.
We don't build an extra lane onto the freeway so people can practice on their (non motorized) tricycle, we keep m of the road to save money, for all our safety and sanity.

This is pretty much text book bullying. Trying to make me feel guilty for even having an opinion that is different from yours. Seriously you should stop that now while you aren't too far behind.

No to special aids, the game is on life support as it is, bleeding players left and right and bug ridden, this new "feature" is a detriment to the game

While some people might use a save feature as a crutch to get through content, many others, including some of the best players I know, would use it to over come real life time constraints. Making inconvenient things more convenient without effecting the difficulty or entertainment value of the content would not have the effect you are describing. The game is on life support for many reasons, but not for things like this. This is a "special aid" as much as more backpack or bank space would be.

[Havok.cry]

As to the argument against making things only for niche players, that argument, according to the devs would be a valid excuse to never ever make a raid again. I don't find it a valid reason for either raids or this.

[Hoglum]

the original post mentioned 20 min each, and yes it gets done often

I didn't ask if they get done that fast. I asked if you figured them out that fast.

[Charononus]

I didn't ask if they get done that fast. I asked if you figured them out that fast.

yup because I wasn't playing when it was first released and so the first time I ran it, I said hey I'm a newb can you explain what's going on as you do it? 20-30mins later we had completed and I knew the raid.

[Hoglum]

yup because I wasn't playing when it was first released and so the first time I ran it, I said hey I'm a newb can you explain what's going on as you do it? 20-30mins later we had completed and I knew the raid.

Wow, I didn't even ask you anything.

BTW, getting taught isn't figuring anything out either, so you're answer should not have been "yup". It should have be "nup" or something like that.

[lyrecono]

You are terrible at arguing, but I find feeding trolls to be entertaining, so here goes:
I don't denie that, lots of it gets lost in translation. And on occasion i will be taken for a troll, my posts in this tread have been unusually harsh in this tread, i usually reserve my bile for dev errors

1-as I have said many times, the devs will break anything and everything they do. The devs will do things. So being against an idea based on the the idea that the devs might break something while trying to implement it is not rational.
What ever it is they break, it takes time to repair it, making our game time less fun (usually) and requiring downtime while they patch things up, as they have done a few times now, seems somewhat rational given the past.
2-The devs that are making new raids and quests are not the devs that are would work on this if turbine ever tried it.
It's still a waste of time and money, better spend hire ring good loot/content developers instead of mucking about in old code trying to implement things that do not weigh up against all the costs.
Don't forget that Turbine doesn't have the resources of WoW, even with big (warner) brother looking over their shoulder

Alot more people than the functionally impaired would find this feature useful. Anyone who has had a mom interrupt their gaming would use this. Anyone who has had wife aggro would use this. Anyone who has an on call job would use this. Anyone who only has a few minutes in small blocks would be able to use this. It would functionally open the game up to a wider audience. It would also not effect anyone who would not use it at all. You claim this is a social game, but you are seemingly of the opinion that all the social responsibilities of real life should be discarded, or the people who must meet them should be penalized by having to restart quests when real life responsibilities take them away from the game. I have to assume that you do not actually understand real social interaction.

People mentioned spending 3 (and 5) hours in a quest (not the few minutes you mention), with party members? Something is going horribly wrong here. With a few really rare exceptions, most quests are very straightforeward and require little backtracking. (and yes i'll admit, chains of flame that you mentioned is one of those maze like structures)

An MMO isn't a casual game, it requires things from you, that's why i recommended (console) games with a pause/safe feature.
I also mentioned grouping up (you know, the social part?)
I also mentioned learning stuff (you know, taking advice from those group members, sharpening your skills)

Further as many, in many threads have said, the devs that work on bugs are not the devs that work on content and different from both of those are the devs that make new features. Those devs' time will never be spent fixing bugs. So having them work on a new feature that some, not you, but some, might want will never ever ever take away from devs fixing bugs.

i stated: adding raids/packs and bug fixes

This is pretty much text book bullying. Trying to make me feel guilty for even having an opinion that is different from yours. Seriously you should stop that now while you aren't too far behind.

this was a response to:

Is there any objection to this that does not involve trying to force people to play the way you want them to?<--------i'ts fine if people want to solo quest to figure them out, but all i was saying was: if you can't figure it out, trie to team up (again, the social part) and ask for help, tips what ever, instead of asking for a feature to take a break for a couple of days in what essential is a 30 min quest (an hour at best) because he cant do it in his 2 hours. By this time this person should be playing what? lv 12? atleast lv 10 toon, Grouping up and socializing with said party members should, by now, have given him(her?) that info.


While some people might use a save feature as a crutch to get through content, many others, including some of the best players I know, would use it to over come real life time constraints. Making inconvenient things more convenient without effecting the difficulty or entertainment value of the content would not have the effect you are describing. The game is on life support for many reasons, but not for things like this. This is a "special aid" as much as more backpack or bank space would be.

Most of the content has already been shaped for that, many raids require a quick drop from the airship (or teleporter/wayfinder if you don't have a ship) to get right in the middle of the action.
some exceptions do exist and the effectiveness of you and your party can have a large impact on the speed, but then again, these are just raids.
every time the game is made easier the res of us suffer.
The last loot gen change (creating ghost bane for newbies that leave the game?) made our other loot pre/suffixes disappear. I'm not so sure about their excuse, stating it was unintentional, i recall people reporting this on Lamania back then.
We complained about the terrible loot up there, after days of posting we get the message that the intern(s) working on said loot hadn't been given access to the item part of the Lamania forums, ok, a slight oversight to say the least, but then the loot wasn't properly fixed anyway.
The exp stone meant that a lot of casual players that hang around in the harbor/market place, that never had a toon over lv 8 suddenly began running lv 16+ stuff. They were under geared and unprepared for what lied ahead. not always a fun experience for them and the rest of their party members.
It's bad enough that they exact changes without telling us,
It's bad enough that they exact changes without us asking for them,
It's bad enough that they exact changes without cleaning up the mess they create and if they do, it's more downtime...
I don't trust those butterfingers with the loot tables, let alone implementing a system with potential for a heavy impact on game play.
Should we honestly be spending resources on this system.
Yes i said the game is on life support, adding incentive for 10 min players won't directly make things work, the fact that turbine actually bothered to spend ,money on it to create it might damage the goodwill of the rest of the player base, let alone all the bugs it will bring (just imagine this update would permanently delete all the pinions in the game....)
I wasn't trying to make you feel guilty (trust me, you would have noticed the difference), i was trying to make you understand how incredibly alien the request looks when you zoom out of this picture. You're asking for something that would be far easier to remedy, but you don't seem to understand that A, a MMO isn't a casual game B, all those situations you mentioned aren't suitable for an MMO.

Anyone who has had a mom interrupt their gaming would use this. Do as your told, when your chores are done go play short quests/wilderness area's or a totally different type of game.
Anyone who has had wife aggro would use this. Make deals, spend time on day 1, game 3 hours without interruption on day 2, communication is an important key to a successful relationship.
Anyone who has an on call job would use this. should know better then to play a MMO, go slayer area/solo short quest or play other more casual games, you're basicly paid to wait, don't complain about a MMO
Anyone who only has a few minutes in small blocks would be able to use this. Do you really want me to repeat this?

I apologize if i hurt to many bleeding hearts, the strong emphasis in the posts are there to wake ya up.

[lyrecono]

I didn't ask if they get done that fast. I asked if you figured them out that fast.

Took me 4 or 5 runs (of von 5) to learn each side, the benefit of splitting up and playing your part, the benefits of effective communication and team work
Thes days i lead my own runs besides guild runs, always successful, and people usually tell me they enjoyed the ride afterwards

[lyrecono]

Wow, I didn't even ask you anything.

BTW, getting taught isn't figuring anything out either, so you're answer should not have been "yup". It should have be "nup" or something like that.

a decent teacher learns you how to learn, all they did was give me some essentials to work with, my grey matter was still doing plenty of work.