I hated how poorly the characters and saving system in Oblivion were organized (in FO3 too, for that matter). It was always a blur if you'd saved several characters on several saves and characters were easily deleted. I think this system needs to be renewed - i HATE to say it, but the saving system should be similar to the one in WoW. Like http://ulatmac.files.wordpress.com/2007/02/jeff-in-wow.jpg, where the characters are displayed, better organized and can be rotated.

This is just a suggestion/warning for the Bethesda (most epic) developers. Thank you for all of your work, sincerely. Beth <3

P.S: I do NOT play WoW nor do I encourage others to play it nor will I ever play it myself. I have friends who play it, though, and I've seen the "saving system" in WoW.

Now, if there is something you want to add, please, go ahead.

DISCUSS!

I agree totally, the amount of times I have gone over stuff I never meant to, I don't know about WOW as I have never played it(my PC is pants) but the save system in DA:O was just fine for me, something like that would be great. But yeah they definitely need to improve on it.

i don't care if you can save like wow. I just want to be able to name my saves. That way if I want to name my save "Dunmer dualwield thief 1" I can. Then I can have multiple saves for that character (numbered 1, 2, 3, etc....) Maybe display some additional info on that character besides level and whatever OB did. Don't need to be able to rotate, though I guess I wouldn't mind it.

The problem with WoW's "save system" is that it isn't the same thing as a single-player's save game function. While it DOES save everything about your character and your position in the world and such (it is always doing this so you don't lose progress if you get disconnected or something), you can't save multiple instances of a given... well, playthrough isn't really accurate, in WoW, but let's use the term anyway. It's just an automatic, constant record of what your character has done, what they've obtained and stuff.

So I don't think a WoW-style save system would fit at all with TES - for one thing, it's designed around the idea that death is just a momentary inconvenience and you can get back to your body, while death in TES is game over, full-stop. However, I would be in favor of "save file directories," or a different folder for saves for each character. Not only would this mean you'd never accidentally overwrite one of your old saves with a different character's save, it means you aren't going to lose progress when you forget that your last save on your main file was an autosave.

So save files would be character specific, is basically what I'm saying.

It's already been done by Wrye Bash (Save Profiles), so no doubt whoever makes Wrye for Skyrim (or even if Wrye returns himself!!!!) then we'll have it for PC eventually. But it would be nice if Bethesda could implement something similar.

I just saved like;

Larry1
Larry2
Larry3

for a character called larry

or

Bob1
Bob2
Bob3

for a character called Bob.

But yea, it would be nice I guess.

All they have to do is let us name our own saves. I can keep dozens of characters straight doing that.

do it like some of the Bioware games wear each character has their own page of games saves. That way you can only see the saves for that character. Change tabs to a different character and then you only see that characters saves.

I honestly, have never deleted a save by mistake I think. I may have quicksaved or autosaved over one but I hard save regularly. I'm all for being able to name saves again. It definitely helps when you are debugging mods for compatibility and testing.

I support any change to the past save systems! :thumbsup:

As someone who has deleted big save files by accident before :shocking:

Personally, I would prefer begin able to place saves for a character in their own directory ...


Heh, I did once, in Morrowind. Cost me 6 hours of progress with my cool Conan character. Let's just say I learned my lesson that night ...

I love the WoW character screen. Impossible to delete a char by accident, displays your character's level and equips... here you go http://www.waogo.com/images/wow/WoWScrnShot_041704_211005.jpg

Yeh I think an MMO character selection would be pretty cool, but Id be happy with a ME or KOTOR sorting by character system.

A lot of games offer multiple player profiles - I never understood why Bethesda games didn't, it should have been a no-brainer. And yes, I did lose saves when trying to play 2 characters simultaneously and in the end it was just too much bother.
I really hope that Skyrim, with it's radiant quest system, does finally give us opportunity to conveniently run a few different characters side by side. Would also help households where more than one person would like to play the same copy of Skyrim without it all ending in bitter recriminations to no end.

i like the wow idea. or even just isolating the most recent saves in a different column for each character

Seperate Save Files like what Bioware does with Mass Effect and Dragon Age. That will eliminate a whole lot of problems if implemented.

This could probably be improved in terms of the UI, but I've frankly never lost/deleted a save in either Morrowind, Oblivion, or Fallout 3, so it would be pretty far down on my to-do list.

This.


edit: the "mmo style" list doesn't really make sense, because there's no "saves" there - each character just has it's own Autosave. A Bioware-style "select your active character, and then you just see all of that character's saves" thing seems more useful. :shrug:

I think the saves should be divided for each character. I accidently deleted one of my brother's files and he was so mad. I was like, "You're only ten hours in. Big woop."

I got a big woop to my face...

Yeah, if we could name our saves it'd be nice.
I don't tend to play or keep the saves of multiple characters at once anyway, the most I've ever had at the one time was two. :shrug:
Oh, and maybe it'd be good if they somehow added multiple Quicksaves, where one Quicksave is specifically suited for one character. That way I don't overwrite my Quicksave if I go from one character to another.

Ya they need save slots like most games. That whole "Save number 297" thing was pretty annoying. It made it hard for multipliable people playing on the computer to keep form saving or games. Thrust me, it happened to me multipliable times.

:thumbsup: You an' me both.

Bioware-style saving and loading would be really nice.

Don't want to lose more 50 and 80 hour playthrus... <_<

That is of course because it's an online game, which is why the system would NOT work for the Elder Scrolls. In that case, saving is not done like in the Elder Scrolls, rather, the server just keeps a record of your character, and you can only have one "save" for each character, and that's acceptable for MMOs but I hate it when single-player games try to use that kind of save system.

But I've had problems with overwriting saves before, mostly when playing Fallout 3 on a computer I had to share with others as there was a risk of overwriting their saves, it isn't usually a problem with my own characters as I generally only play one character at any given time in a game and only start a new one if I intend to stop playing the old one. But really, it would help a lot if they just brought back save naming. That way, you can name youe saves something that helps you tell them apart better. But I guess we don't have it due to Bethesda choosing to focus on consoles, because it's convenient to type a name on a computer, but on a console, I suppose you'd want to have to name things as little as possible.

Yes, this has to be improved. The system in Oblivion and many games today seems to be made for one player with one character. It becomes too hard to manage your saves the more players and characters there are. In Oblivion I usually have like 5 saves per character, and I've to manually move a character's saves to a different folder each time I switch character to make the managing easier.

A system like in Mass Effect needs to be added. This means putting each character's saves to a different folder/save list. You can never see saves of many characters on the same list. In the game's menu when you want to load a save you first choose character, and after that the save.