So, to sum it up. Make your game as convenient as possible.
Well, what if the point of a game is to specifically make the player go through several choices and decisions in a row without letting them save so it wont be like: "oh, what does this option do?" then loads last save, "ok what does this option do?" then loads save, etc etc, then those people figure out what they liked the best.
I mean if you want to know beforehand where every choice leads you, either make a judgement and roll with it or maybe don´t play games and just look at the CGI? How do you expect anything interesting to happen if your mentality is to save before every choice? What about games that dont let you save at all and just save your last checkpoint by default? The developers should also kill themselves?
Sure enough if there is some important event about to happen that may or may not lead to a game over or something, it would suck not to be able to save beforehand, that´s why boss battles are usually quite obvious in every game. But otherwise...
These are porn games, not horror games, not Dark Souls. There's no need for an environment of constant fear or tension in porn. I'm writing a thriller, and there will never be a point where I disable my player's ability to save simply to force an atmosphere. Some people seem to think that if a game has the ability to save wherever it's too easy. Well, I'm not playing porn games to "Git Gud". I'm playing them to get off. I'm the type of person that likes to experience all a game has to give me. No matter what game it is. I'll save before making choices or doing certain quests in Fallout and Skyrim, where the games are almost completely linear. I'll save before making choices in Bioware Games, so that I can play it with the renegade or paragon version of certain events. I like experiencing everything. What I don't often do, is make time to replay games. Some good open world RPGs will get a replay, but I'm less likely to replay Dishonored. Dishonored is a great example of a game that lets you do things differently, make different choices, fluidly, with no interruptions, but it's a very linear story that doesn't change much until the end no matter how you play it, and I can simply look up the alternate ending. With something like Mass Effect, on the other hand, I can affect the outcomes of certain events 3 games from now, I can decide how my interactions with the media will go by knocking out a reporter or not. I can run into a person I saved or sent to their doom. It changes things to play Mass Effect in every way possible. You can look down on people who want to save scum and play through all the options all you want. But in the end, you're creating a false sense of superiority over how you play a fucking game. It is the dev's job to make a game that more people want to play. You can play any game without saving before the options, if that's what you want to do. Me? I don't. Don't decide how I play the game I am paying for.
Do you know why Bethesda RPGs do so well despite being very poorly designed? Because Bethesda realizes that they are making a sandbox. When they release that sandbox to us, we get to play however we want in that sandbox. Of course, I should be clear, when I say sandbox I'm not talking about the "open world" type of sandbox. I'm talking like the little kid, playing in the sandbox, using their imagination to create some awesome adventure. They supply us with the "green army men" and the shovels and buckets, all we have to do is shape it to be how we want it.
When you design a game that limits how your players experience it, you alienate them, you turn them away. Developers goal should not be the alienation of their target audience. I'm not saying that they should compromise on story elements or fetish content to please a subset. I'm talking about the mechanics of their game that can be altered in a way that makes the experience enjoyable no matter how you like to approach playing. Again, these games aren't horror or dark souls, where it makes sense to create an atmosphere of tension and fear, and spacing out saves is the way to accomplish this. This is porn. Many players only have a small amount of time to play porn games. Even if they have time, they're really only looking to spend as much time as it takes to get off once or twice. Don't make your game inaccessible to these people becaues of some misguided attempt at creating a challenging experience.
Wow, you just managed to come up with pure bullshit.
Nobody said the choices should be blank and i dont think there is a single game that would leave them blank, neither will they ever mean the complete opposite of what they say, like you put in examples. Whatever, if you just want to mock anyone who doesn´t completely eat this shit up, go ahead, my mistake for saying anything.
Except the example he gave absolutly exists in a lot of choice based games The Telltale games series will give you nonsense choices like, "shoot or (Hesitate, wait, try to talk, etc)" and then you'll shoot, only to miss and have things get really bad from there. You shot with the intention of saving people, but in doing so made things worse. That's why people like to be able to save before making choices.
A dev can do this in a number of ways. They can autosave for you everytime you reach a major choice, so that at least that way if you forgot to save recently, you can go back. Or, they can warn you that a choice is coming and allow you to save. Again, this is a perfectly valid way to handle it, allowing you to play the game without fear that you'll miss something, or worse, that you'll go down a dark path that you regret.
An example of a game that makes you make a shit choice that you can't do anything about and that if you didn't save at just the right time you're gonna have to go through 15 minutes to a half hour of content to get back to it, is My Girlfriends Amnesia. I stopped playing this game exactly for this reason. Your girlfriend forgets everything everyday 50 first dates style, and so has regular doctors appointments and her sister has come to live with you guys to give her a familiar face every morning, since she doesn't remember you. Her sister is a bit michieveous though, and so the girlfriend doesn't always trust her. At one point he three of you go to the doctor's office, and you can tell your girlfriend is uncomfortable with you waiting alone with her sister. You, making note of that, remember the girl you met in the library the other day who was looking for a friend to show her around town. You doubt your girl would like knowing you spent time with another girl, but she doesn't have to know that, and you don't have ill intentions, so you can choose to either call her up, or hang out with the sister. I decided early on that I wanted to play this game as completely faithful to the girlfriend. It's too much for me to cheat on her in this situation. So wanting to keep her happy, I left to hang out with the other girl.
I figure, that's probably safer, the sister has already come onto me, and ususally games like this use a stairway to heaven, and I just met the other girl, it's probably safe to go. Get there and she forces you to eat her out under the table at the restaurant you meet at. This leads to you two getting caught by the waitress, and having to run away together, at which point you're spotted by one of the cops investigating the accident that caused your girlfriend's amnesia. The officers already appear to suspect you, so now, not only did this one choice you now made 15 minutes ago lead to an unavoidable cheating on your girlfriend scene, but you likely also increased the suspicion of the authorities on you. I hadn't saved on entering the hospital because I simply didn't think about it, and had to replay the last major choice, which was at least another 15 minutes with the scene and all the accompanying dialogue, until I was back at the hospital again, where I saved, because there was stil a chance I'd end up cheating on my girlfriend with the sister right there in the hospital for all I knew, and the other choice might still be preferable.
In short, it's porn, not dark souls, let people experience it how they want to. You don't have to save scum, but I should be able to if I like experiencing games that way.
