I see what you're saying, but I don't fully agree.

Yes, designing the map well is always the most important thing. However, not everybody likes manually saving all the time. As I said earlier, for me it breaks the immersion and feels a bit like cheating. If nothing else, people can forget and neglect to do it (especially in a really engaging map where they're having a lot of fun) then *BOOM* dead (unexpected trap or ambush). Naturally you can tune the map so that most players can get through it if they're careful, but it's never going to be perfect - player skill range is quite varied - and outside influences (getting distracted) are possible too.

The thing is, if that happens (player dies without a recent save point) - let's say after 20 minutes of gameplay, there's a good chance you'll lose him right there. If I'm faced with the prospect of playing through for another 20 minutes just to get back to where I was, I'll often just quit immediately. When this happens, it's quite possible I'll never come back to replay it (sometimes by choice, sometimes forgetfulness).

However, if there are frequent and well placed save points throughout the level, regardless of when you die you won't have to repeat a lot of gameplay to get back to where you were. In these situations, it's just a minor setback and I'll almost always just keep playing.

There's a reason why practically all modern games, even those which feature manual saves, have some kind of autosave or checkpoint system. It's a sensible and good thing that allows the player to simply enjoy the game without thinking about saving, and ensures that frustration is minimized in the event of player death. 

Yeah hitting F6 occasionally (I usually find obvious ambush rooms or pathways over lava to be a good cue) is so hard... 

You can add stuff to your map that makes an upcoming danger obvious. "quake guy's inner dialog", "message from the omniscient worldspawn entity", "now you are gonna die!!! ololol!!1", music/sounds, a telegib in front of you, architecture that screams "DANGERDANGERDANGER!", anything like that.

For me a "your game was just saved because there will be an ambush in a moment so make sure you are prepare and don't frightened or be surprised" message is the ultimate tension killer.

It's a personal thing I guess, but for me manually saving is much less immersion breaking than seeing a game autosaving for you because it knows you might die in a moment. 

Somethimes in sp I use it because I know that I've damaged the monster enough so that 1 or 2 axe hits will kill it, and I'm so used to have few nails that in close combat I often use double barraled or axe, in this case there were no shells so... And I think it's fun to give the final blow with the axe :)-- 

I don't have F6 or any autosave key bound :(

Autosave messages don't necessarily have to be broadcast, in a game like Quake you probably wouldn't even notice any chugging indicative of disk access that you might see in a modern game.

Mock me all you want (BRING IT ON BITCHES!) but all I'm saying is an autosave system for Quake would be a nice thing to have. Ideally one which is transparent to the player. It'd just there as a fallback in case there's no recent manual save. 

Let's see an honest show of hands, how many of you have quit maps after dying without a recent save, and never come back to it?

I'll be very surprised if this isn't a common thing... but maybe I'm just soft... ;) 

I'd like to see a transparent checkpoint system. Obviously a talented mapper would use it sparingly just as a talented player should use quicksave sparingly. 

I don't know what you want me for, PM posted the perfect way of how to do autosaves...

As I remember, the discussion before was whether you could "hack" autosave into a map just using trigger_command, and the answer was not quite. You could make an entity that explicitly saved for the player, but not have it load if you died. With a bit of code and a specialised entity the game saved message is the only "problem" I can see with it. 

The only time I'd want it, is when I forget to autosave at the start of a map and hit quickload instead of fire, so end up loading some other completely different map.

The problem with implementing autosaves into the map is that not all mappers will use it, and those that do will use it differently.

That's for checkpoints in a map, at least. Having an autosave created upon loading a map, or at other obvious cut points, would be better. I can't think of any other good points to have the thing. Defeating a boss - usually at the end. Surviving a certain trap, maybe.

And they would need to be broadcast. If quake freezes for a second without any explanation then it's going to cause confusion and/or worry, especially if the user hasn't read the readme.

I think we should all chip in and buy Fribbles a new keyboard instead. 

My keyboard is fine, thank you. It does have an F6 key. It has many other keys that'd do the job too. Keyboards are good like that. :)

However, I have a frib.cfg file with all my settings in it. I've been using that for what, a decade now. I have config.cfg as read-only so other mods and engines can't fuck with it. It also means that when I do load a new mod/engine and have no keys set up, I can just exec that file.

Problem is my config was set up for deathmatch and has only what's required from that mode as well as some developer commands bound for testing maps.

I don't use quicksave/load in most games anyway though, the keys are usually positioned next to each other and I end up doing what you just mentioned (hitting load at the wrong time, instead of save). When I do save/load I usually go through the menu, which is tedious and in many games, slow. 

I started ne_doom but haven't played through much of it yet. I really liked the skybox and the architecture, ammo and weapons certainly seem pretty scarce though.

*spoiler alert* I died a few times and then spent a little while fucking around trying to get to that YA secret by jumping to it from the outside. I got it in the end, but then realized there was an easy way to get it from inside... haha.

Gotta play the map properly soon. Really nice atmosphere... I'm "feeling it" even more so than in ne_lend, though it looks like it'll be tougher to play. 

 

you could flush the con_notify with 4 blank lines to keep "game saved" off the screen, i think. 

you guys are being dorks for the sake of being dorks. :P

the method PM posted is perfect-- it's completely transparent for the player. now when he presses mouse 2 or whatever to reload the map, he'll be pleasantly surprised he doesn't have to redo the whole thing over again.
also, who says you have to autosave *right* before a big fight? autosave at intelligent points, not obvious ones.

when you consider the length of a lot of maps these days, this kind of thing makes perfect sense.

besides, if you really don't want to use it, just hit your quickload button then.

if you are some kind of masochist and want to start over completely, this is the only legitimate concern. you'd have to type in 'restart' manually. 

My excuse, I didn't refresh the browser before I found that qc file, so I didn't see his post before hand. 

bind "F6" "quicksave"
bind "F9" "quickload"
bind "F7" "say: woohoo I can save now" 

Yeah :)
w(hy)tf not? 

I'm being willfully ignorant not having (and using) quicksave buttons, but that's my right as a semi-retarded product of my generation! 

Thanks for the help Shambler, I refined the script somewhat... here's what I have now:

alias sham1 "say Shambler; bind F6 sham2"
alias sham2 "say loves; bind F6 sham3"
alias sham3 "say the; bind F6 sham4"
alias sham4 "say cock; bind F6 sham1"

bind "F6" "sham1" 

cunt :P 

where do I get the ne_tower level pls? I like screenshots a lot but do not see any download link. is the level finished already? can you send it to me to jardomir.b@seznam.cz please? THANKS a lot. 

Really?

The link to the qexpo page is at the top of this one, go there and click 'download both maps'. 

I'm a dunce.

Haven't finished my morning coffee yet.

I checked Quaddicted and it doesn't appear to be there. 

...the fact that he hasn't finished it yet? 

Repeat: dunce :P