I quit right when I died, which might have messed with the autosave? In any event, make absolutely sure that the game is not saving or anything when you quit because it could just vanish into thin air. As good as this game is, I'm not looking forward to collecting all those Riddler trophies I was hunting down again.

I'm confident that "make sure the game isn't saving when you quit" is a standard rule for just about everything.

Every game ever now has a prompt telling you not to turn off the game when the autosave spinning icon is spinning.

But has it ever been anything more than a way to cover their asses? I've never had a saved game straight-up disappear because I turned it off during the autosave.

But has it ever been anything more than a way to cover their asses? I've never had a saved game straight-up disappear because I turned it off during the autosave.

@The_Laughing_Man said:

@MagikOvenMit said:

But has it ever been anything more than a way to cover their asses? I've never had a saved game straight-up disappear because I turned it off during the autosave.

Dude..they assume people are smart enough not to do that. A friend of mine had over 100 hours in RDR and lost it because of turning it off wile auto saving. It corrupts the save.

Why would they assume that? Games have a much wider audience which includes people who are not good with technology. If they really do assume that, then shame on them. They should have two autosaves so one can be a back up, or better yet they should have a manual save.

@The_Laughing_Man said:

@MagikOvenMit said:

But has it ever been anything more than a way to cover their asses? I've never had a saved game straight-up disappear because I turned it off during the autosave.

Dude..they assume people are smart enough not to do that. A friend of mine had over 100 hours in RDR and lost it because of turning it off wile auto saving. It corrupts the save.

Why would they assume that? Games have a much wider audience which includes people who are not good with technology. If they really do assume that, then shame on them. They should have two autosaves so one can be a back up, or better yet they should have a manual save.

It's kinda sucky that they save right when you die. That's when a lot of people shut the game off, I'd imagine.

@The_Laughing_Man: I never pay attention to those, but maybe because I know not to turn it off while saving already. I still think relying on one autosave is a bad thing to do.

Yeah. Seems like bad design...

Yeah, if someone can explain to me why having an extra autosave as a fallback is not a feasible solution than I am glad to hear it. Sounds so obvious to me, every time it autosaves it keeps the previous one should something go wrong.

Aww man that sucks dude! they should have some type of failsafe :(

But least the game is fun...redoing some of the stuff will be annoying but hopefully you'll have fun :)

Ya I just lost my save I died and then quit figuring I'd just reload later when I had time to play, booted the game up and the save was Gonzo

@MagikOvenMit said:

But has it ever been anything more than a way to cover their asses? I've never had a saved game straight-up disappear because I turned it off during the autosave.

just like all these signs saying DANGER - HIGH VOLTAGE are just to cover their asses ... it can't possibly hurt, right?

Sorry for your lost save dude, but it's your own fault. Always be cautious when a game saves.

If you lose ALL of your game progress due to a single saving error (even if it was the player's fault) then the game designers fucked up.

If you lose ALL of your game progress due to a single saving error (even if it was the player's fault) then the game designers fucked up.

Can we also agree to back up saves after playing on a thumb stick? Really disturbs me how many folks forget to back up dozens of hours of a game every now and then.

@jozzy said:

Yeah, if someone can explain to me why having an extra autosave as a fallback is not a feasible solution than I am glad to hear it. Sounds so obvious to me, every time it autosaves it keeps the previous one should something go wrong.

My guess would be that it would double everything needed to save - time, memory, etc... If it caused the game to hitch up or the framerate to dip real low every time the game saved, that's not really an acceptable answer to covering for people who turn the console off / quit to the dashboard / xmb while the game is saving. Keep in mind I know nothing of programming, that's just my common sense response.

I've noticed on the new 360, though, if you hit the power button it stays on for a moment, which I imagine would allow a save to finish.

In any case, keeping the previous auto save as a backup would make sense, especially in a game like Arkham or Assassin's Creed. You'll lose progress, just not all of it.

Sorry for your loss, bud. I always make sure I'm at the main menu when I turn off my console or bounce to the dashboard. I'd never want to lose progress.

@Jimbo said:

If you lose ALL of your game progress due to a single saving error (even if it was the player's fault) then the game designers fucked up.

Not really. There's only so much corruption you can prevent when a save is interrupted. Cut it at the wrong time, and well, you're the one that fucked up.

But yeah, there's a reason that games feature auto-save indicators these days. Don't ever, ever turn the game off while the indicator is still active. You might as well be powering off an NES game without holding in Reset first.

Are people so barbaric that they can't properly quit to the main menu and THEN quit the game/turn off the console. Whether I'm playing on my comp or ps3, I ALWAYS go through the proper protocol. I don't feel sorry at all dude. Impatience is not a virtue, and should therefore have the proper consequences.

I liked what Deus Ex did, having two auto-save slots. More games should have it.

@sfighter21 said:

Are people so barbaric that they can't properly quit to the main menu and THEN quit the game/turn off the console. Whether I'm playing on my comp or ps3, I ALWAYS go through the proper protocol. I don't feel sorry at all dude. Impatience is not a virtue, and should therefore have the proper consequences.

I wasn't aware that there was a proper protocol, and I guess I should have stated that I hit the xbox button and turned off the console from the screen when you die that says reload or quit not mid save animation thing

It's a cliché, but ... "You can't say they didn't warn you".

Harsh, I know. Just take it as a life lesson.

@Garris: Well, I'm not saying there is a universal protocol, just one that I follow. That is, quit out of all menus properly until your back to the beginning and THEN quit to desktop/ power off console. It's NOT that hard and it doesn't take long.

I've never hit quit during an autosave, but I did fuck up in Infamous 2. I simply forgot to do hard saves, and paid for it right next to the last big fight by screwing up between load and save. I think I asumed the game was doing auto saves by chapter or whatever. My fault, and now I hard save whenever I leave a game. most always did, don't believe i screwed that up....just fell into a bad habit.

@SuperWristBands said:

@The_Laughing_Man said:

@MagikOvenMit said:

But has it ever been anything more than a way to cover their asses? I've never had a saved game straight-up disappear because I turned it off during the autosave.

Dude..they assume people are smart enough not to do that. A friend of mine had over 100 hours in RDR and lost it because of turning it off wile auto saving. It corrupts the save.

Why would they assume that? Games have a much wider audience which includes people who are not good with technology. If they really do assume that, then shame on them. They should have two autosaves so one can be a back up, or better yet they should have a manual save.

Not feasible, due to the technical limitations spoken of earlier in the thread. Also, Deus Ex 3 tried this, and the game hitched whenever it auto-saved. I'd rather have the silky smooth Batman save system and take the risk that the developers believe I'm not a moron.

@MagikOvenMit: Arkham City saves when you die due to redundancies. You pick up a Riddler trophy, it saves. Level up and get an upgrade, it saves. Die in a fight after solving a Riddler riddle? It saves. All of this is in place so you never lose progress. If you decided to be foolish and quit a game while it was saving... man, I can't even think of a situation where that could happen. Short of an "act of God" anyhow. Arkham City's save system is perfect for the kind of game it is.

@Garris: Well, I'm not saying there is a universal protocol, just one that I follow. That is, quit out of all menus properly until your back to the beginning and THEN quit to desktop/ power off console. It's NOT that hard and it doesn't take long.

@Jimbo said:

If you lose ALL of your game progress due to a single saving error (even if it was the player's fault) then the game designers fucked up.

How is it the game designer's fault?

That sucks, man. I agree that it's really lame how many developers don't bother having backup saves, considering how easy it is to alternate between a couple of them. If a game features nothing but autosaving there should always be an older save kept around as an extra.

@KingWilly: Well, I gave a situation... Quitting right after a death, which is something I do all the time in games. Or maybe power outages, which is also not uncommon. How do Demon's Souls and Dark Souls do it, if the games save all the damn time? I've certainly quit in the middle of an autosave there, and I have never lost more than a minute of progress. I don't know a thing about saves, but quitting at death is a common thing for me and I've never, ever dealt with a corrupt save (especially one that just disappears completely - no trace of it on my hard drive). There's got to be some way for the developers to get around it.

In any event, I think we can all agree that it is a shitty thing that people can lose their saves so easily. Can't we?

The previous autosave shouldn't be deleted until the new one has been written to physical storage successfully, or even better a shadow copy should always be maintained, the chances of corruption in both files is virtually 0. I haven't played Batman, but if they do not allow manual saves and they don't make autosaves reliable than that is a valid point of criticism.

@MagikOvenMit said:

@KingWilly: Well, I gave a situation... Quitting right after a death, which is something I do all the time in games. Or maybe power outages, which is also not uncommon. How do Demon's Souls and Dark Souls do it, if the games save all the damn time? I've certainly quit in the middle of an autosave there, and I have never lost more than a minute of progress. I don't know a thing about saves, but quitting at death is a common thing for me and I've never, ever dealt with a corrupt save (especially one that just disappears completely - no trace of it on my hard drive). There's got to be some way for the developers to get around it.

In any event, I think we can all agree that it is a shitty thing that people can lose their saves so easily. Can't we?

yeah, it is shitty. BUT they do warn you, don't they? (Yo, hey dude when you see this flashing star/rotating wheel/other various autosave emblems, DO NOT power off the system.) Most games have that because I mean, that's all they can really do until a solution is found to not corrupt save files.

I lost my save in AA upon unlocking the 100% achievement and it didn't even stick. Had to replay the whole damn thing. Seems like the save issues are not entirely fixed. I wonder why these autosave-only games don't keep backups.

@sfighter21 said:

@Garris: Well, I'm not saying there is a universal protocol, just one that I follow. That is, quit out of all menus properly until your back to the beginning and THEN quit to desktop/ power off console. It's NOT that hard and it doesn't take long.

I understand what your saying but if they had run across this during testing shouldnt it have been fixed. I mean if I'm not allowed to use an option that is available to me to quit the system, why would they have it in there.

@Garris: Well, if it was something they could fix I'm sure they would. However, if just about ALL games in the past few years have had this warning, it means they haven't come up with anything yet. They can't predict if it will or won't corrupt your save, so they give you the warning. Hopefully sometime soon in the near future we won't have to worry about it, but even then they'll prob still have warnings when you start the game.

@MagikOvenMit said:

It's kinda sucky that they save right when you die. That's when a lot of people shut the game off, I'd imagine.

Only rage-quitters do that.

I learned my lesson long ago to always quit to the menus. Now you have also learned your lesson. Always go to the main menu first and then quit to the dashboard or turn off the console. Make no exceptions. It sucks that you have to get the riddler trophies again, but this isn't the worst game to lose progress on. Just make sure you always go to the main menu first and then you'll never have a problem again.

@sfighter21: which warning did i receive?

@Garris said:

@sfighter21: which warning did i receive?

...uh, the one when you start a game and it says DO NOT POWER OFF CONSOLE WHILE THE AUTOSAVE INDICATOR IS FLASHING... sorry for the CAPS. Just making a point.

@sfighter21 said:

@Garris said:

@sfighter21: which warning did i receive?

...uh, the one when you start a game and it says DO NOT POWER OFF CONSOLE WHILE THE AUTOSAVE INDICATOR IS FLASHING... sorry for the CAPS. Just making a point.

as I said before I turned the console off on the screen just after the villian taunts you for dieing, and your given to options load or quit, not during an autosave

@Garris said:

@sfighter21 said:

@Garris said:

@sfighter21: which warning did i receive?

...uh, the one when you start a game and it says DO NOT POWER OFF CONSOLE WHILE THE AUTOSAVE INDICATOR IS FLASHING... sorry for the CAPS. Just making a point.

as I said before I turned the console off on the screen just after the villian taunts you for dieing, and your given to options load or quit, not during an autosave

I know that. That is why I said that I quit out of all possible menus back to the main menu before powering off whatever system I'm using. It's like one extra step. You really don't have the patience for that?

You get so mad at losing that you "rage quit"? Be like Dudley and quit the game like a gentleman. You will have no problems then.

@sfighter21: Dude, stop. It's poor design.

@sfighter21: I never said I rage quit, I have a 9 month old son so i quit when he wakes up from naps and such.

@MagikOvenMit: No it's not. You got burned because you did something stupid. It's not like the game was "hiding" the fact that it was saving. It had the "Saving..." displayed prominently in the lower corner. The death screens are pitch black with a villain talking to you. It's not like you could've been distracted by flashing lights or Hypnotoad.

You got burned, and that's shitty, but stop trying to pawn the blame off on developers when their system works. It's just not idiot proof, apparently.

@KingWilly: There's a few seconds in between dying and when the "saving..." prompt occurs, the perfect time for me to grab my remote and turn off the console.

In any event, you're defending a system that allows players to completely lose their saves by way of power outages or stopping at a death or being a dumb stupid idiot, which I'd wager a good proportion of the gaming community is. There's got to be a better way.

@KingWilly said:

Arkham City saves when you die due to redundancies. You pick up a Riddler trophy, it saves. Level up and get an upgrade, it saves. Die in a fight after solving a Riddler riddle? It saves. All of this is in place so you never lose progress.

Really? Every time I die I have to go back and pick up all the Riddler trophies, solve all the riddles, and even upgrade again.