How often do you save?

[CrowKnow]

Well... I recently just finished playing Deus Ex:IW and HL2... and while I backing up the saves from both games they totalled 1.1 gigs or so... and I started thinking about how often I saved games that let you save whenever you want. Personally I'm a rather paranoid/semi-perfectionist person so I attempt to save before every encounter and if things don't go quite right I restart and try again. So yeah, like that title states how often do you save?

[toxicitizen]

I attempt to save before every encounter and if things don't go quite right I restart and try again

Yeah, this.

Give me a quick save button and I'll abuse it in every possible way.

 

Other than that, when it comes to console games with save points, I usually save every time I come across one.

[Mister Jack]

I save all the frickin time because you can never know when your PC game will crash or your game console will freeze.

[docsfox]

Once every hour or two with auto saves on top.

[TheForgetfulBrain]

Too often. Far too often.

 

I have friends that go through a sixty hour game with two or three saves.

 

That is not me.

 

I often have in the hundreds.

[Pirandello]

If I have the chance to, quick-save every time I think crap's going to happen, regular save only after finishing an objective or major plot point.

 

Deus Ex is a good example of this. I abuse the quicksave button to hell and back.

[CorgiShinobi]

I save often, but I only have a few multi-saves (one game, two/three different files).

 

I don't know why I didn't think of it, but the trophies for reaching a level and in different karma states in Fallout 3 are easy. Just level up normally, save different files, adjust karma, and reach the level.

 

Wish I had known that for the first two... :'(

[Cyber Rat]

Often enough to have the Postal Dude mock me.

 

Even more if I'm playing a Bethesda game.

[Toshi]

I save a lot in case I miss something, a battle doesn't go the way I want it to, or in the possibility my game freezes. So every save point I see I will save at.

[Mr W Phallus]

I try to save a lot but I'm quite forgetful sometimes, especially in games where there is no auto-save and no kind of save-game prompt. I think it was the first Splinter Cell which I always used to forget to save on.

 

I don't really save in multiple slots either unless I'm fairly sure I'm going to regret something I did. I've been screwed over because of this, like I saved too close to the final boss fight in KOTOR with no way back and could never defeat the boss. Come to think about it, I never did defeat KOTOR, even though I count it as one of my favourite games. Damn save systems.

[slithy toves]

i save a lot but i don't generally make more than 3 save files for any one game. my obsessive need to save and my obsessive need to have a clean screen/ card/ what have you conflict with one another.

[Battra92]

Generally I put a certain percentage of my pay into a 401K. I then also allocate a budget to to put aside for emergencies and then so much for planned expenses such as vehicle expenses and rent and then I ...

 

OH! Saving in games. Yeah, I save every time it asks me to. My fiancee will backtrack in some JRPGs and save again after beating a difficult boss. It's probably a good idea but I don't bother.

[Yantelope]

I save a crapton but I usually use the F5 button and most games the quicksave just over wrights itself. Whenever the quicksave doesn't over wright itself I end up with a million saves. I had over a gig of saves from the witcher.

[deanb]

I don't save much actually. To the point where "You were lost to the Zone" and I had to completely restart STALKER again (it doesn't do auto-saves)

I mostly save if I'm about to do something which I may want to back out of, like Fallout style stuff.

Console RPGs I savewith 3 saves, current save, back-up save and "I may want to reverse this option later" save, which if I don't then becomes my current save.

Other than I mostly jsut save when I'm exiting the game, enough games auto-save frequently enough these days you'll lose at max 10 minutes.

[toxicitizen]

Ha, man the number of times I just ragequit STALKER because I forgot to save and lost over an hour of progress....

[TheMightyEthan]

I save all the fucking time if games will let me. Like, before and after I do anything.

 

"I'm about to open this door." *save* "I opened the door, nothing bad happened." *save* etc etc etc

 

I don't keep millions of saves though, I usually have about 10-15 and then I start overwriting the oldest one each time. I learned that from Fallout 3 because I had so many saves in that game that any time I tried to open the save/load menu it would seriously take 30 seconds to a minute to load the list.

 

I do though always keep a save from before this "part" of the game, in case I don't like what I did and want to go back. So for instance in Mass Effect that means I keep a save from before I land on each planet, which I then overwrite once I leave the planet. This is intended to prevent stuff like phallus' KotOR experience.

[Mr. GOH!]

Every ten to fifteen minutes. I don't overwrite unless I absolutely have to.

[Commander Shepard]

Finishing play a game.

Open menu, save the game.

Close game, "Do you want to save?"

Save again.

 

Out of paranoia.

[TheMightyEthan]

Oh yeah, I do that too. I hate it when it doesn't give you an autosave option on exit.

 

*save*

*quit*

"Are you sure you want to quit?  All unsaved progress will be lost."

*cancel*

*save*

*quit*

"Are you sure you want to quit?  All unsaved progress will be lost."

...

 

I also hate it when there's no confirmation that a save has occurred. Dead Space on PC is this way. I go to the save point, select a slot, hit save, and the menu just closes without actually indicating that it saved, so then I always have to reopen the save list so I can verify that it's in there.

[staySICK]

all the freaking time, especially in Fallout 3 / New Vegas.

 

Like Ethan said. "I'm about to open a door." *save*

 

"I'm going to engage in a conversation" *save*

 

"thinking of stealing this..." *save*

 

typically I just overwrite my saves, and may have 2-3 save slots used at any given time, first being my main, then another at a storyline crossroads, so I can play it this way, then the other way to see both outcomes and which outcome is more preferrable, and the third, especially with fallout 3, is right before I leave the vault, when I can change my character's appearance, specials and skills, so I can basically make a new character without playing through the vault area again.

[MetalCaveman]

If a game uses save points then I save every time I find one, otherwise, before/after something important happens. I also keep a separate save file for "before huge boss/long series of fights without rest" missions and stuff, that way I can always backtrack, or do something else, instead of keeping everything in one file and then getting stuck because I didn't have enough resources or whatever.

[Mal]

Save. Save. SAVE.

 

Its better to take those many small moments to save than to die and having to do every little thing over again.

[rainetemplar]

all the freaking time, especially in Fallout 3 / New Vegas.

 

Like Ethan said. "I'm about to open a door." *save*

 

"I'm going to engage in a conversation" *save*

 

"thinking of stealing this..." *save*

 

^This. In games where your choices affect the game I save a LOT. I have tons and tons of Fallout savefiles.

When it's not really necessary, say: if the game auto-saves every two minutes, I just save when I stop playing.

I don't really make extra save files either. I'm not very paranoid when it comes to losing files.

[RadiantViper]

A lot, but not a HUGE amount like some people who save after every little thing. Mostly when something fairly big happens. Like maybe a few battles have passed, or I know there's an important choice coming up (in applicable games).

 

Probably never go more than 10-15 mins without a save, though.

[Commander Shepard]

Ah, the days back when in most games there was no real save feature, and instead with either had to restart the game from the beginning when we powered the console down, or had to copy down passwords of varying characters, lengths, and whatnot. So many notebooks and the "Game Notes" sections in the back of game manuals full of top secret codes to final levels/bosses.