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Too many steps before I can load a save game on startup

raquoraquo Member Posts: 22
edited December 2012 in iPad (Archive)
I have a suggestion for the devs, and that's drastically decrease the number of steps needed to load a game. When I start the game there's first a start page, and when I choose "Baldur's Gate" a goddamn movie starts every time! After I interrupt that I come to another menu where I have to choose "Single player game", and THEN I can load my game. Surely I can't be the only one bothered by this? Or am I missing something?

The easiest would be to just have the "load save game" button on the very first page.

Edited to say that I love the game and I can see this becoming a real issue soon because I will play it so much ;)

Comments

  • iKrivetkoiKrivetko Member Posts: 934
    Agreed.
    I'd much rather have the campaign selection screen appear after selecting "start new game", rather than being the de facto main menu screen.
  • iKrivetkoiKrivetko Member Posts: 934
    This is how is see it done, for example
    http://i.imgur.com/SyTrs.jpg
  • BytebrainBytebrain Member Posts: 602
    Ha!
    We know they've squashed the most serious bugs when people complain about tapping through TWO WHOLE MENU'S to load a game...

    Not an issue, really , seriously, Beamdog have much more important things to fix than this.

    Besides the intro movie, this is how the game have been since 1998...
  • iKrivetkoiKrivetko Member Posts: 934
    edited December 2012
    Just because it was that way doesn't make it a good user experience, does it?
    Simply switching two views and changing a couple of buttons shouldn't be a hard thing to do, anyway.
  • FuzzyPuffinFuzzyPuffin Member Posts: 289
    @bytebrain just because there may be more pressing issues does not mean we shouldn't alert the devs of asinine UI decisions.
  • BytebrainBytebrain Member Posts: 602
    edited December 2012
    It's true you can do that, but I must admit I started laughing when I read this.
    I mean, it's been this way for 15 years, and millions have played since '98 without having issues clicking through two menu's...

    It just seems out of place amongst the current issues with bugs, driver troubles, launcher issues, iPad touch issues etc. with this specific edition of BG.
    The menu have been this way since the dawn of time.. :)
  • raquoraquo Member Posts: 22
    hehe, yeah I'm well aware that they have other things to do, but I'm only offering friendly advice for the future :)
  • raquoraquo Member Posts: 22
    @bytebrain - well, I actually remember that I used to think about this back in the day as well. It's just a whole lot of pages (and a movie!) to wade through.
  • BytebrainBytebrain Member Posts: 602
    I didn't mean any negative vibe towards anyone, I just thought it was a fun thing to request. :)
  • raquoraquo Member Posts: 22
    No worries!

    Well, it's the "enhanced edition", and I recommended an area that could be enhanced ;)
  • SarthosSarthos Member Posts: 31
    One thing to consider here is that most iPad apps are persistent. If you exit or the battery dies it saves your data and resumes when you restart the app. BGEE requires you to explicitly save the game--if you forget to or can't you are screwed. A resume option would not be such a bad idea even if it requires you to tap a button on the first menu.
  • BytebrainBytebrain Member Posts: 602
    edited December 2012
    Sarthos said:

    One thing to consider here is that most iPad apps are persistent. If you exit or the battery dies it saves your data and resumes when you restart the app. BGEE requires you to explicitly save the game--if you forget to or can't you are screwed. A resume option would not be such a bad idea even if it requires you to tap a button on the first menu.

    That's not entirely correct though...
    If you exit, and the app remains in memory, yes then you can resume where you left the app or game, but if the battery dies, or the iPad have to release memory for other apps, then you have to start the app or game from the beginning.

    That's the way BG:EE works, as well as most other apps and games.
    The only issue is that BG:EE use a lot of memory, so you can't exit the game and run other apps and expect to resume the game where you left it, since the iPad have to release memory previously allocated to BG:EE for other apps to run at all.
  • SarthosSarthos Member Posts: 31
    edited December 2012
    I have left BGEE many times to check Twitter, e-mail, etc. Many smaller apps will run without killing your game.

    Perhaps the save just takes too long when you get near the end and have lots more data...
  • IllydthIllydth Member, Developer Posts: 1,641
    Couple points to consider. None of these may be valid, but as a programmer, they make sense to me.

    I start this with the reminder that Beamdog had a pretty strict contract about changing the original game. If you look at the main screen launcher they seem to have had to have put that screen in to switch between starting BG and going to the add on content the Black Pits.

    It's worth me saying this again: Beamdog had to design an ENTIRELY NEW SCREEN in front of the original game menu JUST to allow you to select between the base game and the black pits. That's not design that ANY developer would EVER DO intentionally. It tells me that they were SO LOCKED by their contract that they couldn't even MODIFY the main game intro screen where you can load or save.

    There's a very good chance that they aren't able to move the load process any higher or lower on the screen flow simply because the original game manufacturers won't let them by contract. And it may also be that they aren't ALLOWED to put a load / save on that main page because it would, intentionally, skip a part of the game that you had to go through each time on the original.

    Think about it, if they could have just loaded you to the original BG page with an additional button to launch into the black pits (thus skipping the intro movie and skipping the multiple taps) don't you think that would have been easier from a development standpoint also?

    My money is on: "we'd have loved to have done this, but we're not allowed to do so by contract."

  • iKrivetkoiKrivetko Member Posts: 934
    It's highly unlikely that they aren't allowed to do that. It was merely the easiest thing to do.

    Oh, by the way, here's a feature request on this topic:
    http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/11862/streamlining-the-main-menu
  • IllydthIllydth Member, Developer Posts: 1,641
    I'll add it to the KNown bugs/issues...just in case it is possible...though I disagree that it's unlikely...I believe that's the full reason they didn't in the first place.
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