Making your own cloud save system - for non steam cloud games

[Nvidiaguy07]

Just realized there are a bunch of games that don't use steam cloud that i figured would since many of them are newer. In the past ive mklinked my "my documents" folder into dropbox, so if anything ever happened to my PC, i would be able to restore my saves.

Question 1: How many different save locations do you have to worry about besides that?

Question 2: Would the game "take" the restored save file if i ever actually had to do this? Or would it not accept it as a protection from cheating?

Lastly, when ive tried this before with borderlands 1 (I was having steam cloud problems, so i tried this), the synced folder across two computers would never act right. I would always have to go back in and fix the config file so all the intros wouldn't play when i loaded up the game. It kept messing things up, so eventually i uninstalled it on my 2nd computer and just used the mklink to backup on one computer.

Question 3: Is it even possible to do what i tried to do above? Or does steam have some protection from doing something like this?

Also on a side note: steam cloud really sucks sometimes. In the past year, i can think of 5 times that my cloud save didnt take, and lost hours of progress. I game on two computers in my house (both PC) and i always exit steam on the first before opening on another (to let steam cloud finish syncing - which doesnt make sense since the games supposedly sync right after you close them - right?)

Also for some reason, some games refuse to sync. I wanted to finish out deus ex on my living room PC and watch the endings on the big screen - but no matter what i did. Save open close open close exit etc etc etc - the save file wouldnt update. Even now when i go to the game i get this:

wtf!!!! sync needed? Then sync!!!! Im not over my cloud save limit btw - its at 15mb out of 85) Im getting the same crap for some other games too.

Also id also like to mention - im pretty sure steam cloud is the reason i can no longer play plants vs zombies. I had no trouble with using mac and pc using that shared save, until i started the zen garden. Now any time i open on pc - i get a file read error. All i want to do is completely delete my save and start oer - but im unable to.

 

[zerogear]

It's possible, but since there are no set path to drop saved games, you may have to end up doing manual junction/symlinks to them every time you want to run a new game --

But generally, I don't think any protection would kick in from Steam, from the games perspective, junction should 'seem' like it's the same path.

 

[frozentundra123456]

I just find the location of the saved games for the particular game I am playing and copy the saves to an external hard drive periodically. More hassle, but I have never tried anything like you are talking about. Sounds like a good idea though, although I really dont want to get involved with the cloud for anything of a personal or confidential nature. Guess I am just old fashioned.

And I had a weird experience with Borderlands 2. I accidentally sold a gun that I really wanted and could not buy it back because I did not realize when I sold it and it was no longer available to buy back. So I loaded a save from the previous day, but the inventory was the same inventory of my current game(i.e. the gun was missing). However, 2 golden keys which I had used suddenly reappeared. Using the golden keys, I actually got a better rocket launcher than the one I was trying to get back, but loading an old save seemed to revert some of the game to the date of the save and not others. Maybe it was confused between local and cloud saves or somehing.

BTW, I really wish you could get a save during some of those longer missions. It really sucks to have to leave in the middle of a mission and replay from the last respawn point, especially now that I am level 50 and dont get any XP for playing a level over.

 

[theevilsharpie]

It's possible, but since there are no set path to drop saved games, you may have to end up doing manual junction/symlinks to them every time you want to run a new game --

But generally, I don't think any protection would kick in from Steam, from the games perspective, junction should 'seem' like it's the same path.

It would be a hell of a lot easier and more reliable to use a service that isn't limited to one folder like Dropbox is. I use SpiderOak, and I can back up/synchronize any arbitrary file or folder on any of my PCs---no symlinks required.

 

[kamikazekyle]

I just find the location of the saved games for the particular game I am playing and copy the saves to an external hard drive periodically. More hassle, but I have never tried anything like you are talking about. Sounds like a good idea though, although I really dont want to get involved with the cloud for anything of a personal or confidential nature. Guess I am just old fashioned.

And I had a weird experience with Borderlands 2. I accidentally sold a gun that I really wanted and could not buy it back because I did not realize when I sold it and it was no longer available to buy back. So I loaded a save from the previous day, but the inventory was the same inventory of my current game(i.e. the gun was missing). However, 2 golden keys which I had used suddenly reappeared. Using the golden keys, I actually got a better rocket launcher than the one I was trying to get back, but loading an old save seemed to revert some of the game to the date of the save and not others. Maybe it was confused between local and cloud saves or somehing.

BTW, I really wish you could get a save during some of those longer missions. It really sucks to have to leave in the middle of a mission and replay from the last respawn point, especially now that I am level 50 and dont get any XP for playing a level over.

If I'm recalling correctly, story/quest progression is saved separately from inventory and character stats in Borderlands 1 and 2. I'm guessing that the golden keys are linked to the game progression and not to the inventory/character save. Just guessing on that bit, though. Net result is you can load a previous save, but your inventory and stats should remain the same.

It would be a hell of a lot easier and more reliable to use a service that isn't limited to one folder like Dropbox is. I use SpiderOak, and I can back up/synchronize any arbitrary file or folder on any of my PCs---no symlinks required.

Dropbox should now support selectable folders to include outside of the parent folder. I think. I'm so ingrained with a single Dropbox folder from yesteryear that I haven't bothered to dabble. I do know that it supports selective syncing -- I'm just not sure if it's internal only or external as well.

I agree, though, that it's a bit easier just checking a box to a new game's save folder than buggering with symlinks. SpiderOak never did work right with my systems, though, and kept stalling on initial sync. I haven't tried it in the past two years or so as I have batch/shell scripts that automatically set up my junctions with Dropbox.

I did something similar with Live a while back. Like SpiderOak it supported just checking off a folder to sync, but the client had some issues with update intervals, and I actually wound up getting newer files overwritten by older files.

*shrug* To the OP: if you don't want to worry with symlinks or junctions, something like SpiderOak would fit the bill. Or Dropbox if it supports external selectable folders. I've been using Dropbox and symlinks as a cross-platform and cross-hardware syncing setup for my saved games for years, and it's worked without any issues aside from having to do symlinks. No bans, erraneous overwrites, etc.

 

[Aikouka]

When I first read your title, the Dropbox method that you mentioned is what first came to mind. I can't imagine that Steam would really even be able to notice since Dropbox doesn't mess with the files -- it just updates them. It's no different than you copying and pasting them in yourself.

If I'm recalling correctly, story/quest progression is saved separately from inventory and character stats in Borderlands 1 and 2. I'm guessing that the golden keys are linked to the game progression and not to the inventory/character save. Just guessing on that bit, though. Net result is you can load a previous save, but your inventory and stats should remain the same.

Yeah, both Borderlands 1 and 2 have a sort of overarching profile save that saves your basic settings. In Borderlands 2, that also includes your golden keys since they're shared between all characters, and I assume that it also includes your shared stash.

Dropbox should now support selectable folders to include outside of the parent folder. I think. I'm so ingrained with a single Dropbox folder from yesteryear that I haven't bothered to dabble. I do know that it supports selective syncing -- I'm just not sure if it's internal only or external as well.

I'm not 100% certain, but it looks like it does. I right clicked on a folder, and there was a "Sync this folder..." option. I'm not too sure what it does, and I don't feel like screwing around with my Dropbox setup, so I'll let someone else see.

 

[M0oG0oGaiPan]

Time for you to build a cloud game save service

 

[Nvidiaguy07]

I'm not 100% certain, but it looks like it does. I right clicked on a folder, and there was a "Sync this folder..." option. I'm not too sure what it does, and I don't feel like screwing around with my Dropbox setup, so I'll let someone else see.

Trying this now. I dont see any option to link outside dropbox outside of doing mklinks - which for me are kind of a pain.

Saw this article http://lifehacker.com/5154698/sync-files-and-folders-outside-your-my-dropbox-folder

and i guess if i use synctoy, itll sync two locations on my pc without having to use a bunch of mklinks. There will be two copies of everything, but no big deal to me.

One problem im finding is that not all games that supposedly use steam cloud actually do. One example

Im thinking im going to use my own cloud saves for non-steam cloud games, but i would also like to at least backup steam cloud games to a location (not sync across pc's though). Doing this because ive had experiences in the past with borderlands and deus ex that i lost hours of progress, even though i saw it sync after exiting game, and then according to steam it said "finishing cloud sync" before exiting that. If i had it backed up to dropbox, i would be able to restore previous versions should something like that happen again.

Now i just have to start figuring out where these saves are. Any tips on making this as least stressful as possible? If all are in a few locations, then ill sync those few, but if they all all over the place, then i will just make individual entries for each different game (and just remember to set up a new link everytime i start playing a new game).

Right now i have my "my documents" folder set up to be backed up in dropbox, but not synced across pcs. (I dont use my documents for anything - only games do).

Thinking back to that problem with the borderlands config file - is that gonna happen with any other games? Any idea why that was happening at all?

 

[Merad]

You would be better off doing this for individual games IMO. The My Documents folder gets a lot of crap dropped into it that will only waste your dropbox space.

 

[Nvidiaguy07]

You would be better off doing this for individual games IMO. The My Documents folder gets a lot of crap dropped into it that will only waste your dropbox space.

Well, the only problem i have had with that so far is when one program gets nuts and uses that to install things. Just noticed convertxtodvd used it as a temp folder, and my docs was up to 2.7gb. After deleting it was fine, my docs is 120mb - and i have over 20gb of dropbox space, so no problem there.

I figure ill just do the whole docs folder - which should save me a lot of time, and then also any individual folders where game saves are.

Any tips on where games saves are that i should start looking? Are they ever put in the steam folder?

I also use google drive and skydrive, so if either of those have better features for something like this ill use those.

 

[Merad]

Saves can go anywhere on the HDD. You just have to google that specific game.

 

[12andy]

Symform

Bittorrent meets cloud storage. Just watch your data usage. Free to use, as long as you donate some HD space to "the cloud", and have a PC/ NAS that's always relatively on.

I've been on the fence about which service to go with for awhile, and this made the most sense to me. Files are sync'd/ updated on a per block basis as well, which makes it very efficient.