Both the quick saves and check points systems have their advantages and disadvantages, of course mostly depending on the game itself, rather than the systems as a whole. It also has to do with the death penalty in gaming. In some games, quick saves shouldn't have been possible, but in PC games how can you prevent players from saving at any time and anywhere other than by "forcing in" a check point system and pretending as a developer that it was all part of the 'artistic vision'?
Will gamers claim it's unjustifiable or inexcusable when it usually takes so little space on their hard-drive in today's standardized 1TB+ HDD space? Will they (gamers) be able to objectively exclude space on their HDD as a seperate technological aspect of PC hardware that has nothing to do with the vision that the developers had (or might have had) when it comes down to "how they want you as a player to play the game"? Did the devs implement a check point system in that last game you played because they thought that it'd make it more challenging? Or because on the other hand they thought that a quick saves system would have made it blatantly too easy?
Fictitious conversation between a player and a development team guy...
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Player: "Dude! Why can't I quick save?!"
Dev: "Because we created a check point system for this game."
Player: "It sucks! My hard-drive is like... 1TB large why can't I just quick save?"
Dev: "Because we created a check point system for this game."
Player: "Look man you don't get it, if I want to save like... 'between' your stupid check points 'cause my mom made me dinner and I got to go eat, I mean can't I just like... just save?! My HDD man! MY Freak. 'In. H. D. D. is 1 Tera. Freakin'. Bytes large!"
Dev: "Because we created a check point system for this game."
Player: "K... cool... alright, so you're saying it's like part of your 'le vision is carved in rock' artistic decision shenanigan blabbing mumbo jumbo stuff?"
Dev: "Because we crea- ... oh, yes, indeed it was part of our vision."
Player: "Your game suck!"
Dev: "We cannot make games that will please all gamers."
Player: "Whatever man..."
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This subject brings me back when I was playing Mario Brothers, in all honesty. To this day, I still remember when missing a jump and falling down that space between two platforms leading to my poor Mario's death, that how "fun" it would be if we'd be able to just "pause" the game and save it there (before any tough jump) for later attempts. I often associated the "fact" that "most" console games seemed (or literally were) usually more difficult than most games today (be it on PC or not, although on PC today games are mostly console ports) exactly because we couldn't just "come back at it" whenever we felt like it because we'd been able to save our progress at will and save our game right before a boss fight, or anywhere we wished. We usually "had to" complete most games under one hours-long sitting, or if not to complete it, it'd be to reach "the next check point". And, of course, we had to rely on map codes for progression, much like or identical to the Mega Man series for example.
Curiously enough it seems that back in the days (say... during the 8-Bit and 16-Bit days mostly) it just wasn't an issue in itself, we were used to it since of course it was pretty much the only way we had to progress in our games, save for a few exceptions here and there. If we died, we'd be sent back at the start of the level, or back at some "far away" check point. When the whole "saving anywhere and anytime" buzz became more common and got implemented in more games then the check point system started to get frowned upon... but it wasn't that bad of a deal prior. So... what did people want "from the start"? To save time and never realized it until the quick saves opened their eyes? Did they find their games to be more enjoyable or easier and therefore "better" because they could save, and move away from their monitor and come back whenever they felt like it rather than feeling "obliged" to play?
I suspect that this whole debate concerning which one of the progression-saving systems are the best is due to the fact that most of us gamers are simply getting older and just can't find the will, motivation, or can't in ourselves find enough patience as much as we might have had in the past to just sit there in front of our monitor (or television) for hours and "just play" until you need to go pee. That, and, of course, also because as time passed and as we grew up our life style changed, most of us have a job even if it's a partial time job, we don't have as much free time to burn out "just for the heck of it" to play a game as much as we used to. We have other obligations, or occupations, etc. When many of us sit down to play a game we want to play knowing that whenever we have to, or feel like it, that we can just press F5, stand up, stretch our poor old muscles a bit without breaking bones or snapping a ligament or two and go wash the dishes, take the dog out for a walk or go check if our meal isn't about to get torched in the oven.
There's that article I read recently that claimed that most gamers today are in their late twenties (28+) if not already thirty or even past that by now... that brings most of us to the Atari and 8-Bit days when we were those little kids able to sustain a sleepless night or two and laughing at our bed thinking how useless it was to sleep while playing our beloved games. It's not the same now is it? The point is, we had time, and energy enough to sell some back for the third world countries to help their growth. But there's something interesting to consider, of course, and that is the technology in relation to memory capacity in the hardware of the time. So, I have to ask myself and just randomly throw out this question that's now stuck in my head for you guys to scratch your heads with if you want... well it's a couple of questions mixed in for a general idea and I'm wondering now...
If during those 8-Bit and 16-Bit days (example) our consoles (or cartridges, whatever) had the space capacity to hold any amount of saved game files, do you think that the developers back then would have relied on the check points and passwords-to-progress systems as much as they did, if at all? Or would they have still kept their check points system intact exactly because technological limitations never was part of the whole scheme of things and in fact the only thing that ever mattered for them was to provide a "better challenge" via the famous (or infamous) check points system?
I'll leave on these words.
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