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Ultima seriesUltima 2 - Why is it randomly autosaving?(5 posts)(5 posts)
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Posted March 10, 2024
This is about to drive me nuts if I don't figure out what is going on I'm going to drop this game. I thought the only way to save in the old Ultima games was to press Q on keyboard? I'm not pressing Q and I'm getting random saves to my game progress, and its happening a lot. I just tested it again by going to the southern town "Village of Le Jester" on the starting map, attacked the thief in town, thief hits me, and exit out of DOSBox by hitting the X in the top right of the program window. Restarted Ultima 2, hit P to continue the game and I'm back outside of the town and my HP is what it was from the fight that I was just in before I quit out of DOSBox. Why is it saving as if the figh happened BUT I'M OUTSIDE THE TOWN (when I quit out of DOSBox I was INSIDE the town) What the hell is going on? And it happened before in another part of the map, I was fighting an enemy in the overworld, quit out of DOSBox and restarted and noticed my HP was down
Post edited March 10, 2024 by DragonWarden81
Posted March 10, 2024
Two reasons I can think of:
* The original platforms the game was on did not have enough memory to remember the state of the overworld when you enter town, so the game saves as soon as you enter/leave town. (This could also explain why you can't save if you're not on Earth.)
* I think the developer didn't want the player reloading to undo bad things that could happen. Essentially, the developer had the misguided idea that roguelike-style autosaving and permadeath was a good thing, particularly since the RPG genre had not developed other approaches, and other genres didn't really save games at this point.

Worth noting that Ultima 3 still autosaves whenever you enter/leave town as well as when a party member dies. (This can be exploited; get a ship in the starting castle, then have someone die while onboard the ship; when you reload, you'll be on a ship on the world map. Given how annoying it can be to get a ship (especially in the DOS version). having this exploit available actually improves the game's playability.)

Ultima 4 pretty much got rid of autosaves. I've heard somewhere about some version autosaving if you lose partial avatarhood in any virtue, but that does not seem to be the case in the DOS version or either console version. Aside from this, the developer dropped autosaving completely at this point in the series.
Posted March 10, 2024
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dtgreene: Two reasons I can think of:
* The original platforms the game was on did not have enough memory to remember the state of the overworld when you enter town, so the game saves as soon as you enter/leave town. (This could also explain why you can't save if you're not on Earth.)
* I think the developer didn't want the player reloading to undo bad things that could happen. Essentially, the developer had the misguided idea that roguelike-style autosaving and permadeath was a good thing, particularly since the RPG genre had not developed other approaches, and other genres didn't really save games at this point.

Worth noting that Ultima 3 still autosaves whenever you enter/leave town as well as when a party member dies. (This can be exploited; get a ship in the starting castle, then have someone die while onboard the ship; when you reload, you'll be on a ship on the world map. Given how annoying it can be to get a ship (especially in the DOS version). having this exploit available actually improves the game's playability.)

Ultima 4 pretty much got rid of autosaves. I've heard somewhere about some version autosaving if you lose partial avatarhood in any virtue, but that does not seem to be the case in the DOS version or either console version. Aside from this, the developer dropped autosaving completely at this point in the series.
You mean that's an actual intended feature? That seems bizarre to me. The thought never crossed my mind because I thought autosaving didnt come until much later in gaming. This game was truly ahead of its time then. I will have to test this out when I play next time. I was ready to throw in the towel because I was in a constant (2 to 3 hours) loop of being on the edge of too low hp/food, and then just getting enough money. Then I somehow managed to finally get the blue tassel for the ship and the game got 100 times easier once I got in the ship, just like part 1.
Post edited March 10, 2024 by DragonWarden81
Posted March 10, 2024
avatar
dtgreene: Two reasons I can think of:
* The original platforms the game was on did not have enough memory to remember the state of the overworld when you enter town, so the game saves as soon as you enter/leave town. (This could also explain why you can't save if you're not on Earth.)
* I think the developer didn't want the player reloading to undo bad things that could happen. Essentially, the developer had the misguided idea that roguelike-style autosaving and permadeath was a good thing, particularly since the RPG genre had not developed other approaches, and other genres didn't really save games at this point.

Worth noting that Ultima 3 still autosaves whenever you enter/leave town as well as when a party member dies. (This can be exploited; get a ship in the starting castle, then have someone die while onboard the ship; when you reload, you'll be on a ship on the world map. Given how annoying it can be to get a ship (especially in the DOS version). having this exploit available actually improves the game's playability.)

Ultima 4 pretty much got rid of autosaves. I've heard somewhere about some version autosaving if you lose partial avatarhood in any virtue, but that does not seem to be the case in the DOS version or either console version. Aside from this, the developer dropped autosaving completely at this point in the series.
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DragonWarden81: You mean that's an actual intended feature? That seems bizarre to me. The thought never crossed my mind because I thought autosaving didnt come until much later in gaming. This game was truly ahead of its time then. I will have to test this out when I play next time. I was ready to throw in the towel because I was in a constant (2 to 3 hours) loop of being on the edge of too low hp/food, and then just getting enough money. Then I somehow managed to finally get the blue tassel for the ship and the game got 100 times easier once I got in the ship, just like part 1.
Wizardry 1 also did autosaving, as did 2, 3, 5, and many of the Japanese spin-offs.

Also, don't forget that there's Rogue, a game that predates even Ultima and Wizardry, and which named the "roguelike" genre.
Posted March 10, 2024
avatar
DragonWarden81: You mean that's an actual intended feature? That seems bizarre to me. The thought never crossed my mind because I thought autosaving didnt come until much later in gaming. This game was truly ahead of its time then. I will have to test this out when I play next time. I was ready to throw in the towel because I was in a constant (2 to 3 hours) loop of being on the edge of too low hp/food, and then just getting enough money. Then I somehow managed to finally get the blue tassel for the ship and the game got 100 times easier once I got in the ship, just like part 1.
avatar
dtgreene: Wizardry 1 also did autosaving, as did 2, 3, 5, and many of the Japanese spin-offs.

Also, don't forget that there's Rogue, a game that predates even Ultima and Wizardry, and which named the "roguelike" genre.
Cool! That's kind of fascinating (I've been watching old video game retrospectives/game dev videos and had no idea). Well, I did some testing and got into a fight, my HP went down, went in and out of town and quit out. Restarted and yes, my progress/HP was saved. Damn, I wish I knew beforehand, would have saved me so much time. These walkthroughs and guides I've been looking through for the old Ultima games are just as cryptic and ambiguous as the games themselves lol. I wonder if autosaving is mentioned in the Ultima manuals? I should have looked more thoroughly.
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Ultima seriesUltima 2 - Why is it randomly autosaving?(5 posts)(5 posts)
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