Where should Cosmoteer store saved games & ships?

Walt

Currently, Cosmoteer stores saved games, ships, and screenshots in your C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Cosmoteer folder. This is the standard location for storing application settings, but the AppData folder is hidden by default in Windows, which makes navigating to the saved games and ships a bit tricky and is easy to forget to backup. Also, AppData is sometimes not automatically backed up by backup programs, and apparently some overly-aggressive computer-cleaning software will even delete things from it. It'd be really sad if anyone lost their saved games and ships because they're stored in AppData.

So I'm considering changing the location in which saved games, ships, and screenshots are stored. Here are some options:

(My )Documents\Cosmoteer - A lot of games just create their own directory in the Documents or My Documents folder. I personally consider this kind of invasive and it makes that folder messy, but lots of games do it.
(My )Documents\My Games\Cosmoteer - This is somewhat common. Less invasive/messy than above. Seems preferable?
C:\Users\username\Saved Games\Cosmoteer - Hey look, Windows has a special folder just for saved games! Most games don't actually use it though, maybe because it doesn't exist on Windows XP (Cosmoteer doesn't run on XP anyway), or maybe because it's a bit harder for the average user to find than (My )Documents.

Do you all have any opinions on where Cosmoteer should store saved games, ships, and screenshots?

Lafiel

Walt True and I do share your sentiments.

The only other reasonable option is the game installation folder but
it's a bad idea the way things are.
Allowing players to decide a
folder of their choosing can also be messy when people forget about it
after stopping playing for a while.

So I don't really see much choices than having a fixed place predetermined.

(My )Documents\My Games\Cosmoteer

I guess it is best and easy to find again.

Walt

Lafiel The only other reasonable option is the game installation folder but
it's a bad idea the way things are.

This is generally considered bad practice, and it wouldn't work for multiple users on the same computer who want to keep things separate.

Lafiel Allowing players to decide a
folder of their choosing can also be messy when people forget about it
after stopping playing for a while.

I am actually leaning towards letting the player pick a custom folder from within the settings. So if you ever forget, you can just go look in the settings.

Lafiel (My )Documents\My Games\Cosmoteer

This is what I'm currently leaning towards for the default location.

Lafiel

Walt Then I choose the setting option with the default option. If payers leave it be it'll go to the default folder. And leave a "message" (setting) within the settings file in case someone looks it up.

Cosmoteer\Data\Ships\base ship.txt

yobeefjerky

C:\Program Files

why not just save it in something like program files

like this

C:\Program Files\Cosmoteer\Saved Ships

there's already a cosmoteer folder there, and many games already do this sort of thing

Walt

yobeefjerky why not just save it in something like program files

Microsoft really doesn't want programs doing this. So much so that Windows doesn't even allow most programs to save to their Program Files folder after being installed. There are ways to get around that restriction if you really need to, but there are good reasons not to save to Program Files:

Things in Program Files tend to get deleted, especially when uninstalling programs. While the Cosmoteer uninstaller won't itself remove any non-original files, other uninstallation programs likely will.
Anything in Program Files gets shared across all user accounts on that computer. Most people want and will expect saved games to be tied to their user account.
Anything in Program Files won't get automatically backed up, and many players may not realize they need to backup stuff in there manually.

IVIemories

Documents\my games seems most preferable to me, I'm not too happy about my documents folder being clogged up by dozens of folders for different games. But no matter where you put the folder (even if you let the player choose it) I believe people are still going to forget where it is.

So possibly a 'open Cosmoteer folder' button in the game would be best.

Walt

For those of you with non-English computers, would you expect "My Games" to be localized into your language? Or is it always, literally, "My Games"? (Windows will give me the path to your localized Documents folder, because it's a special folder that I can ask about, but My Games is just a regular folder within that, so I can't ask Windows where it is.)

IVIemories

Walt Not using a non-english comp atm, but from what I recall it is definitely not called 'my games'.

I know some English games will add a 'my games' folder if you don't have the correct region or locale settings, but I wouldn't count on that existing on every computer.

Walt

IVIemories My Games isn't a folder that that's "built-in" to Windows. It's just a folder that a lot of games will create inside of Documents by informal convention. I'm just curious whether on non-Enlish computers, games bother to translate "My Games".

There's also the Saved Games folder in the user directory, which is built into Windows and, I think, properly translated. I'm considering using that just to avoid translation issues.

IVIemories

Walt Yeah, that's what I meant when I said some games will add a 'my games' English Named folder. I've seen a few 'my games' folder that aren't in English (as in the name of the folder) though. That being said, while I can't speak for other cultures, pretty much every Asian game I have played uses the install directory to store save files.

GhostTaker

Walt in german pc's its called C:\Users\td153\Saved Games

but the name that is displayed is: Gespeicherte Spiele