Your experience with Cloud Saves and what do you think of Cloud Saves?

[Kungfu_Teddybear]

Hello fellow Escapists.

Today I wish to talk about Cloud Saves and your experience with them. I've never been a really big fan of Cloud Saves, simply because my experiences with them have been that half the time they haven't worked. For example, on my old PC I had several Skyrim saves, all saved to the Steam Cloud. Now, when I got my new PC a few months back and installed Skyrim and went to play it, only 3 of my save games were there. Three of the saved games I no longer played to be precise. I thought the beauty of cloud gaming was that you could get your saved games from the cloud and you could pick up where you left off if you got a new PC/console.

Now, lets fast forward to today. I was playing Skyrim and I saved my game and closed it to go and get a mod that I'd been thinking about getting. I let the game sync with the Steam Cloud, got the mod and restarted the game and this happened:

The Local Files are also wrong considering I'd just saved my game like 10 minutes before that happened. This isn't the first time this has happened, but it is the first time it's had a 'last modified' date like that. I've had other times where the last modified date on both the local files and the Steam Cloud were the same day yet for some reason they still apparently conflicted, even though I always let the game sync with the Steam Cloud.

Personally I think Cloud Saves are a great idea in theory, but from my experiences, they just haven't worked very well. What are your experiences with Cloud Saves and what do you think of it?

 

[Scrustle]

I've never used any kind of cloud save system. I don't trust them. I know that's probably silly and it's good to have a backup, but I simply don't like my saves being in the hands of someone/something else.

 

[DazZ.]

Seeing as you're just running off the same computer, just hit upload and you're done.

I've never had an issue with cloud saving, and I actually use my dropbox folder with symlinks to turn games that don't support it into a cloud game saving service.

The only thing I've had happen to me with cloud saving is being pleasantly surprised to find my saves on another computer, if I plan on switching computers for something like Skyrim I'd make sure I had it all backed up and move it over manually.

So I've not exactly trusted Steams Cloud service, but it's never not worked for me.

 

[Able Seacat]

You've created a time paradox!

That sucks, I hope you can get it sorted.

I've only used cloud saving once with the 360 and I'm pleased to say it worked. Saved a copy of my half life 2 save, went to a friends' and loaded it up, worked like a charm. I think cloud saving is good but it's probably wise to have a back up.

 

[Woodsey]

I've never used any kind of cloud save system. I don't trust them. I know that's probably silly and it's good to have a backup, but I simply don't like my saves being in the hands of someone/something else.

But you're still going to have your own copy of them anyway.

OT: Nothing much, never needed to use them. Potentially useful though, and they've always synced fine.

 

[Best of the 3]

Personally, I really like the one I use for xbox. Works well except for Fallout New Vegas. Can't seem to get that one to work. Been using it recently for Skyrim, HL2, and every other game I've been playing. Only down side is that I need Xbox live just for that. Having a Silver won't cut it, it has to be gold. That is slightly annoying.

 

[ScrubberDucky]

The idea of cloud saves is one I both like and dislike. I like the concept of it, but dislike it because I know that as with most new technology, it'll take at least quite a few years for folks to get it "right", or at least move some of the biggest problems that can/will occur. I do support it, though, since it having continued widespread usage is the only way we'll improve on it.

I don't have much applicable experience with Cloud Saves since I've been using the same PC more or less since Steam started using them, so the potential for error is very low. As such, I've been very happy with it so far and would enjoy it if all my multiplayer games and their relevant data were managed in the cloud assuming it continued to be as painless as it is now.

 

[Dryk]

The only problem I have with Steam Cloud is that the files stored locally are in hard-to-find folders if you want to make your own backups

 

[Smooth Operator]

Very convenient when it works, worse possible system ever when it stops working, and the "stops working" situation is very likely because it depends on every link in the connection chain.

 

[Buzz Killington_v1legacy]

This isn't the first time this has happened, but it is the first time it's had a 'last modified' date like that.

You're most likely seeing the "January 1, 1970" date because Unix systems[footnote]Which I'm pretty sure is what the Steam cloud servers are.[/footnote] count time by the number of seconds elapsed since midnight on that day. If that count is missing or zero, the system interprets it as the epoch [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epoch_%28reference_date%29].

 

[Rednog]

Not a big fan, I remember back when Left 4 Dead came out and it was unplayable half the time because steam cloud shat itself. Also a bit annoyed when I quit something like Skyrim it has to sync up every damn time, how about just saying would you like to upload X save, when I quit.
When I had my harddrive crap out, I think the only game it reliably saved was Saints Row 3, the rest were either really old saves, or just wouldn't load.

 

[veloper]

Aslong as we can store save files locally as with Steam, it's only an extra that may be of some use when you log in from a different PC.
If cloud computing takes over completely some day, then we're truly inconvenienced.

 

[DazZ.]

Just another note, a game I think that does cloud saving very well is Civ 5, where you get 10 cloud save slots and everything else is local. That way it's clear exactly what is being uploaded and which ones to keep a backup of just in case the cloud system fails. Instead of having people just assume everything they save is on the cloud when it might not be.

 

[teqrevisited]

The cloud saved me hours of replaying Skyrim when my HDD joined all of the calculators and whatnot in silicon heaven.

I've had it fail to synch twice but knowing that my local saves were further in I sorted it in a second. Since I back everything up it's never usually a problem anyway, but it's nice to not have to trawl through folders looking for the one labelled username/game/saves.

 

[GameMaNiAC]

And this is why I manually backup my own video-game saves. I wouldn't trust anyone else with it, honestly.

Seriously, if you use a PC, just look up the game's save location and copy it somewhere safe. It's simple.

 

[DoPo]

I like the concept of it, but dislike it because I know that as with most new technology, it'll take at least quite a few years for folks to get it "right", or at least move some of the biggest problems that can/will occur. I do support it, though, since it having continued widespread usage is the only way we'll improve on it.

Erm, the technology is absolutely nothing new under the sun. It's just file synchronisation, something that has been around for decades. It's only "new" in the sense that it recently came into gaming. And it's not really because it wasn't thought of before, it just wasn't needed - people with multiple gaming devices that shared saves were rarer and also there were the Internet issues.

OT: I like it. I love syncing as much data as I can conveniently. Sadly, I only have a single gaming machine, so savegame syncing is wasted on me. But I still support it.

 

[Tharwen]

Hey, it's not the first time I've seen Steam mess up its date measurements:

 

[MammothBlade]

A good sort of backup, especially if somehow my computer fails, but I wouldn't rely on them on a day to day basis, only a contingency.