[Suggestion] It is OK for New Updates to not work with saved games

Without question. I'll start a new game anyway, even if you can play your old saves (wich I think is very unlikely with the amount of changes)

It's not an MMO so persistance is really no consideration at all.

Come to think of it, I haven't actually finished a game, yet. I was in a winning position several times already but I knew I had won.
Why bother going through the moves and roll over the helpless AI?

Same here, I never won a game. Closest I got was running around with Sarog (the dragon from the quest) and pretty much one shotting anything, so that got a bit boring and I started a new game after the first save crash I got

Yes, it would be mostly OK with me. But Impulse should have a "Warning Pop-Up" before downloading and installing the update. Like "Previous savegames will be incompatible with this version of Elemental. Do you want to continue?".

The ... I think it was 1.06 (or was it 1.05) update felt a bit like a sneak attack if you hadn't been up to date reading the forums. ("Hey, why aren't my savegames working anymore?") You had to read the patch-notes on your own before (!) clicking on "update" to know what would happen.

So yes, it's basically OK, but there should be a clearly visible warning pop-up.

Rabenhoff

I don't understand how it's not common gaming knowledge that patches generally invalidate old game saves.

I dunnow about that though... I mostly play rpg's, and it would be pretty damn annoying if you had to start over after 30 hours ingame because of a patch But in this game, the fun is starting a kingdom and exloring/expanding so it's quite different.

I suggest it to be OK if the manual will become irrelevant.

I mean, we want some aspects of the game to change dramatically, and if the changes do not comply to what printed manual says (I do hope there is a printed manual, expecting my box in a month or two), then duck the manual, I suggest

Stardock is such nice a company (no kidding here) that they might try to preserve compatibility.

Players do feel it and feel obliged to say "It's OK, Stardock, don't mind this detail, focus on the gameplay"

Same in GalCiv.
When your fleet has reached the critical mass and the enemy's "main fleets" are crushed, you are just snowballing across the galaxy.
Lots of clicking with no challenge left. Yay.

A few times I played for the Metasomething score but that was far too painful for wanting to do that ever again.

The length in hours of  WOM / GC  games is so far shorter than a "real" RPG that it's hardly compareable.
Like wanting to save your progress in a game of chess. =P

I believe it is Stardock's goal to maintain compatibility across versions.  The only reason 1.06 "broke" previous saves is because Stardock was getting support tickets with save files from the beta, so in order to create a clean slate, they simply hard coded it so that previous saves wouldn't work in order to force everybody to start a new game.

This is common in pretty much any strategy game with AI opponents: they don't give up no matter what.  Maybe someday someone will design an AI that is able to recognize when it is hopelessly outmatched and sensibly concede defeat.

In my more recent experiences with updates it is exactly the other way around. Mostly the developers of a game try nearly everything so that savegames do not become invalid ... or that in general past time spend with the game does not become dead weight.

So the industry standard seems to have switched pretty much to "savegame compatibility" over the last years ... and rightly so in cases of games where you spend several hours / days / weeks on one particular game. But I can agree that it has still been different a few years ago.

The shifted standard would also then explain, why every time compatibility cannot be guaranteed, you see (more or less) lengthy apologies by the companies ... or at least by those that care about their customers.

Rabenhoff

PS And as to the manual ... what manual? I would not call the pdf file that came with Elemental a manual, as it explains nearly nothing. More a booklet. A manual is something different. However, I then would also expect updates to a manual for any software that's mostly distributed online ... but so much for being realistic.

Personally, I like it when my old saves work.

When I was playing Civ4, or any Civ for that matter, I usually kept old saves, and often checked them or showed them to friends who played Civ.

Still, I think it would be ok, but only, and once more only, if it was new "big" patch that changed gameplay drastically. You know, something like 1.1, 1.2, or 1.3, in no way if it was some bug-fix thing like 1.0X/1.1X or similar.

I disagree with this as a matter of principle, this game is time consuming and not at all 'casual', I want to invest my time on something that won't be garbage in the next patch or two. I think it's very important the save files are retained throughout patching if at all possible. At the very least if it must be done, please warn us so we can finish our current games.

I really don't care about my save games. I'll play far more after the final version is released than i will before, so i'd hate for temporary problems to stand in the way of the ultimate quality of the game.

Why don't you just stop investing time for a month or so?

I fully agree with the OP.. If save games work fine.. but if not due to fixes forge on.. each game i start although similar still presents new challenges.. I cant wait for AI to start surprising me .