Defining the concept single player "game session"

[Baker]

I still think the user-friendliness of Quake sucks. Within the context of strict id1 Quake on the id1 maps, the user-friendliness is ok.

Going outside this, the user-friendliness is terrible. And it doesn't matter if there is a Quake Injector or that mod switcher inside of DarkPlaces.

Let's say I save the game ...

... And the quit and later restart the engine. How do I get back to what I was doing? In a game dir supporting engine, you could switch the gamedir and load the game (maybe).

What if it is a mod? What if you changed a server cvar or some such thing to get the game rules the way you wanted them? This gets a bit complex in the sense that things like "maxplayers" could be a factor. Then again, you'd think that limiting such important cvars should reasonable be limited to server cvars:

* maxplayers
* deathmatch
* coop
* samelevel
* those other miscellaneous ones (teamplay and what not)
* sv_ anything
* savedsetting1, 2, etc.

What if the "game" isn't gamedir'd? What if it is an id1 custom map set like IKSPQ?

I'm not saying I have the answers to all of this, but I am working on the concept of resuming what you were last doing and trying to figure out how to define this.

Factors at a minimum: gamedir, sv_progs setting, map with vague things like cvars out there.

Also asks the question, to complete this right ... I'm thinking the engine should automatically save your game on exit if sv_active. But what if the player is dead? Is there really a reason a save can't be forced to be saved if the player is dead?

[behind_you]