Documents Folder

[Kethor]

Hello Egosoft Support Team,

I kindly would like to ask, if it is possible to move your "Egosoft" folder in "My Documents" to the folder "My Documents/My Games". Al lot of game publishers writing their content straight to the my documents folder, which makes thing quite messy there. So please, please, please !!!!!!!!! add a /My Games somewhere in your code.

Kind reagrds

Kethor

[Alan Phipps]

Even if they did so (which seems quite unlikely for current games), it wouldn't automatically move the existing Egosoft folder in Documents across to 'my games' and would likely confuse those players not expecting any change as to why their extant games stop loading or stop saving where they expect.

It would also need changes to existing arrangements for saving and backups with distributors such as Steam or GOG which may take longer than expected to implement and may introduce other unforeseen issues from their aspects. I'm also not sure how other OSs might be affected - for example Linux with its lower tolerance of folder case-sensitivity issues than with Windows.

There may also be complications with permissions in the case of guest accounts on host systems, but I'm unsure about that.

I don't really see this as a Technical issue but more of a suggestion, so I'll move it to the gameplay forum where more will see it and comment.

[Kethor]

Well, you gotta start somewhere. They are probably not even aware that this gives some peolpe with a small neatness obsession a real itch

[CBJ]

We can't move it now for X4 without confusing a lot of people and potentially causing problems with Steam's cloud sync. We will, of course, consider the most appropriate location for savegames at the time, if and when we release any new game in the future.

[Daemonjax]

if it is possible to move your "Egosoft" folder in "My Documents" to the folder "My Documents/My Games".

You can just use symlinks to move the folder to anywhere you want. This will work just fine in windows for anything that isn't required at boot time, like games.

google: mklink

[chew-ie]

We can't move it now for X4 without confusing a lot of people and potentially causing problems with Steam's cloud sync. We will, of course, consider the most appropriate location for savegames at the time, if and when we release any new game in the future.

Something truly revolutionary in games would be this:

... the [expert] option to let the user define the path to savegames / game profile folder.

[CBJ]

Again, the biggest issue with doing that would be that it would cause significant problems with the Steam Cloud. Making something like that an "expert" option doesn't really solve the problem; we would still get the blame if an "expert" lost their savegames by fiddling around with their settings resulting in them being deleted or overwritten by Steam!

[jlehtone]

Al lot of game publishers writing their content straight to the my documents folder, which makes thing quite messy there.

You can just use symlinks to move the folder to anywhere you want.

The Documents folder looks "messy", because it has things in it. If you move the Egosoft folder elsewhere, but put Egosoft symlink in its place, then you still have "thing" Egosoft in Documents. Therefore, symlink does not solve OP's problem.

[chew-ie]

Again, the biggest issue with doing that would be that it would cause significant problems with the Steam Cloud. Making something like that an "expert" option doesn't really solve the problem; we would still get the blame if an "expert" lost their savegames by fiddling around with their settings resulting in them being deleted or overwritten by Steam!

Yeah, I got that - my "proposal" also wasn't for solving an / this issue. It'was about a revolution in game design (I'm kind of sick of the all the different savegame locations. On Windows it's either 'saved games', 'documents', 'my games' appdata/local, appdata/roaming, appdata/localroaming or whatnot ... -.-

Al lot of game publishers writing their content straight to the my documents folder, which makes thing quite messy there.

You can just use symlinks to move the folder to anywhere you want.

The Documents folder looks "messy", because it has things in it. If you move the Egosoft folder elsewhere, but put Egosoft symlink in its place, then you still have "thing" Egosoft in Documents. Therefore, symlink does not solve OP's problem.

Aye, document folder is beyond remedy. If it wouldn't mess things up even more it could be renamed in "stuff".

[alt3rn1ty]

~ We will, of course, consider the most appropriate location for savegames at the time, if and when we release any new game in the future.

Ooh, if and when you do :
Please do not use those hidden by default places on the C:\ drive, Users\username\appdata\local or roaming.
I backup My Documents to an external SSD, I never backup anything in appdata. The one time I needed to (No Mans Sky saves), when I was re-installing windows once .. Completely forgot NMS is weird in using that location, and lost the lot.

Its just a weird place to put game saves, and not somewhere you consider for backing up.

[gbjbaanb]

you could easily do this right now.

Game starts up, looks in /My Documents/My Games/Egosoft. If it finds stuff all well and good.
If it doesn't, then it tries again only this time looking in /My Documents/Egosoft.

And if it still doesn't find anything, then its first startup, fresh install like it is today.

You could even go further by automatically moving the Egosoft folder on startup to the My Games folder, should it exist.

[Daemonjax]

The Documents folder looks "messy", because it has things in it. If you move the Egosoft folder elsewhere, but put Egosoft symlink in its place, then you still have "thing" Egosoft in Documents. Therefore, symlink does not solve OP's problem.

Oh, lol... it's the "messiness" of having "things" in his documents folder that bothers him. haha... ocd much?

[CBJ]

you could easily do this right now.

Again, no we couldn't; not without completely messing up the Steam Cloud. This is something we've investigated thoroughly for other reasons, and it is very clear that we can't move the folder now without causing a lot of problems for a lot of players. As I said before, we will reconsider the issue if and when we release any new game in the future.

[AdrianWir]

It irritates me too. Not only in this one game, hardly any game saves in the directory provided for this. A temporary solution may be to hide the folders with game files. I rarely open them, so for me it's kind of a solution. Unfortunately, until all game developers stop cluttering My Documents, this is the only solution I can think of.

[baerdesklopapies]

I do not understand why people getting confused about documents or a documents/games folder., it's just one more klick you have to do and egosoft is not the only one that writes there.

What really bothers me is the fact that a lot of Games/Programms using the documents folder (or documents/games) and bloating up the C: Drive with their gigabyte. There is no reason for that only laziness to not define a save folder inside the the Game structure or the Steam system or somewhere where the player have to expect to have some free space for saves! (Btw. Steam save system is annoying if you need those saves a lot!).

I have a 500Gb SSD for Windows and it would be more than enough if devs would stop using the documents folder for saves. Also it is a DOCUMENTS FOLDER not a Trashcan. I literally can't save my DOCUMENTS there because everyone is using it as a Trashcan .
I have relocated my Windows user folders while installing Windows because of this reason, but a lot of people out there are not aware of this. They bloating up there System with Saved Games and then buying a new PC because their 1 year old Computer is getting slow....

Think about this....and yes i have understood the problem with the Steam Cloud and that a change for X4 would cause a lot of Savegame loss.

o7

[alt3rn1ty]

What really bothers me is the fact that a lot of Games/Programms using the documents folder (or documents/games) and bloating up the C: Drive with their gigabyte.

Erm, if users only have one internal drive, the C:\ drive, then thats the only place they can store save games and settings.
The only people bloating that C:\ drive is the user having more and more games installed.

Otherwise where do you expect the save games to be saved to if you only have one drive?

Personally I always buy a machine that has a second internal SSD, D:\ drive. Thats where games get installed to, and I move the Documents folder to that drive, leaving the C:\ drive purely for the Operating System ..

Screenshot - https://i.imgur.com/lRihLIH.png

An immediate advantage to this is even if you do not backup your Documents to an External drive periodically, if you ever have to do a complete reset and re-installation of Windows on the C:\ drive (which wipes everything on that drive before installing windows again), your documents are still on the D:\ drive afterwards. Games may need re-installing so that they are registered with windows, but all your save games and settings (plus music / videos / pictures if you also move those folders to the D:\ drive) are still safe.
After the OS re-install You just have to once again Move the default Documents location to the existing one on the D:\ drive.

[Cycrow]

I do not understand why people getting confused about documents or a documents/games folder., it's just one more klick you have to do and egosoft is not the only one that writes there.

What really bothers me is the fact that a lot of Games/Programms using the documents folder (or documents/games) and bloating up the C: Drive with their gigabyte. There is no reason for that only laziness to not define a save folder inside the the Game structure or the Steam system or somewhere where the player have to expect to have some free space for saves! (Btw. Steam save system is annoying if you need those saves a lot!).

I have a 500Gb SSD for Windows and it would be more than enough if devs would stop using the documents folder for saves. Also it is a DOCUMENTS FOLDER not a Trashcan. I literally can't save my DOCUMENTS there because everyone is using it as a Trashcan .
I have relocated my Windows user folders while installing Windows because of this reason, but a lot of people out there are not aware of this. They bloating up there System with Saved Games and then buying a new PC because their 1 year old Computer is getting slow....

Think about this....and yes i have understood the problem with the Steam Cloud and that a change for X4 would cause a lot of Savegame loss.

o7

This is mainly because directories outside My Documents are often protected. This is especially true for Program Files which is the default install directory. This means the game can not write files to their own directory without elevated permissions.

My documents also has the advantage of allowing separate save games for different users of the same PC

[Scoob]

Ooh, if and when you do :
Please do not use those hidden by default places on the C:\ drive, Users\username\appdata\local or roaming.
I backup My Documents to an external SSD, I never backup anything in appdata. The one time I needed to (No Mans Sky saves), when I was re-installing windows once .. Completely forgot NMS is weird in using that location, and lost the lot.

Its just a weird place to put game saves, and not somewhere you consider for backing up.

I agree, that's the worst place! I'd rather stuff NOT be written to the C: drive at all personally, the amount of BLOAT I have to clear out periodically from this is a pain. X Games are easy in most regards as they still use "save slots" so it doesn't really bloat that much. I backup saves after every session usually, irrespective of what game it is.

[jlehtone]

What really bothers me is the fact that a lot of Games/Programms using the documents folder (or documents/games) and bloating up the C: Drive with their gigabyte.

Can't you move Documents, Pictures, Videos, Music, and Downloads folders to arbitrary location/filesystem? Yes, you can. The "C: drive" is not a real issue.

There is no reason for that only laziness to not define a save folder inside the the Game structure or the Steam system or somewhere where the player have to expect to have some free space for saves!

Game is under Steam. Steam is under Program Files, which is in C: drive ... (unless one sets up more "Libraries" in Steam).

This is mainly because directories outside My Documents are often protected. This is especially true for Program Files which is the default install directory. This means the game can not write files to their own directory without elevated permissions.

My documents also has the advantage of allowing separate save games for different users of the same PC

The latter part is important. A PC can have multiple users. Hey, I can have multiple accounts. I don't want my files overwritten by my other self.


The "lets save where the exe is" was atrocious concept anyway, because then you were mixing user data with executables. You can reinstall a program, but you have to restore user data from backup. One can dump everything into backups, but why would one? (Some games are way bigger than their saves.)

Besides, "Program Files" is a Windows concept. It is not the Linux Way.

There was (XP or 7?) some "shadow" technology in Windows, where my account saw different files in "Program Files/X2" than your account. An overlay of some sorts that did show my writes (saves) like there were there, but in reality they were elsewhere (hidden in AppData?). Fancy, but confusing.

[Imperial Good]

Honestly, at this stage documents folder is probably more correct than the games folder. So few companies use the games folder and instead use documents that trying to be correct makes you the outsider.

For example Diablo IV, an AAA budget brand new game released after X4, uses Documents root for its folder. Trying to find a game that correctly uses My Games is quite difficult, the only example that comes to my head outside some Microsoft developed games is the Borderlands series.