Topic on User talk:Garrett

I think it absolutely SHOULD be listed, because not everyone knows about it, and it's an issue that directly affects a certain limited number of games (primarily older ones, I assume).

I have a huge library of games, and the only ones with VirtualStore saves were the Silent Hill games, and I don't make a habit of running my game .exes as an admin.

This behaviour will occur with any non-elevated process that writes to a protected location (almost all '90s-era games do this). You usually won't see this with the versions that are sold digitally due to workarounds being included (e.g. Steam modifies the folder permissions). The path template links to the appropriate sections on the game data page to explain the redirected destinations.

The problem is that you should be instructed to run it as an administrator, not the other way around.

That's the proper behavior.

But not everyone knows that *not* running a game as an admin will cause an entire save folder redirect.

Nor will everyone know to click the "<path-to-game>" link on the wiki to learn about it. >_>

Which is why I feel it should be noted on the game article.

True.

But let's just assume this had been pointed out in an hypothetic "generic assumptions" page.

Hypothetic in the sense that we don't actually have one (even though it's not like game data page is irrelevant crap) But that's how you should do it.
It's a burden to mention in every game and especially redundant.

Like I said before, there's only a *select few* -- not every game has this VirtualStore thing, and it's becoming more of a rarity with Cloud saves.

I could argue that creating a wiki to fix PC games is a "burden", so this wiki should not exist.

I mean, you gotta start somewhere, you know?

You say it's "redundant", but redundancy is not necessarily a bad thing. All articles have infoboxes and templates on them, so infoboxes and templates are technically "redundant".

Besides, it's just the Silent Hill articles I'm concerned about. Three articles. That's it. Not a big deal.

It's a burden in the sense that the more noobs are able to read scroll the page (some people have really little attention) the more I'm happy because I won't have to explain they had to read Essential improvements

Redundancy it's a bad thing for visual cleanliness (and we are not an airplane)

Fixes that are intrinsic to game go in its page.
If it's a OS problem or something like that they go wherever else it's more appropriate.

I don't get your point with infoboxes. They are there to help increase contrast of the actual solutions.

And one article or 100 articles it doesn't matter.

I know many could miss this, but that's why <path-to-game> has a link over it..

the real point in the end is that we need that goodamn general "assumptions" page

I wouldn't really say that most have a small attention span, the whole wiki is pretty overwhelming to a new user. To be perfectly honest the wiki should cater to as many users as possible. I'm not exactly sure how to treat this issue at hand though.

It would probably be easier to just write this specific thing onto the game's page, seeing as it's something which is very easy to miss until a better solution can be found.

To be fair it's not really a very general thing, I honestly would have not figured this out myself unless it was listed on the game's page. Redundancy isn't always bad for more specific cases.

It's not a specific case.

Every game which is going to write in protected folders is going to be treated this way.

The same happens with registry keys.

But I'm really not going to trade off consistency. I'm more fine to link game data page, rather than a noob that has lost his focus in the middle of the page and give up

Ah okay, thanks.

To make it perfectly clear here - I'm backing Mirh up on this, and we will indeed not be sacrificing consistency (by placing certain information only on certain game pages), especially not in such a way that would lead to further confusion down the road. We did a lot since 2013 to make it easier to keep all pages equally up to date by not pointlessly duplicating information, and having little details, such as path redirection, kept on all pages is what leads to issues.

Not to mention a VirtualStore path being misleading to those who install games to a different location, therefore not running into the issue at all.

However, it should not go unmentioned that our long-term and ever present goal is to improve readability and accessibility for all users, in both editing and using the wiki - and ideas are always welcomed on this front. In this particular case, I have a few exciting ideas and solutions for this that I'll be introducing on the wiki in the coming months, and I believe they will do a lot to aid new users.

But please, do not hesitate to present any ideas if you believe they are the better solution - we also hang out in IRC if you'd like a more relaxed conversation, and I'm also usually available elsewhere (via any of the options listed on my user page).