While I fully expect Valve to fix the glitch post-haste, it does remind us that the Cloud is by no means perfect, even if it is undeniably useful in many situations. (Not to pick on Spotify and Netflix, mind you, it’s just that those are two of the bigger Cloud-based platforms right now.) What happens if you hold a Halloween Move Night and fire up Netflix only to find that their servers are down? Hope you still have a DVD or Blu-ray player handy. If your hard drive melts down and you didn’t back up the files that’s your own fault.īut at least you’re in complete control of the situation. That local collection will always be where you can find it, and it’s up to you to back up the collection as you see fit.
Now, if instead of relying on Spotify to listen to Some Album you had a local collection of MP3s. But what happens if something goes wrong? What happens if you try to log in and there’s no server there at the other end of the connection? You’re doomed, that’s what.
When you log into Spotify, you trust that you’re able to listen to Some Album without any problems. You’re trusting that Big Company’s servers will always perform as advertised, and that everything will be all right forever. In situations where you’re relying on the Cloud, you really are relying on the Cloud. It’s just that this time the bugs materialize because of interactions with The Cloud. Incidentally, the glitch will come as no surprise to people who are familiar with Obsidian-developed games such as Fallout: New Vegas: expect bugs, and lots of them.
(Normal saves don’t appear to be affected, only quicksaves, and then not all of the time message board posts are filled with conflicting information, that sometimes the quicksaves are overwritten and sometimes they’re not.) Obviously this is merely a glitch in the way Steam’s servers interact with the game-workarounds already exist in lieu of a proper solution-but it serves as a cautionary tale of sorts: beware the Cloud. What’s happening now is that, as the game launches, it syncs with Steam’s servers, which then appear to overwrite any quicksaves that are present. The idea itself is sound: your local game saves are mirrored on Steam’s remote servers, so if anything should happen to your hard drive, your game saves will always be safe and sound on Valve’s big fluffy Cloud. The Steam version of the game makes use of Steam’s new ability to sync game saves with The Cloud.