How To: Use Multiple Saves For Online Games

A step-by-step guide for how to manage multiple online saves, for those times when not all your friends are online at the same time.

Scope And Aim Of This Guide

This guide is written for one purpose and one purpose only - to let users manage multiple online saves. Me, I have plenty of friends I love playing games with, many from differing time zones - the US, UK, Europe, Australia, all over the place. It's a given not all of us can be online at the same time. And that was my first and to-date biggest disappointment with Talisman: Digital Edition - that only one online save at a time was permitted, meaning if you couldn't finish a game in one sitting, you either had to start over the next time, or tell your other friends "nope, can't play with you until I've finished this other one". However, there is a way, and it's not too complicated! And that's what this guide is for - showing you exactly how you, too, can play multiple games with your friends.

Requirements

There are some requirements and remember-me's that you should keep in mind when following this guide. You will need the following:

• Talisman: Digital Edition (obviously)
  
• A multiplayer game (again, obviously)
  
• Access to the "Roaming" folder (which may or may not require an administrator account)

There's also some things worth remembering about this method:

• Every player (that wants to continue the game later) will need to follow the steps in this guide
  
• This is best done just after closing Talisman, lest you forget
  
• When moving the .cloud file around, your levels, experience points, runestones, and single player saves will be affected. To fix the first three, you can at any point go to your Profile, then Leaderboard, then Refresh. For the single player saves, merely copy over your most recent .cloud file when you want to load a single player game. Thanks to Don Julio for pointing these side effects out.

The Guide

So, you've just had to stop a game part-way through, and want to continue playing it later, but without limiting yourself in regards to playing with others? Let's get started then!

You'll want to begin by opening your Roaming folder. It's easiest to access this via the search bar:



Just type in "%appdata%", then either hit Enter, or click on the "Roaming" folder found.

Next, find your Talisman folder within it, and the .cloud file within. Copy that.



Next, you'll want to paste it somewhere where you can keep a list of backed-up save games. It can be anywhere on your computer, but I recommend making a file structure for it, naming each folder for the participants and/or date and time. Then, simply paste your .cloud file into your backup folder (either via right-click and select "Paste", or using the keyboard shortcut CTRL+V), and you're golden!



To go back to any saved game you've previously backed up, just follow the guide in reverse - go to your backups, copy the one with the online game you want to continue playing, go to your Roaming folder as described in the beginning of the guide, find Talisman, and replace your existing .cloud file with your previously-saved one via paste. And that's all there is to it!

Again, remember that everyone in the game needs to jump through these hoops in order to manage multiple online saves. If you backup your save games and your friends do not, if they play another online match between your sessions YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO RESUME THE GAME WITH THEM. Either point them to this guide or explain to them the steps they'll need to take, and save game worries should be a thing of the past.

And remember, friends don't let friends play Philosopher. ;)

Credits

I would like to take the opportunity to credit the Steam user "Amber", who was the one who confirmed that local file backups could be used in this fashion.

Ending Note

I would like to end this guide with a small note regarding the lack of multiple online save games in the game itself. Based on the responses I've seen, both to others and to myself, from the development team, the lack of multiple online saves does not seem to be a deliberate design decision, but rather a limitation on the technical side due to how the save system and particularly the quick-resume functionality of the online component is coded. While I've not been able to ascertain whether a proper online multi-save system is in the works or not, or is even being considered, we should not discard the hope and the idea that the game might natively support multiple online save slots in the future. This guide is not a solution, but a workaround.

Should the day come when multiple online saves are a thing included in the base game, I will most likely delete this guide as it will hold no relevancy at the time, or at least make a large note that following the guide is unneccesary. Until that point, however, I hope this short "How To" guide will enrich and promote playing this game online, with friends, the way it's best enjoyed.

Thank you for your time.

[Jigain]

Updated the Requirements section to take this into account.

[Jigain]

Affirmative - however, if you wish to regain your level, simply go into your character profile, click the "Leaderboard" button, then click "Refresh". All your levels will be awarded to you again, and you'll even be allowed to re-select your runestones.

[Don Julio]

Most interesting and useful! Many thanks for your work!
A question though: Isn't the .cloud-file where your goals and levels are stored, too? Wouldn't you switch (back) to another level each time you switch to another .cloud-file in your Talisman-folder? A confirmation that this is _not_ the case would be nice.