Filedump
One more rant about GTA IV
Savegames! They are stored in C:\Users\<your username>\AppData\Local\Rockstar Games\GTA IV\savegames and not how you could guess in the games-folder or (what is also just dumb) in your My Documents-Folder.
Seriously: Why do game-developers make so shitty shit? I have my PC configured to have 3 Partitions: System (C:\), Data/Programs/Games (D:\) and Media (E:\). I do not install any app to C:\ nor do I use My Documents. I put all my data to D:\ and Media such as MP3s,eBooks and Videos to E:\. The best way for the developers putting savegames is in the game-folder directly! This will give users the chance to backup their games including all savegames at once.
Now I had to reinstall my Windows (putting back a TrueImage backup) and now my savegames are gone – Even with a full backup of my “My Documents”-Folder where you have a “RockStar/GTAIV” folder in (which I suspected to be my savegames).
I will now stop playing GTA IV. I can’t be arsed to play every fucking mission I did before again (I had about 30-40%), except someone gives me a savegame which I can use (Right after your original house got burned down my Dimitri and his guys).
Edit:
I just found a website, where you can download savegames. But sadly, GTA IV disallows loading savegames not made with your own Games for Windows – Live account. Seriously, what the fuck?
Now I will use a program called “XLiveLess” which removes the Games for Windows – Live and Rockstar Social Club bindings out of GTA IV. This is some sort of a crack. But hey: If they are so stupid disallowing adding savegames, put savegames to arbitrary folders which are getting easily lost after a Windows reinstallation and add copy-protection like SecuRom,Games for Windows – Live and Rockstar Social Club to the game – what do you expect?
Unluckily, XLiveLess disallows me using the Multiplayer mode (the coder intentionally added it to disallow cheating). But I can get around this. I simply have to remove one file out of my GTA IV folder to make it able to play online again (but which will block loading my savegames).
tl;dr Version:
Just a big fuck you at Microsoft and RockStar Games for their inability to make games easy and not full of nagging copy-protection shit which only annoys legit buyers.
I just found out, I can download savegames from here: http://www.gtaforums.com/index.php?showtopic=390264
The mission I was going to start again was Luck of the Irish. Sadly this does not work with the XBox Live Wrapper. And that program only works from GTA IV 1.0.1.0 And in Steam, you only have 1.0.0.4 (At least, that’s what the crash-dialog says for me). Dammit!.
Sorry to disapoint man but luck of the irish is not around 40-50% more around 30% from what I remember…
Well then it was 30%, not that important.
Anyway, I will not play so much again. I have this game now for weeks and enjoyed it playing from time to time. But now everything is gone. I fucking hate RockStar games for their step making such a dumb savegame-system.
And all other games I bought on the Steam-Holiday-Offsale are shit so far. I bought BioShock – Boring. Stalker: Clear Sky. Not as boring as BioShock but still boring. I just hope Crysis is not that boring but in general, I hate nearly every game by now where you run around alone all the time (One-Man-Army).
I’d like to play GTA IV again. It was so genious.
Yeah I love GTA IV too got it on the PS3 and I love it. I’m only at 28% of the game but seriously on console it rocks. I heard bad comments on PC since it came out tho
I got a save game. But i done like 4 – 5 ( small missions ), after the houses got burned up.
Do you want it?
I just found a place where to download tons of savegames.
Sadly, they are ALL unplayable because GTA IV blocks loading that shit due to Games for Windows – Live.
I guess you’ll have to do the missions over again
As GTAIV came out I was thinking if I should buy or “pirate” it. I decided to buy because I though I would have less problems to install the game. Well… I was wrong. A friend of mine pirated the game 2 days after I bought it. It worked without xlive without that fucking social club and WITHOUT ANY CRASHS OR PROBLEMS. And as I tried to create an account at this social club thing it told me that my key is not valid. First I was like “Wat?” I called the support because the e-mail support was too dumb to tell me why my key is “invalid”. The e-mail I wrote them was like that.
Dear support, today I tried create an account at the “rockstar social club” but it gives me an error message that my key is “invalid” I already reinstalled the game TWICE but it doesn’t work.
[TONS OF THINGS THAT PROVED THAT I BOUGHT THE GAME HERE]
I would be glad if you can eliminate that issue.
Simon,[FAMILY NAME HERE].
The answer as I exspected was like that.
Hello Simon [NAME],
BLA BLA BLA have you tried to reinstall the game… “WHAAAAAAAT?!?”.
[SHITLOAD OF ROCKSTAR ADS HERE!]
- Your rockstar support center.
I just was like “Oh, I really didn’t exspect that…” I NEVER played or reinstalled the game after that. I even tried to get my money back but STEAM says no(as usual).
FUNFACTS:
1. My friend was able to play online even without that crappy “rockstar social bullshit”.
2. I wrote another e-mail to the support to complain about totally incompetent support.
Answer was like that.
Dear customer,
because of multiple insults against our employees we BLOCKED YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS.
Please don’t try to contact us again.
- Your rockstar support center.
TL;DR:
Rockstar blocked my emails after I complained about incompetence of the support to validate my LEGIT BOUGHT KEY for GTA IV.
I decided to not to buy any rockstar games anymore.
@WhiteTiger
I found a way around this now, which is called XLiveLess.
Which means you cant go online i guess.
Whenever you finished the missions, and want to start playing, come vs me ;d
yay high at XBox Version where you don’t have either of these problems
@WhiteTiger
Sure. But all I have to change in order to play online is removing one dll file out of my GTA IV folder (and putting it back once I want to play offline again).
@Neico
You don’t get this problem because you already have it. XBox is born with the problem.
This sucks. Still, the most open games are Borderlands and Fallout3. They even allow to modify the weapons, and in Fallout3, you can even add your own places if you want!
WoW, avon I LOVE you (Ojn a non-gay way trough). After installing win7 I couldnt use my saves anymore tho, so I stopped playing GTA IV, but now with ur crack I can play again :3
And meh, multiplayer doesnt work anyway becasue it keeps moaning my Live is not good. Fuck them srrsly.
hmh, the link to the program on the official site is down? Can somebody send me a link to it. 9And then not the one I found with a Trojan in it >:/)
Got it, site link up again. I placed the xthingy.dll in my game dir, but it still sais: Failed to load savegame, please check ur harddrive. Pls help @ mastermind@gamers4life.org
aVoN,
I just found this for you to play every SaveGame.
http://www.gtavision.com/index.php?section=downloads&site=download&id=2602
I didn’t tried it yet, but in the description it says that all online fieatures are disabled to prevent cheating. Try it out if you want and can, but this is the only solution I know. Well okay, there is another…
http://www.gtavision.com/index.php?section=downloads&site=download&id=1285
.. but in this version it’s not working with the newest patch if I read it correctly.
P.S.: The savegames not have to only been created with your GamerTag signed in, they have to be created from the same Computer. For example, I have a laptop and a desktop-pc. On both I am signed with the same WindowsLive-ID. But I can’t load a savegame on my laptop, which is created by my desktop-pc. Annoying but not so bad, it keeps me in training to play GTA IV:
@Col Sheppard
I already stated in my Post that I use XLiveLess.