Bethesda admit to knowing the game was broken before release : V - Skyrim

» Tue May 22, 2012 12:19 pm

Just wanted to point folks to the http://kotaku.com/5885358/why-skyrim-didnt-play-nice-with-the-ps3Kotaku put up

[UPDATE: After this story ran, Bethesda dropped me a line to clarify that, while they knew the PS3 could have these memory issues, they did think they took care of them in time for release. In a statement, a company rep said: "The team knew the PlayStation 3 version could run into a "bad memory situation" and they coded solutions that they felt would work – and in their tests the solutions did work. Post release a "small percentage" of users were still experiencing issues where it couldn't keep up, and the team is working hard on solving it."]

Our team believed they had resolved the "bad memory situation" with fixes implemented before the game's release. We also recognize that "a small percentage" can still be a significant number of people. And regardless of percentages, we're doing everything we can to fix reported issues.We want you to have the best experience possible with the game.

Wow, even they're totally misreading the original article. What's wrong with people. THe IGN article says...

That's part of the reason we wanted to clarify. This specific interview was only with Kotaku's Stephen Totilo.

» Tue May 22, 2012 2:19 pm

If Todd Howard honestly believes that only a handful of PS3 players would experience issues then it explains everything. Even at the most basic level of programming experience it is patently apparent that if you have the exact same software running on the exact same hardware and you're having issues on one instance then the potential is there for the issue to be present in all instances. If the head of the studio somehow believed that magically only a small number of people would experience a massive design flaw then that shows how such a flaw was allowed to remain, the man at the top either doesn't understand how programming works or else simply didn't care about the quality of our experience, only the colour of our money.

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No truer words have been spoken as long as I've been on these forums. I applaud you. For the rest who are still defending Bethesda, after having read the above post (in its full form), I have no words to describe how sad your situation is. Being a follower of something is one thing; being a blind fanatic of it is another.

» Wed May 23, 2012 2:31 am

It doesn't say that though. It says there foresaw the problem and believed they'd made enough changes to stop it happening. Then that post-release they saw a "small percentage" of players experiencing the problems have been working to fix it since.

Like I say, whether you think that's all bull or not is up to your own point of view, but that's definitely what it says. That's how it reads to me, and there's been a clarification paragraph added since that spells it out even clearer.

Wow, even they're totally misreading the original article. What's wrong with people. THe IGN article says...

"...The intention, he goes on to explain, was to fix the game post-release, after developers noticed problems and were unable to tweak the code enough to solve them in time for the planned release date on 11th November last year."

But nowhere in the original kotaku article does it ever say this at all.

IGN must have been where I got that understanding from then.

» Tue May 22, 2012 8:09 pm

Dude, I've been here since day one of the game. I catalogued the issue and was the first person to tie actions taken (quests, dungeon delving, exploring new town, dragons) to the game problem. Here's a thread I made on November 19th, just 8 days after the release: It's entitled, "Only certain actions increase the save file" http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1281304-only-certain-actions-increase-the-save-file/page__fromsearch__1 The save file serves as a sort of canary for the problem. Rapid increase in save file = rapid increase in memory consumption.

The 1.4 patch is the FIRST patch that actually solved the problem for most of us.

If your system is still having trouble, then we need to figure out why. Perhaps your hdd needs defragmented (do you play a lot of demos on it?), perhaps space needs to be cleared out (I'd recommend at least 10GB to always have around on your ps3), perhaps there's something else that you haven't deleted yet?

That being said, I've noticed some problems people are having with starting a completley new game. I wonder if they didn't introduce a problem with that? Maybe first time players of the game should follow similar steps to people who have been playing the game. Because patch 1.4 IS still rewriting code. If we had to load an existing game, save, reload, wait, save again then maybe new characters need to do something similar or the patch causes issues...?

Excuse me if my last comment was a bit hard. It's due to frustration and I hope you can understand me.
I'm not having any problems with my other games, I don't play demos and my disk space is about 190 Gb.
The last night I lost a lot of progress because again my game froze and I dare not turn on auto save because Bethesda has not ruled on the matter.
My situation is: I don't feel comfortable with the game because I do not know at what point it will freeze wasting my progress and having to reboot again.
It's not my system, it's due to a broken game.

» Wed May 23, 2012 4:56 am

Just wanted to point folks to the http://kotaku.com/5885358/why-skyrim-didnt-play-nice-with-the-ps3Kotaku put up

Our team believed they had resolved the "bad memory situation" with fixes implemented before the game's release. We also recognize that "a small percentage" can still be a significant number of people. And regardless of percentages, we're doing everything we can to fix reported issues.We want you to have the best experience possible with the game.

That's part of the reason we wanted to clarify. This specific interview was only with Kotaku's Stephen Totilo.

Is the "small percentage" ever defined in any way? I haven't met a single person in real life who isn't having this problem. So far my real life consensus is 100% of people are affected by this.

» Tue May 22, 2012 3:19 pm

If Todd Howard honestly believes that only a handful of PS3 players would experience issues then it explains everything.

Todd said "a small percentage" of players. There are millions of people playing Skyrim, so a small percentage is still a lot of people. Regardless of percentages, we want to fix as many issues as we can.

» Tue May 22, 2012 11:43 pm

Is the "small percentage" ever defined in any way? I haven't met a single person in real life who isn't having this problem. So far my real life consensus is 100% of people are affected by this.

I really, really don't want to come off as a Bethesda apologist, but . . . my brother borrowed my disc (I was having serious problems with scripts, but no lag) and he played for over 100 hours with no problems.

We have very different playstyles. He grabbed a one-handed axe and started mowing things down as an Orc warrior. I eventually wound up duel-wielding swords, conjuring Daedra and shooting lightning at people. My game encountered problems, his didn't. I don't think we can safely assume that "100 percent of people" were having the lag problem. I've also heard from many people on this forum who have said that their games are working fine. Sure, some of them might be trolling, but all of them?

» Tue May 22, 2012 10:48 pm

Todd said "a small percentage" of players. There are millions of people playing Skyrim, so a small percentage is still a lot of people. We want to make as many fixes as we can.

Hands up who really believes this 'small percantage' stuff? Regarding the Gstaff finally interacting with fans regarding the lag problem, I appreciate that.

» Tue May 22, 2012 4:12 pm

Hands up who really believes this 'small percantage' stuff? Regarding the Gstaff finally interacting with fans regarding the lag problem, I appreciate that.

I believe that between 20 and 40 percent of people were encountering this problem. Now, do I define that as a "small percentage"? No. But it isn't 100 percent either.

» Tue May 22, 2012 8:51 pm

Excuse me if my last comment was a bit hard. It's due to frustration and I hope you can understand me.
I'm not having any problems with my other games, I don't play demos and my disk space is about 190 Gb.
The last night I lost a lot of progress because again my game froze and I dare not turn on auto save because Bethesda has not ruled on the matter. My situation is: I don't feel comfortable with the game because I do not know at what point it will freeze wasting my progress and having to reboot again.
It's not my system, it's due to a broken game.

That's understandable. You have every right to feel that way. I stopped playing after patch 1.3 started causing freezes and only restarted after 1.4 was release and people were having their problems solved. I have personally been helped by the patch.

What we need to figure out is if a new player is expected to take special precautions when starting their game. For example, are you supposed to make the first possible manual save and then restart the system, wait for ten real minutes and then save another manual save and restart one more time? I don't know. I think that may be expected since the code is practically being rewritten. I don't know if I should recommend doing that or not, since I wouldn't want to waste your time.

But trust me that due to this patch, most of us aren't having crippling freezes any more. Look at my 1.4 statistics page, most people are better off, not worse. With that in mind, we have to figure out what's wrong with yours. It could be anything, down to the disc itself.

» Tue May 22, 2012 5:20 pm

I really, really don't want to come off as a Bethesda apologist, but . . . my brother borrowed my disc (I was having serious problems with scripts, but no lag) and he played for over 100 hours with no problems.

We have very different playstyles. He grabbed a one-handed axe and started mowing things down as an Orc Warrior. I eventually wound up duel-wielding swords, conjuring Daedra and shooting lightning at people. My game encountered problems, his didn't. I don't think we can safely assume that "100 percent of people" were having the lag problem. I've also heard from many people on this forum who have said that there games are working fine. Sure, some of them might be trolling, but all of them?

I expect magic users to have a harder time.

That being said, I was saying that my own personal experience has been 100%. I've studied statistics, my sample size isn't random and it isn't large enough. That's why I'm asking the Bethesda rep what they mean by a "small percentage", a term that is extremely subjective. Heck, 49% could be considered a small percentage when compared to 100%.

» Tue May 22, 2012 11:41 pm

I really, really don't want to come off as a Bethesda apologist, but . . . my brother borrowed my disc (I was having serious problems with scripts, but no lag) and he played for over 100 hours with no problems.

We have very different playstyles. He grabbed a one-handed axe and started mowing things down as an Orc Warrior. I eventually wound up duel-wielding swords, conjuring Daedra and shooting lightning at people. My game encountered problems, his didn't. I don't think we can safely assume that "100 percent of people" were having the lag problem. I've also heard from many people on this forum who have said that there games are working fine. Sure, some of them might be trolling, but all of them?

We're doing whatever we can through blog updates, tips, tweets, pinned threads and the like. We can't be everywhere at once, but we are definitely aware of the issues being reported and we're communicating with the team what you guys are saying.

Speaking of interviews, here's http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2012/02/16/bethesda-knew-about-ps3-skyrim-issues.aspx one Todd did at DICE last week.

» Tue May 22, 2012 10:32 pm

We're doing whatever we can through blog updates, tips, tweets, pinned threads and the like. We can't be everywhere at once, but we are definitely aware of the issues being reported and we're communicating with the team what you guys are saying.

Speaking of interviews, here's http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2012/02/16/bethesda-knew-about-ps3-skyrim-issues.aspx one Todd did at DICE last week.

Don't get us wrong, this 1.4 patch has been amazing. Look at this 1.4 statistics thread I started here.

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1347720-14-statistics/

The vast majority of responders have noted an improvement in their gameplay. Less than 7% report no difference or worse performance from the patch and that may correspond with the more than 10% of users who did not follow the patch installation guidelines.

I'm just curious as to how many users this is actually affecting? What were the odds that I was impacted by this? I just want to know what "small percentage" means here. Numerically. If you guys even know, may not.

» Tue May 22, 2012 2:48 pm

I don't have official numbers to share... sorry.

» Wed May 23, 2012 1:00 am

I don't have official numbers to share... sorry.

I completely understand, I come from a business background and understand how you might not have the numbers in yet or be unable to publically announce them.

Thank you for your response.

» Tue May 22, 2012 11:30 pm

All I want is for skyrim ps3 to be exactly like the 360 version. I want near constant 30 fps at least, like the 360 and I don't think that is too much to ask for.

Give me near constant 30 fps and I can overlook the somewhat "blurry" textures.

Oh and please eliminate the frame drop zones......like the one outside of morthal, the swamp area.....I get repeated frame drops when running around that area. When I leave that swamp, no frame drops. If I turn around and enter the swamp again the frames drop.

» Tue May 22, 2012 10:57 pm

As an Xbox 360 user, I can say that I haven't experienced any of these issues, with well over 120+ hours played.

However, it should be inexcusable that a problem was forseen prior to the game's release, and it wasn't 100% fixed. If Bethesda was producing cars and not games, one problem affecting a "small percentage" of people would result in massive recalls and could potentially damage the consumers. No car manufacturer would ever take that risk. The same care and meticulous inspection should apply to creating a game.

It's unfortunate that this happened, and the only way to make sure that this won't happen is by being loud and having your voice heard, i.e. "the squeaky wheel that gets the grease". I'm not apologizing for them in any way, but at least they came out and said they saw a problem and are actively trying to fix it.

» Wed May 23, 2012 12:52 am

We're doing whatever we can through blog updates, tips, tweets, pinned threads and the like. We can't be everywhere at once, but we are definitely aware of the issues being reported and we're communicating with the team what you guys are saying.

Speaking of interviews, here's http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2012/02/16/bethesda-knew-about-ps3-skyrim-issues.aspx one Todd did at DICE last week.

We appreciate the communication, but honestly, it's been a long time coming.

I'm not so naive that I think you should have come out and said "yeah, we knew this might happen" after people started encountering problems. It's a tough situation. But I think you can appreciate why people are pissed off, especially in light of the fact that your developers KNEW this could happen to people. After reading through the coverage and quotes I understand it became a much bigger issue than the devs initially thought it would be, but how about some serious testing next time? Bethesda has an inarguably bad reputation as far as bugs and glitches go. This whole debacle sure didn't help.

» Tue May 22, 2012 4:38 pm

This has gotten some press attention:

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/121/1218881p1.html

I love the first comment of that article

makes me smile (unless they delete it grr >=[ )

» Tue May 22, 2012 12:43 pm

without a video proof of him actually saying that or something written of official bethesda website it can be just false.
like if i write somewhere: Todd Howard on a recent interview said "Screw you PS3 users"

» Wed May 23, 2012 3:37 am

without a video proof of him actually saying that or something written of official bethesda website it can be just false.
like if i write somewhere: Todd Howard on a recent interview said "Screw you PS3 users"

He said it. Note Bethesda didn't come out and say "he didn't say that!!!" They came out and said the quote was taken out of context.

» Wed May 23, 2012 3:25 am

I understand why everyone is angry, but the "If Bethesda made cars..." argument has been way over played. This isn't a car. We're not in danger of dying if it malfunctions. The fact is that this is just a video game, albeit a broken video game that we purchased like it wasn't broken because we weren't told otherwise.

» Wed May 23, 2012 4:45 am

without a video proof of him actually saying that or something written of official bethesda website it can be just false.
like if i write somewhere: Todd Howard on a recent interview said "Screw you PS3 users"

"Somewhere" != biggest gaming sites. I'm sure they wouldn't risk a hoax that would ruin the site's reputation, not to mention a shared hoax between sites.

» Tue May 22, 2012 7:50 pm

"Somewhere" != biggest gaming sites. I'm sure they wouldn't risk a hoax that would ruin the site's reputation, not to mention a shared hoax between sites.

As was noted, Bethesda corrected what was said, indicating that this interview happened.

» Tue May 22, 2012 10:15 pm

Has anyone tried e-mailing Bethesda about a refund to avoid legal matters? I was thinking of contacting my lawyer due to the fact that they knew the game was broken on release. They say that it's the way people play the game that causes the issues but on the back of the game case it clearly says "a complete virtual open world for you to explore ANY WAY YOU CHOOSE.