Truth pieces starting to show up...Disappointment mode for the next patch is on

Why can't I just leave well enough alone and focus on school? Haha. Well, having a moment to take a break, I don't think this spells doom for the PS3 version of Skyrim. Bethesda's mistake was in making too many persistent references—permanent dragon corpses, cleared dungeons, etc.—that can easily be switched over to temporary references. Gamers dont need much of the world to "remember", and in fact would rather have it the opposite way. Dungeons, movement of random objects in towns/overworld, creature spawns, creature corpses etc. should all be switched to temporary references (not how the game was prior to patch 1.2, although some of it was fixed such as the dragon corpses) and, in fact, more work needs to be done. Some of the issues are obvious coding errors such as the "ash bodies" issue I alluded to in "Memory Leaks Confirmed." Ash bodies should not, for any reason, be a permanent reference. These sort of things needs to be cleaned up.

Equally, the retention issues I investigated with the help of other forum posters (thank you all again) including vendor retention, menu retention, reputation retention, etc. all need to be cleaned up as a type of pseudo memory leak. If the retention is not, in fact, a memory leak but a coding mistake as permanent reference over temporary reference (or a combination thereof of memory leakage / reference mistakes) then these too can be cleaned up for enhanced performance. Thus, cleaning up the retention concerns, switching many permanent references to temporary references with a garbage collection rotation of approximately 7 days to 1 month (depending on the reference), etc. should stabilize the PS3 to a point where we don't experience lag.

That is, of course, a temporary fix... This will stabilize the game, but Bethesda needs to work on fixing the general processing of the Creation Engine to optimize the system for PS3. Afterwards, what was made temporary instead of permanent references should be flip-flopped, the game should slowly make its way to equality with the Xbox 360 and PC versions.

Thus, I make a two-part proposal to Bethesda:

Stage 1: Reduce the features of Skyrim in limited respects by switching permanent references to temporary ones with a 7 day to 1 month garbage collection. Clean up the coding mistakes that result in retention over save files (vendor, menu, item, reputation). Lastly, reduce miscellaneous performance where necessary to stabilize the engine for use by the PS3, so gamers can enjoy Skyrim-Lite if you will.

This buys you time for stage 2.

Stage 2: Rewrite the Creation Engine to optimized for the PS3 platform. Recreate temporary references into permanent references, bring back the full-fledged features of Skyrim as they were intended and stress test the PS3 as you bring back the old features as intended. With proper optimization over the XDR and DDR3, you should have an engine that runs efficiently on PS3.

Now, I understand your position, Bethesda. The new console generation is maybe a year or two out, and if I had to bet my bottom dollar, you are working on an entirely new proprietary engine that scraps any reference of Gamebryo. While that is certainly fine, it doesn't help you in the current situation. Gamers remember getting f----ed by the industry (looking at you EA) and while you can slowly rebuild your image, this is not something you want carrying with you to the PS4 (which I would imagine will have good sales penetration, since Sony refuses to make similar mistakes of this generation). Do yourself a favor and don't alienate the PS3 fans now which will necessarily foreclose healthy sales of fans remembering your treatment on your titles released on the PS4. You owe it to the loyal fans to correct Gamebryo (or Creation Engine if that's what you want to call it now) and make perhaps the final Bethesda title of this console generation right. We accepted the faults of Oblivion, Fallout 3, and FNV, but enough is enough. Resources in rewriting Skyrim for the PS3 may be expensive, but none more expensive than losing the PS4 fanbase who remembers your treatment and silence.

Being in law school, I've learned an important concept that isn't particularly law related that I think you, Bethesda, should heed: clients hate being left in the dark, they hate thinking lawyers see themselves as elitist and beyond the authority of the client. By your making fun of the backwards dragon glitch, by your making light of the issues and concerns of the fanbase, and by your flat out silence on the possibility that Skyrim on the PS3 is truly in a dire way needing substantial overhaul, you both insult the intelligence of the fanbase and you instigate disfavor which will bite you when a viable alternative presents itself (Kingdoms of Amalur perhaps?). Transparency is the best policy here and no fan will leave you if you are honest about the issues and appear sincere in an effort to correct mistakes. Everyone screws up, its how you handle such screw ups that determines whether others will forgive you.

Come clean, inform the fanbase of the situation, and try a collaborative approach at solving the issue rather than a silent one.

-SKBlank

In true, English Parliamentary fashion.... "here here!"

Now that was Epic (Insert Epic Music Here)

I don't want to be too pessimistic here, but the way Bethesda rolls is they will go halfway through Stage 1, release DLC, try to fix DLC, be somewhat successful at that and then call it a day. I just don't see them rewriting and optimizing the code for a dying console generation. I think it's fair to say that Skyrim was most likely their last game for this generation and the next Elder Scrolls/Fallout will be made with a brand new engine eventually. By the time this happens a lot of people will once again put their trust in Bethesda that *this time* everything will be fine. Like a lot of us did when hearing Skyrim will roll out on a new engine as well. Any loss of the fanbase is going into calculation and will to a large degree be cushioned by old and new gamers being blinded by the shiny new graphics and falling for whatever promises they'll be making then. If Beth has but one really strong point, it's their PR machine.

I hate Bethseda.

I get the feeling Bethesda doesn't like me much these days either. I seemingly have forum user support (and some media support thanks to N4G and EGM) and the moderators don't like me throwing out legalese to you guys... Haha. In absolute truth, I really do love Bethesda and will always be a supporter of them myself. I've been playing their games since Daggerfall. Todd Howard, you hit me up with an e-mail and I'll share my conflict management notes with you on how to solve these issues... I wouldn't trust your shoddy PR guy, what's his name again? DCDeacon? (that's honesty speaking).

If I could encourage any of you to remember one thing I say, it would be to not hate Bethesda themselves. Todd Howard is a fantastic game designer and many of the people at Bethesda are probably great at their job. The problem is more of a corporate pressure on said developers. Even if Todd wanted to make things straight, he'd have a problem getting the board to agree to spend money rewriting the engine. Truly, developers don't have a whole lot of control of when things get released, how much money to spend fixing issues, etc.

EDIT: Equally, Todd has zero control over what the PR-issued messages are related to patches/fixes/concerns. The best we can do is express our findings, frustrations, whatnot and hope that he and his staff will come through for us. Seriously, remember that Bethesda (the studio itself) doesn't have much more control than to fix bugs when told to and create products that pump out money.

If this whole fiasco has proven anything it's laws to protect consumers against faulty software need to be made or enforced because companies shouldn't be able to make money this way.

That's disappointing.

Uhuh... And how do you feel about Bethesda?

Not that Obsidian isn't battling with their own demons but it really makes you wonder just how often they've run out of time (KOTOR2) or just plain been handed an awful engine/toolset (New Vegas) or both.

Consumer rights concerning software were removed when software companys used sharing, I mean piracy, to persuade ignorant law makers in to protecting their property. Under law we don't puchase a product, we pay for a license.

The memory issue would be fine, everything getting remembered down to the last detail forever and it would have worked fine on the PS3, no need to change the code or the engine, Just have all the visuals in 8 bit graphics.
60fps forever. Nice.

Would have looked ugly, but there would be zero refunds or legal complaints.

I call bs on any theory of this engine being inherently incompatible with the PS3 . Oblivion never had this issue on the PS3... EVER. My Oblivon saved data file, after a couple hundred hours, still is at roughly 4 mbs tops and the issue never manifests. I've no doubt this is related to the way the engine fundamentally works, but 4J Studio excellently combated the issue with Oblivion. Can Bethesda really not match that competence years later?

This svcks.. I use to have an XBox and that's what I started Morrowind and Oblivion on. I purchased on ps3 expecting minor issues with this type of open world game, not it being broken. Traded my Xbox in for the PS3 for when I got Dark Souls.

I really feel ripped off and have no desire to continue this game on PS3, seeing how I know what's to come the more I play. They knew it was going to be an issue and avoided giving reviewers a ps3 copy.

Beyond pissed. If they would of done it exclusively to 360 and PC then I would of preordered that, because they do release great games. What is infuriating is that they know it is an issue on PS3 and release it anyway. If it was coded similarly to New Vegas which was never fixed then they would of foresaw this. Only reason to do this is because they knew they would profit and get away with.

Will be a while before I can enjoy this game now, seeing how I have to save up for an XBox and find a used copy of the game.

It doesn't explain why Skyrim plays good to start with after the "faulty" save file is loaded, but then gradually gets worse and worse.
If it was the answer then if you get bad lag in Skyrim, and then save your game, when you turn off the PS3 restart the game and load your last save from when it lagged it should instantly lag and be unplayable.
But this is not the case.
It might be part of a resource issue, but something else is also happening to make the game go bad performance wise.

Frustration, disappointment, et cetera. Bottom line: I won't be buying another Bethesda game, not for the PS3, or any other platform for that matter. Not so long as they're running on this game engine.

At least someone's finally tried to explain it. Now it makes a little more sense why Fallout 3 falls apart with the DLC added.

Seti18, that is a very good point... Maybe if they just hired 4J to re-release Skyrim for PS3, this whole thing could be behind us quicker ;p

#inafantasyworld

He's very right about this. The disconnect between the creative side and the management side can be pretty pronounced, depending on what company you work for. It looks like it's really pronounced at Bethesda.

I'm in PR myself. I would say "Don't blame Pete Hines, he's just the messenger," but really, the guy is the VP of PR and Marketing. I've worked for governments and power companies, and the way this has been handled goes against the grain on everything I've ever seen about how to handle a crisis situation. Really shoddy.

On another note, SKBlank, can you link me to the EGM article? Didn't see that one yet.

So basically, we're screwed. Thanks Bethesda...

This has actually been said over and over on these boards and it makes logical sense. It would give a good reason as to why people who rest for 30 days straight seem to have improved framerates for awhile, since dead people are disappearing. From a hardware standpoint it makes 100% logical sense that less memory fills up faster /shrug.

However, I dont understand why they cant get in there and alter the ps3 version so that dead bodies disappear and dungeons reset sooner. Let me keep my junk in my house, reset dead bodies the next day, I dont really care. I

I suppose doing that could link a whole slew of quest problems though.

What sort of bothers me is that they knew about this from the beginning, you would think they would of made the ps3 version drastically different in some ways to make up for the hardware differences. I guess it goes back to them insisting on releasing all 3 versions at the same time. If they had release the ps3 version on 11/11/12 it just wouldnt have sounded as good, and of course sales wouldnt be nearly as hot.

It's pretty well known that console players are suffering with many problems in Skyrim, most notably PS3 owners.

The point is that there is no excuse for the massive amount of bugs and glitches, especially their "memory" restraints on PS3.

The game was made on X360 then ported to PS3 taking no advantage of any of the SPU's. How can they come up with an excuse? Rockstar is known to make game worlds just as massive as the Elder Scrolls games and the X360 and PS3 versions are near identical. This is just a cover up by Bethesda, no footage has been shown prior to the release of Skyrim for PS3 just X360 and it's obvious Bethesda focused on X360 version over PC and PS3.

I suggest asking Rockstar for some advice. Red Dead Redemption is near identical on both platforms and the land mass is larger than Skyrim as well AND it runs exceptionally well on both platforms.

I think some sort of discount or free DLC should be offered to X360 and PS3, especially PS3 owners.

Finally some answers. But not from Bethesda of course, and I bet they're angry at Obsidian now. Lol.

Bethesda must have known about this after Oblivion, yet they went on to create the Fallouts with the same problems and didn't even fix it for Skyrim. That's bad. Even if it would have taken them six months to fix they should have done it -- in the end I think they will lose out from not doing it. Many people know about these "bugs".

They should suffer a loss in reputation and $$$ from this. That's the way to make sure this stuff won't happen again.

Yes, potentially $700,000,000 or more over the holidays would have been worth waiting one more season for, to get the bugs sorted out, even if third party intervention was needed.

I didn't know that that's nice to know though so thanks for the info. It's just to bad we don't have the ability to fix things ourselves on the console like you can with the PC version of games to bad we don't have any PS3 software kits that run on our PS3's.