Well than i call for a full refund than, if they cant fix the problem and want to do the blame game i want my money back. It just shows their not as talented as they seem to be if they cant do a proper port for the ps3. Maybe they should ask Rockstar for some help at-least they know how to make the ps3 version not have such crappy frame-rate issues in their games.

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.

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

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.

Didn't realize they had so little control. But I agree, fixing the problem completely would be expensive.

Same... wonder if Bethesda asking for my saves and info on the issue was just to make it seem like they were doing something... if they knew all along, that is. Please GOD prove me wrong =P

HaHA!! svcks for all who got the Collector's Edition LMAO... Wait, that's me /facepalm

HaHA!! svcks for all who got the Collector's Edition LMAO... Wait, that's me /facepalm