Might seem like a dumb post, but I wanted to hear what you guys think. We all know about the problems that are occuring with the PS3-version of Skyrim.

? Do you think Bethesda knows about this problem? Do they read this forum and if so, do they forward it to the team?

? If Bethesda doesn′t fix it, what do you think the consequences are going to be?

? Why havent Bethesda released any official word on the problems here at the forum?

? What is the best way to make Bethesda actually do something?

? Do you think Bethesda is sweating right now because of all the negative press surrounding the release of skyrim? (Bugs, FPS-dips and problems overall)

? If Bethesda doesn′t fix things, what will you do?

[Note: I love Skyrim and this topic was not created to bash Bethesda just because. The game has serious performance-flaws and I really hope that a patch is released soon.]

[Note 2: Please keep a civilized discussion, no need to use profanity. This thread is not made to bash Bethesda, but rather to discuss the problems the PS3-version is having as of now. We are all hoping for the issue to be resolved!]

Yes they will fix it.

The game hasn't been out one week.......remember that.

of course they know about the problem, unless they have no testers whatsoever, they must have known about it before release.

Lets be honest here, they ONLY advertise the Xbox version on TV, not even a mention that its also on the PS3, I'm close to thinking they are making shoddy ports on purpose to entice us to switch platforms.

The game had 5 YEARS to be developed and tested PROPERLY. What you and Bethesda say like "calm down its only been 3 days", is nothing short of an insult!

They had the time to fixe the [censored] game. They had time to test and ensure the quality of the PS3 version. But they just didnt give a f...k apparently. Just as they dont give now since they are not agkowledging the problem with lag. For the texture thingy on their beloved 360 they were fast to go out and agknowledge it and promise to fix. Here they dont even give us that.

So all that crap about "its been only XXX number of days, relax" mean nothing to me. It only shows lack of respect from them and insults our intelligence...

Well then, by all means, consider your intelligence insulted.

A company does not just say, "Well we COULD fix this, but it's on the PS3 that we are having the problems, so [censored] them, am I right guys? Haha!"

That depends in the country you are... example... here in Portugal is Sony land, and all multi platform titles are only advertised for PS3 (Games being advirtised here now on tv are Fifa 2012; Pro Evolution Soccer 2012; Battlefield 3 and Uncharted 3... and some more i dont remember now) all these only show the PS3 box of the game and in the end the playstation logo. Who makes the advirtisemants are not the gaming companies, are Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo marketing ppl. Microsoft here advirtises very little, only near christmas u see something from them, and Nintendo usialy focus on advirtisint the consoles or wii fit.

I think they do know about the problem- they've said so to many media outlets and on this forum as well.
I'm not going to either defend or bash Bethesda. On the one hand, they make great, engaging, immersive games and bugs and problems are to be expected. On the other hand, fixes for bugs and problems, if widespread and crippling enough, are also to be expected and were not forthcoming with Fallout 3 GOTY, Fallout New Vegas, and Fallout New Vegas' DLC. On the other hand, Bethesda may not have acted on FO3 GOTY (or Obsidian on FO:NV) because they did their research and simply felt that the problems experienced were among the minority of PS3 gamers and it was not worth it to fix for that minority. On the other hand, they may have found that FO3 GOTY problems were not occurring among a minority and decided to keep as much of that cash as profit and run away with it. I had some problems with FO3 GOTY and FO:NV, but I still enjoyed the game, despite. I was angry with Bethesda and let them know, but purchasing those games were worth it to me once the price reached a certain point.

The same may go for Skyrim. On one hand (god, I sound like tevya from fiddler on the roof) it seems like they knew about this, knew it could be widespread, and didn't release the PS3 version for review copies to reviewers, hoping to hide this problem. On the other hand, they did release this game on a Friday, raising the chances that PS3 gamers would have more time over the weekend to wend their way through the game and thereby encounter this problem.

We just don't know what happens or happened at Bethesda, whether they knew about this problem or not, whether they did know and found that it affects only a small % of the PS3 installs or not, etc etc etc. We can speculate, but we simply don't know. We don't know if they playtested the game all the way through, allowing this to pop up, or if they QA'd it in chunks, without allowing the save file to build up. Heck, we really don't know if they ran into this at all. We don't know if they built a new engine from the ground up and didn't expect to find this, or if they simply upgraded Gamebryo. We don't know if they did notice a FPS drop but only could replicate a drop to 20 FPS, and deemed that "acceptable" in such a huge game. If indeed they f#cked up in the coding and QA process, am I really expecting them to announce to the world, "hey guys, we all f#cked up royally"? Not I (look at Toyota). What I am expecting them to do is announce they are aware of the issue and are working on trying to fix it, which they have done. That may not be a popular sentiment here, and please feel free to disagree. But this is my take on the situation. I may be wrong, but I don't believe that viciously flaming Bethesda, name-calling, empty threats and the like will likely spur them to action. The story is out there already. There is negative buzz all over the interwebs about what should have been a triumphant release. The market will move its invisible hand to allow the best outcome under the circumstances. Can we be angry and upset? Definitely, and we should let them know our displeasure. But I don't think we should bite too strongly the hand that feeds.

The bottom line for me? I don't know what they did or what they knew. The only thing that I can know, plain as day, is that they've acknowledged there are issues in performance with the PS3 and the Xbox 360, that they are working on fixing them, and that they will announce something when they feel the time is right. I'll sit tight, play my game, and reserve judgment until then.

1) Yes, I would say Bethesda knows about it. And I would also venture a guess and say yes, they do read the support forums a good amount, and I'm sure the team gets updated frequently.

2) Hard to say for sure. People love class action lawsuits, so I wouldn't be surprised if it went that direction.

3) Damage control. When dealing with situations like this, you have to choose your words very carefully. No matter what they say, it will be interpreted many different ways. People will make assumptions, try to spin it, etc, etc. It could make matters worse from a PR stand point. Like I mentioned in my own thread, I'm sure there are employees of Bethesda that would love to post here and chat with us about it, and keep us updated as to how a fix is coming, but, they simply cannot.

4) I think the wheels are already in motion. As more and more players cross the line into lag territory, it's only going to get worse for them. Best thing anybody can do is post that you're having trouble.
Do you think Bethesda is sweating right now because of all the negative press surrounding the release of skyrim? (Bugs, FPS-dips and problems overall)

5) I would assume they're feeling the heat. Part of me worries that we may not even see a fix. I'm not going to go and say that they had to have noticed this bug in their game testing, but it appears to be a pretty nasty bug that's impacting many people. Part of me wonders that maybe they did notice it in their QA testing, but simply ran out of time to fix it. I have a feeling they were forced to release on 11.11.11. The corporate/business side of Bethesda probably held them to the 11.11.11 date, despite the fact that only 2/3 of their ports were playable.

6)Hard to say for sure. I have a PC that is more than capable of running Skyrim at max settings, but I'd prefer to play it in my living room, sprawled out on my comfy couch, with my big screen TV and 7.1 surround sound system. I've been thinking about buying a 360 as well, so, if the PS3 version remains crippled, it might be time just drop some cash on a 360 with Skyrim. I don't think that's a reasonable solution, it's simply what I'd be prepared to do if I felt it necessary. I know I paid for a copy of Skyrim on PS3, but if it's never patched and working well -- that's the reality, that it won't work as intended, and I'll have to get a PC or 360 version.

Well, maybe we should have known about the said problems in advance so I could have given them the money when the time was right, no?

pffft

Where's my "Like" button???

well there is a fast way to find out if anybody reads this..

write a post full of words your momy would not let you say..

Can't argue with you there - I'd tend to agree. But the reality is that right now, we have a game where people are having problems, they have acknowledged them and stated they are working on them, and that is what we know now.

I don't think we shouldn't be angry and displeased, we should be very upset! But the tone of that anger and displeasure needs to be tempered in such a way where we get results. If I was one of 1M people that bought a product that was, to my eyes, defective, and called up CS to discuss it, wouldn't I get farther if I firmly and distinctly made my displeasure known in a straightforward, somewhat courteous manner, than if I screamed "YOU ARE ALL THIEVES NEVER WILL BUY FROM YOU AGAIN YOURSELVES YOU'LL NEVER DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT DUMBASSES"?

I'm not saying that you are wrong - yes, if they knew about it, we PS3 owners most definitely should have too. We should be very angry. But there's a way to go about complaining in order to get results. It's not by demonically pounding pitchforks on pavement, demanding Todd Howard et al be dropped into a boiling vat of oil...

What you're saying is basically that all criticism must be in a form, or another, constructive... especially for the devs. I agree with that. But I'm willing to take a wild guess and by looking at their sales numbers, not one patch is going to fix this. They got what they wanted and that's how business runs today, sadly.

I can get past the lying about all versions being the same, I can get past the muddy/blurry graphics of the ps3 version, I can get past minor/funny bugs that are expected in this type of sandbox games, but I can't get past an unstable, unplayable game bought with 60$ of my hard earned cash (in this day and age, it's hard).

If they resolve this problem via a patch, and in short time, Bethesda can be redeemed, at least in my eyes. If they don't, well... they're obviously going to lose a lot of sales on their upcoming games. I will make sure that happens.

Pete Hines update on twitter:

tcoertjens Tom Coertjens
@DCDeacon How can you say that "most PS3 users don't experience it"??? How wuld you know that...? Or are you trying to diminish the issue?
5 hours ago

DCDeacon Pete Hines
@tcoertjens Because we have folks playing it, hear from folks like the last tweet I replied to that say "no probs here". We'll keep looking
30 minutes ago

ErikWithNoC Erik
@DCDeacon @tcoertjens Do you even visit your own forums? They are filled with tons of PS3 users experiencing save game problems.
11 minutes ago

Pete Hines
@ErikWithNoC @tcoertjens Yes. We are aware of the # of people with issues, their reported issues, and total # of PS3 owners playing Skyrim.

A "we are sorry for the inconveniences, trying to fix asap" would of helped... let's play this waiting game then.

Excellent answers here.

I would add in for #3 that there would be a variety of reasons that they wouldn't promise anything directly. First and foremost, they may not be sure if it's something that they can fix. And as bad as you look releasing a buggy game, you look that much worse if it's a year later and the fix that you announced you were working on still hasn't been released. There may also be some legal liability concerns. If you do a mea culpa and say, "We realize we put out a game which really doesn't work for that platform" you've pushed along any future class-action quite a bit. That said, I think avoiding the issue is a pretty poor way to deal with it from a PR standpoint. Silence speaks volumes and people will make their own narrative on what you're doing in the absence of you telling them what it is that you're doing.

AGREEEEED

Correct, and very good points. I'm not certain that they're avoiding the issue though. They (Pete Hines and co.) did acknowledge the issue and say something about attempting to fix it.

I will say though that they are being cagey about it and are delving into PR-speak instead of plain language - possibly for the very reasons you brought up. This shouldn't surprise us; yes, this is *sigh* the way big, mass-market business works these days...

I agree with you 100%.

Quote: " A company does not just say, "Well we COULD fix this, but it's on the PS3 that we are having the problems, so [censored] them, am I right guys? Haha!" "

.

Most companies dont give a damn about the consoles nor the player. They just care that their product is sold.
Prove can be found here:
http://trenchescomic.com/ a comical blog where people in the gameindustry can leave their horrorstories anonymously.

Dont get me wrong there are a lot of companies that are very community involved. Epic comes to mind and so do a lot of indy game devs.
Not so sure on companies like capcom, ubisoft, EA..
I just hope beth publishes an open letter telling us they are sorry and doing anything in their power to solve the issues.
And if they are really community involved they would also offer a full money back for people that dont want to play skyrim anymore.

Yes they know about it.

Yes they'll fix it.........IF THEY CAN.

No they will not spend huge amounts of money/time/resources trying to fix it.

No they are not sweating about the 'bad press'.

Yes, at the end of the day, Beth have always demonstrated a lack of support for PS3 fixes but why would they care, you've already paid them for the game.

svcks I know but it's the business as usual for Beth.

Yes, Bethesda Devs do read these forums. If you see in the list of members on this board, and spot someone with a (I think) blue username - that's a Dev. (I suspect they also log in with a guest account, quite often, as well.)

I also see that Gstaff and Nick have a pinned topic up at the top of the sub-forum. You'll want to check that for any updates. They tend to prefer to wait before saying anything official about specific changes or progress on a patch until it's absolutely confirmed, however. (For example, as annoying as it might be to have to wait with no idea of how long until the next patch - it'd be even worse for everyone if they were to say they were hoping to have something out by a certain date, and then to have that pushed back by various factors.)

Thank you for clarification. Yes, I know how PR works and that it would be worse for them to talk about a date just to make us feel better, and then not actually meeting that deadline. My angle on this is that Bethesda and it′s affiliates (PR & Marketing) are doing a terrible job on keeping us informed. Sure, Pete Hines is responding via twitter (with very vague answers), but I have yet to see an official apology regarding the absolute inexcusable way of managing this problem.

Bethesda is a large company and have been working on several AAA-games throughout the years, and releasing a broken game (yes, it is unplayable for a very large amount of the PS3-gamers) is a total disgrace. Also, the fact that they have not officially recognized this problem (the framerate issue) is unacceptable.

And please, tell the people who are responsible for this to post here, and NOT on twitter. This is the official forum, and it is here where the problem became known.

We do need a bit of calm.

The PS3 version looks good, apart from arguably the shadows.

The lag is the big thing, and given the number of people mentioning this, it is inconcievable they won't be working on this right now.

I know some people are hopping mad, but hang in there, I am confident they will fix this.