Real patch release dates and bug targets : V - Skyrim

» Mon May 21, 2012 2:12 am

wow really? with modification that engine can be used for fallout or something, and acutally make a game that works out of the box,

» Mon May 21, 2012 2:43 am

The PS3 version of RAGE also has the worst texture pop-in of any of the platforms.

» Sun May 20, 2012 5:09 pm

Honestly, i know the PS3 hard freezes if you play more than 4 hours at a time on any game, But it should not be freezing on every other loading screen. ever 30 - 40 mins.

» Sun May 20, 2012 9:39 pm

Very well said dar′istrali!!

Glad to see that still there are people like you in this forums.

People should learn from post like yours and don′t be quiet!

Everyone has rights that Bethesda has forgotten.

» Sun May 20, 2012 3:43 pm

Ok, the holidays are over.

I still don't have a working game and I have not even heard a loose timeline to fix the plethora of issues.

I'm still not sure why the PR machine has to lock http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1327954-lag-not-fixed-in-14-sorry-guys/page__view__findpost__p__19970866, but I'm going to ask what will certainly draw some speculative answers anyway.

Have we any idea what is going to be fixed in 1.4?

Afaik the answer is no, which is ridiculous. I can't understand how a supposedly professional software development team can work without setting bug priorites. At this point, as bad as the issues on the PS3 are Beth should be open to contracting a third party to come in and clean up there crap. In that case you would certainly develop a statement of work and a timeline.

It is not acceptable to me that the game is SO much less capable on PS3 than the Xbox. We were flat out told by Bethesda that the PS3 was getting 'a ton of attention' - this no doubt in response to their previous debacles, I mean releases, on the PS3.

For the pro-Beth apology team, I don't care that they have released 3 patches already. They were all pretty much useless. The PC mod community has done more meaningful work on Skyrim so far than Bethesda's own staff.

And before somebody comes in railing about 'oh the complexity blah blah blah' well that my friends is what unit testing is for. If they are engine specific problems then those should certainly fit within Beth's test harness.

Finally, why do I want to know when the problems will be sorted out? Well I'd like to stop loading the broken game up and wasting my time looking around the web for fixes. I deserve at least that level of respect after having thrown my money at your flawed product.

So I want to know:

1. When will I get consistently > 20fps in skyrim?

1.b. And when will I be able to keep 20 fps in riften with a character who has > 80 hours game play.

2. When will I not have my PS3 freeze while playing skyrim?

3. When can I re-enable all the autosave options in skyrim?

4. When will Skyrim's stop dropping controller events? (Multiple presses in dialog or menus)

I think these are reasonable requests. I think these are all sufficiently reproducible that they should be flagged as URGENT bugs in your bts. As such there should be some timeline for there fixes.

I've noticed that using the 360. I've had to press the button multiple times to get a npc to respond even after the consversation has started. I thought it was my controller malfunctioning. It never occurred to me it could be an issue others were experiencing.

» Mon May 21, 2012 1:50 am

I doubt they will release anything specific concerning what they're working on. They'll throw out a comment about fixing lag issues but not exactly what they're doing to fix the lag.

They'll attempt to fix a bug. If the bug is fixed they may say something about it before 1.4 is released and include the fix in the patch notes.

Explaining specifics before they attempt anything is foolish.

» Sun May 20, 2012 4:34 pm

The PS3 was released in November of 2006. If you, Bethesda, have not figured out by now how to program for this system just stop trying. It's been 5 years. 5 years. If you don't get it by now, please just stop.

This is why so many people are so frustrated including myself.

The ps3 is NOT a new console.

» Sun May 20, 2012 10:55 pm

I doubt they will release anything specific concerning what they're working on. They'll throw out a comment about fixing lag issues but not exactly what they're doing to fix the lag.

They'll attempt to fix a bug. If the bug is fixed they may say something about it before 1.4 is released and include the fix in the patch notes.

Explaining specifics before they attempt anything is foolish.

No, this is software development. It's not (supposed to be) software hacking.
)
In development we collect user input, create product requirements and specifications. Subsequently prioritize those and parse the work out among resources available. If inadequate resources (due to volume or skill) are available we either a) don't do it or

postpone it.

At any rate a professional development team by now should have a good working plan on fixing these issues. The potential fixes should even be rated regarding likely impact overall.

If you're just hacking code together then you dive in with no plan or timeline.

» Sun May 20, 2012 9:08 pm

Call me naive, but I thought Bethesda's response to that locked rumour thread seemed reasonable and they did acknowledge fixing the PS3 was one of their highest priorities.

4. When will Skyrim's stop dropping controller events? (Multiple presses in dialog or menus)

Heh - for some reason I thought that might have been my controller, despite Uncharted 3 playing flawlessly throughout! Good to know other people were having that issue too (as well as the whole-console freezes too) and that I am not alone... As long as it gets fixed :-)

» Mon May 21, 2012 2:51 am

As http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1322016-holiday-update/ before the holiday, resolving issues being reported on PS3 is a high priority for us. We're working on these fixes in the 1.4 update set to release this month.

Can you at least confirm which of the many issues reported are being worked on. Pete's post was quite vague as is every other statement. It should also be noted that the PS3 community is naturally distrustful of Pete Hines following some of the stuff he said during pre-release for Skyrim. Such as "the PS3 is receiving a ton of attention" and "the PS3 version is on par with the other two versions, frame rate, fidelity, performance, all on par" thanks to anolysis from the likes of Digital Foundry we know these to be lies and have citeable proof for that.

Also see the statement following patch 1.2 that claims to have fixed the PS3 performance issues and the explosion in the PS3 issues forum following that statement saying that the patch either did nothing or simply bought a little extra playtme before the issues returned in full force.

Please confirm which of the PS3 issues are being treated as priority in this and ongoing patches, is it just the frame stutter that has been well documented since launch or is the overly frequent full system crashing also being looked at?

» Sun May 20, 2012 7:15 pm

As http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1322016-holiday-update/ before the holiday, resolving issues being reported on PS3 is a high priority for us. We're working on these fixes in the 1.4 update set to release this month.

You are just avoiding answering the question. Will 1.4 fix the lag? Pretty simple question. If you can't or won't (which is how it appears) answer that question, it seems fairly clear that 1.4 won't fix the lag. Why can't you just be honest and answer the question clearly, instead of giving ambigous answers to cover your back?

Until the updates have cleared certification, it's hard to say what the final changelog will be or exactly when it will be released. Rest assured, we're tracking comments in this forum and elsewhere on the web to make sure we're addressing as many issues as possible.

Absolute rubbish. you are implying that you are going to change what is in the patch after Sony certify it? Bethesda must know fine well what is in the patch by now, and certainly must have a fair idea of whether there is a fix for the worst issues (i.e. lag, freezing). Are you honestly trying to tell us that nobody really knows?

The thread in question was closed because it focused on a rumor that's inaccurate. As mentioned, we're working on fixes with 1.4.

Yes, you'll happily mention you are working on fixes,. What you won't do is actually answer the question. Will 1.4 contain a fix for the lag issues. You're refusal to answer this speaks volumes.....

» Mon May 21, 2012 12:03 am

Call me naive, but I thought Bethesda's response to that locked rumour thread seemed reasonable and they did acknowledge fixing the PS3 was one of their highest priorities.

Sorry mate, but when customers are voicing their concerns, locking the thread (aka refusing to listen to your customers) is not a reasonable thing for any company to be doing.

Take the criticism. Communicate with customers. Fix the product. That is what a reasonable company would be doing.

» Mon May 21, 2012 3:14 am

I will go out on a limb here and offer a bit of speculation as to why you may not be seeing any release notes for 1.4. 1.4 from what I gather is a massive data patch. With as much stuff as they try to cram into it, all of it may not work, or it may affect other aspects, as did a previous patch.

If all of it may not work, it shouldn't be released. If it affects other things, that should be discovered and rectified during QA testing of the patch. There simply are no excuses. Unfortunately, the gaming industry (as a whole, including the customers) needs to catch up to this. I work in the software industry myself, and I can tell you that if my company would ever release a product this unfinished, we would be out of business.

They are trying to get things right. Unfortunately they cannot fully test these patches on every single persons PS3 that plays this game. So they may have aspects of the patch that will not pass cert, so therefore cannot issue concrete info as to what will be in the patch until it passes cert.

What should or should not pass cert should be pretty crystal clear for all PS3 developers 5 years after the console has been released. If it is at all even possible to enter a grey area where you create something that may not be approved, it should simply be deemed a non-viable solution and another solution that is viable should be pursued. Furthermore, as other posters have pointed out - they only need to test it on a single PS3, and if they want to be really thorough they can test it on all the various PS3 models. It's standardized hardware. There is no "Well, it might not work on YOUR particular PS3"-argument to be made.

With a game of this magnitude it is going to take time.

That time should have been spent prior to release of the product. Again, there simply are no excuses.

» Sun May 20, 2012 4:34 pm

That time should have been spent prior to release of the product. Again, there simply are no excuses.

You nailed it from my perspective. I doubt, myself, that Bethesda released the game with any evil intent to defraud customers; I imagine it was more of a "God I hope this works" thing where they sent the PS3 port out into the world with their teeth-gritting and their fingers crossed. Sadly, they lost that bet. And now it feels like they are just throwing things desperately against the wall to see what sticks (the patch negated elemental resistances? Really?). And you're right that the playstation is a closed system--unlike a pc which can have drastically varying specs from one machine to another, there are few variations within the PS3 system. That is actually why I prefer console games to PC games--they tend to be more reliable. Silly me.

And as I've stated elsewhere, I hope Sony comes down hard on Bethesda for the damage to its brand. It's inexcusable (altho equally inexcusable on Sony's part licensing something of such obvious inferior quality). Hey, we don't suppose this was some evil plan on the part of Microsoft???

» Sun May 20, 2012 8:19 pm

Honestly, i know the PS3 hard freezes if you play more than 4 hours at a time on any game, But it should not be freezing on every other loading screen. ever 30 - 40 mins.

either you have a faulty ps3, or your playing it in the worst ventilated place conceivable.. ps3 never freezes after any amount of gameplay on a properly working game, and a properly ventilated ps3..
skyrim only frooze on me twice in 113 hours of play, and that was after 1.2 (lag/stuttering is a different story though)

@Gstaff
can you give a straight answer, is 1.4 specifically going to attempt to fix the slide-show framerate issue that develops anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour and a half after playtime on a large savefile(8mb+) ?

» Mon May 21, 2012 3:06 am

What if Bethesada put a certain fix in for 1.4, announce that the certain fix is in to us then two weeks later they find just before it is to be released that it causes another bug? So they remove that certain fix from the patch...

IF they announced the certain fix and then pull it massive outroar by the community occurs...

So what they do, as with ALL developers is work on fixes and WHEN ITS READY they announce whats in it...

Jeepers its not rocket science...they can't comment on particular fixes UNTIL they have confirmed its in the release patch...AND AT THIS MOMENT they do not know that yet...

» Mon May 21, 2012 3:11 am

You nailed it from my perspective. I doubt, myself, that Bethesda released the game with any evil intent to defraud customers; I imagine it was more of a "God I hope this works" thing where they sent the PS3 port out into the world with their teeth-gritting and their fingers crossed. Sadly, they lost that bet.

Yeah, I don't think there is any evil intent behind it at all (unless you equate money with evil). It's just standard gaming industry practice (which the consoles actually were excluded from for years, due to the fact that it's been near impossible to patch console games in the past).

The main reason: the almighty $, and in this particular case the oh-so-cool release-date being more important than releasing a quality product.

» Sun May 20, 2012 3:49 pm

@Gstaff
can you give a straight answer, is 1.4 specifically going to attempt to fix the slide-show framerate issue that develops anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour and a half after playtime on a large savefile(8mb+) ?

They are working on it..THEY DO NOT KNOW yet if that particular fix will be in 1.4 but they are working on it...try understanding it from the developers point of view...if they say to you "YES" and at the last minute it causes more issues and they remove that fix from patch 1.4 you are not going to be happy...they will only announce what 1.4 will fix AFTER they have had it approved by Sony.

BUT they are WORKING on it...

» Mon May 21, 2012 12:55 am

What if Bethesada put a certain fix in for 1.4, announce that the certain fix is in to us then two weeks later they find just before it is to be released that it causes another bug? So they remove that certain fix from the patch...

IF they announced the certain fix and then pull it massive outroar by the community occurs...

So what they do, as with ALL developers is work on fixes and WHEN ITS READY they announce whats in it...

Jeepers its not rocket science...they can't comment on particular fixes UNTIL they have confirmed its in the release patch...AND AT THIS MOMENT they do not know that yet...

They don't know what will be in the patch yet? No idea at all? Yet they say this will be coming out in January? With Sony taking a couple of weeks to approve the changes?

They must know by now whether they have been working on the lag and think they have a fix or not. Yet instead of giving a straight answer, they keep [censored]ting, like the response by GSTAFF in this very thread.

Just answer a straight question with a straight answer.

For example, an answer might be "We've identified 4 issues that are causing PS3 to lag. We have fixes for x and y will be in 1.4, and we don't have a solution to problem a and b yet so those are unlikely to be fixed in 1.4. Anyone who is unhappy with this should contact ...... if they wish to receive a refund or an exchange."

That would be a reasonable thing to say. The current stance of "we'll release patch 1.4 at some point in January and it may or may not address the issues you are having" is not really an acceptable response IMO.

» Sun May 20, 2012 9:35 pm

They are working on it..THEY DO NOT KNOW yet if that particular fix will be in 1.4 but they are working on it...try understanding it from the developers point of view...if they say to you "YES" and at the last minute it causes more issues and they remove that fix from patch 1.4 you are not going to be happy...they will only announce what 1.4 will fix AFTER they have had it approved by Sony.

BUT they are WORKING on it...

Looking at this from a developers point of view. If I had problems like that with software I'd written, I would have been in fixing it during the christmas break, due to embarrasment at the **** up I'd made. And i'd be able to comment on whether a fix was looking likely or not fairly quickly.

» Sun May 20, 2012 8:18 pm

I'd take a decrease in graphical fidelity if it meant lag issue was erased/seriously improved upon.

The game would still retain the quality it obviously has. I know not everyone will agree though.

» Mon May 21, 2012 3:47 am

Could you be any more ambiguous?

What issues? Lag, freezing, fixing autosaves? Prepping it for DLC the way 1.5 (or 1.6) screwed up FONV?

Sorry, I find this hard to believe. Even FOSS projects give better road maps than you do. And often those are for products < 1. We are your paying customers, and this sub-forum in particular represents the most beleaguered segment.

You owe us better than this, I don't want to hear 'the PS3 is a high priority' you told us the PS3 was getting 'a ton of attention' before the game was ever released.

Whjy the hell should anyone 'rest assured' gstaff? Because of Bethesda's spotless record fixing problems with the PS3? Are you seriously reading the crap you write?

I deserve to know when your company (that already has my money) will fix things.

I am an engineer, and I do write code, if I ever released a product this shoddy I would be a hell of a lot more open about the process.

Your company has a proven track record of not giving a damn about our segment in particular (go read the FONV and FO3 forums), so pardon me if a few particulars might be more comforting than your ambiguous statements.

Ou yeaaahhhh!!!!!!GREAT REPLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

» Sun May 20, 2012 12:52 pm

I'd take a decrease in graphical fidelity if it meant lag issue was erased/seriously improved upon.

The game would still retain the quality it obviously has. I know not everyone will agree though.

that shouldnt be needed since i played without issue for roughly the first 50 hours, leave the graphics alone and fix the route cause, savefile issue(memory leak ?)

if they nerf the graphics.. what will that do ?, free up some cpu or gpu headroom , what ?.. will that free up extra ram or not ?, at best nerfing the graphcs might keep the issues at bay for alittle longer.... fix the route cause or its pointless...

» Sun May 20, 2012 6:01 pm

Until the updates have cleared certification, it's hard to say what the final changelog will be or exactly when it will be released. Rest assured, we're tracking comments in this forum and elsewhere on the web to make sure we're addressing as many issues as possible.

we are aware of that, what we are asking for is a little more detail, for example

team a - is working on game stability(the lag)

team b - is working on quest fixes
[i]paarthanax quest bug
[ii]blood on ice quest not starting
[iii]quest items remain in inventory
[iv]companions qeustline(no more dialog options etc...

team c - is working on graphical errors

team d - is working on creation kit(for pc)

team e - etc etc etc

and at the very end place a disclaimer stating the above list is subject to change before or during certification and release so if team b couldn't fix the xxxxx quest-line before release at least people could see its still a work in progress.
would something along these lines really be so hard to do???? all we want is communication, not 1 statement a month followed by mods quoting it over and over again. proper up to date updates.this "were working on it" is really wearing thin. http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Bugs_(Skyrim) this is a pretty big list of bugs to be working on, a little clarification on which one's is NOT too much to ask

» Sun May 20, 2012 4:25 pm

I find it VERY hard to believe Bethesda wasn't aware of all these problems with the PS3 version of Skyrim, prior to selling it to the public. I REALLY feel sorry for those that spent $150 for the PS3 collector's edition of Skyrim!

This patch better fix all the freezing and extreme lagging issues that's plagued the PS3 version of Skyrim since day 1, or else I'll start a MASSIVE petetion to demand PS3 owners that purchased this game a FULL refund! And is prepared to issue a lawsuit, if need be!