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.

Knowing what's in the patches will not do anything good.

They don't know for sure what's in the patches until just before it's released, there's probably things that they were planning for the next patch that'll have to wait until later because they can't get it done in time.

Telling us what they're planning would just lead to too many complaints along the lines of "Why isn't the patch fixing this?" or "Why did you say the patch was going to fix this when it didn't?". It's easier if they just keep quiet, it's not like telling us is going to change anything anyway.

Wrong, telling me the lag fixes will be rolling out until 1.9, which won't be released until at least May would have made a HUGE difference for me 30 days ago, when I could have returned my copy. (edit - preceding statement is purely hypothetical)

And telling me that its going to be another 4-5 months from now would tell me I can forget playing my game until then.

Finally, if they have to absorb some complaints about whats not fixed, well I don't really care. Besides, they are going to get grief about things being broken anyway.

Personally I believe that, as OP said, gamesas should contract a third party to clear up their mess with the PS3. Either are incapable of coding for the PS3 or they're too lazy... either way they should get to work on fixing the PS3 code or as previously stated hire a third party. Also, The PC mod community is more capable then a well established company, wow that says a lot. Might as well have the mod community patch our games for us. Finally, gamesas needs to thoroughly test their games... How can someone not encounter these bugs when testing.

At this moment, I would be happy with a firm answer on whether 1.4 will address freezing/lag.

It should be phrased like this. "Patch 1.4, which will be submitted to Sony in January or February will resolve game freezing when loading a new area or pulling up a menu."

I can live without autosaves for a while, but to constantly have to hard boot my PS3 every 20 minutes isn't acceptable, or fun, in any way. I want to love this product. Heck, my first 80+ hours, I was telling myself that this was the best TES game I've ever played. It went downhill quickly, and is becoming my biggest letdown this generation.

They will never say when the lag fixes will be. it will come with an patch note that states: game play performance stability improvements. Or something like that. For people having serious lag issues, you may never have a 100% fix, I would say 70% at best. You will still get lag no matter what. They would need a complete game overhaul to fix this issue, and that will never come. It can only be "improved".

It might get people to stop talking about the lag and other issues if they would just let us know. Even if they gave us a two month window it would be much appreciated.

I can deal with improved. Hell, I would be tickled with a 70% increase of reliability. Broken quests? Fine. Missing NPC's? Not a thing. I just want to be able to play my game. I'm not asking for a miracle, just for my PS3 to not break and be able to experience the game with my character. As of a couple of weeks ago, I've been avoiding playing this game. Not because I hate it, because I definitely don't. I'm just concerned about it bricking my PS3. It's gotten to the point where I'm checking trade-in values at Gamestop and Amazon. Maybe, KoA will work better for me.

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.


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.


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

Having the PS3 break down can happen at anytime. Its is though a matter of fact the heavy games will stress it out to its breaking point. Skyrim can do it, but so can MW, BF, GTA. It is however more likely to happen from a game that causes freezing and corrupting data like Skyrim is doing, however. My original fat 60 gig went out playing MW2, all fine one second, the next I'm staring at a blank screen and a flashing red light.

I just don't think the game will ever be near perfect, judging by past game by them. We can only hope for the best.

The linked statement doesn't say that the issue that severely taxes the PS3 is part of the patch. Regardless, I'm going to take your statement as saying that it is going to be part of the patch. If true, thank you. Woot, 1.4 can't get here quick enough(figuratively speaking, of course. I want it to work so I can wait another couple of weeks.) Thank you.

I posted something here on the 360 boards, our game is not nearly as broken as the PS3 version is so you guys have even more right to complain, all i got was one post by a mod saying he would look into an update and a couple of guys there going round and round trying to defend Bethesda. So sad that people just don't get it when you pay 60$ for a game and 2 months later it is still broke, even if you take away how unplayable the game is on the PS3 their are a ton of quest and other performance bugs on every platform that have not been addressed.

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1328094-hi-bethesda-holiday-is-over-lets-get-the-patches-rolling/

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.

Amen

Double Amen. I have an SSD, and while the framerate doesn't drop anymore, the game is still unplayable after half an hour because nothing works. Can't accept quests, can't pick things up, can't use weapon racks or mannequins.

This is the most broken game I've ever played, without a doubt. You need to be a lot more transparent about what you're doing. If it isn't clear yet, you've lost the trust of a large percentage of your fan base. Make things right.

Except of course for the fact that the 1.3 patch notes were posted well before 1.3 passed certification on either the PS3 or the 360. (they were posted when the 1.3 patch was submitted to Steam)

The precedent has already been set so don't try to tell people that the 1.4 patch notes are a mystery of an enigma being kept from the people by the evil Sony and Microsoft corporations.

My game is playable but it has reached 8.5 mb at level 27... i am waiting for a patch. I got this game cuz i played Oblivion. This is wat im left with? Is this how you will treat your customers Bethesda? Many of my non-rpgplaying friends got this and they were suprised when it crashed and they wont revisit this company again... your losing customers, how long can you keep up? At the end of the day im still $60 in the hole but one day fate will catch up.. all i have to say is Karma can be a [censored] Bethesda

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. 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. they can tell you what they are working on, which they did. All we can do is quit the [censored]in and wait. Everyone knows what the problems are and they are trying to fix them. With a game of this magnitude it is going to take time.

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.

But that is exactly what happened with 1.3. Full intended patch notes were up before it ever passed cert on either 360 or PS3. In fact, 1.3 hadn't even passed cert on Steam but was rather merely submitted when the notes were posted.

I specifically noted this precedent and said that it would come back to bite them as they can now no longer point to the cert process as the reason for their dodging and misleading PR speak.

1.3 was only an incremental update, small patch. 1.4 may be a title update, much larger patch with more info.

Doesn't matter if the patch is big, small, or inbetween.

We already know that the PR line about not being able to post patch notes until it passes cert because of some mysterious agreement with Sony/Microsoft is total, complete, and utter bullplop.

For those who are weighing their options as to whether or not they should trade in their PS3 copy of Skyrim [This is my opinion.]:

1. If Besthesda ends up fixing the game-breaking issues, they will probably provide free DLC to put rainbows and unicorns in the bleeding hearts of their fans. The amount of DLC, however stingy it may be, will outweigh the worth of the $30 loss inflicted by trading it in now.

2. If Besthesda does not fix the issue for the lulz. Then the honorable and intelligent action to go for would be to provide their customers with a full-no-questions-asked-refund. If, for whatever reason, they find it financially and practically beneficial to forgo the provision of a refund, they'll most likely get pimp-slapped by Sony or public action.

Either way, their is a good chance that you will ??? profit moar by shelving it, imo. As for me, Im'a sell it now cause I've completely lost interest in ever playing it and would rather get 50% off one of 2012's Q1-Q4 games.

the thing that most people don't get is that tere are only a handfull of different ps3 models, all the testing needed is to test on these models with the base hdd, after that anything faster is just gravy. The ps3 as a standardised piece of hardware you need not guess about differences between systems, it's all the same. Mac does it with their stuff, and so does every pre-built computer manufacturer around the world, always using the same parts for each model out.

And to beth, although i am a fan of your games, when i started nv i loved it, but then the old issues from fallout 3 came into play and i lost interet with the game until only recently. You do have a long history with ps3 issues with your games, and one would thing that you would've learnt how to avoid, or solve these issues by now, and if you can't why not just outsource the de-bugging to someone who knows HOW to code for the ps3? i mean it's not really that hard.
I've said this before, but i've played the demo for RAGE on ps3, and it works flawlessly, How the hell did you do that? if skyrim worked that well on ps3, you would be making alot of money, but it's not. Please for once in corporate gaming history, release a game that needs no updates, that works perfectly from day one, that no one complains about. that way you sell more units, then you make more money, and then you can make better games that sell even more. isn't that what they call a "win-win" situation? c'mon pull up your socks.
People play your games because they can see the potential, but they are constantly dissapointed when they play thier game on their chosen console only to find that it is being used ineffectively, the ps3 has potential, as other games have shown, and skyrim CAN work great,but only if it is used correctly.

They didn't. RAGE was made using a different engine by a different studio.