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Bethesda admit to knowing the game was broken before release

PostPosted: Tue May 22, 2012 11:20 pm
by scorpion972
No, my guess is that they finally fixed it. 1.4 does solve the problem more than sufficiently. So that's why they'd wait this long.

It does seem to have fixed the game for a lot of people, but you can't call it fixed until it's fixed for everyone.

Bethesda admit to knowing the game was broken before release

PostPosted: Tue May 22, 2012 2:17 pm
by Leah
Unfortunately, Bethesda is only following this consoles' generation trend: taking the easy way out in multiplatform developing.
Valve, Codemasters, Infinity Ward, Treyarch, Bioware (check out the PS3 demo of Mass Effect 3) and so many others.

They use the xbox or the PC (it's basically the same) as leading platforms and then port to the PS3. A console that has the opposite strengths and weaknesses of those two.
A platform that bottlenecks when it comes to memory and gpu but has a multicore processor with a different architecture that overpowers the xbox and can make up for those weaknesses as long as it is used properly.
When you port the software to the PS3 you can only tweak it around. The PS3 needs to be treated separately. You have to design the software for it, not try to force the code in making simple alterations and conversions.

The ideal situation would be to have two full teams of programmers. Those who specialize on one platform and those on the other. Each team would have to make the game for their platform from scratch. They would have to be competent and know their stuff. Unfortunately that requires resources that gaming companies are not willing to provide.

The PS3 is perfectly capable of running games at least just as good as the xbox. This is apparent in the few cases where they used the PS3 as lead platform and the end result was true console parity and in rare occasions a very slight advantage. The PS3 has the best exclusive games from a technical perspective and luckily it has a lot of them. They were made specifically for it. The xbox though has the developers in it's favour due to it's developer friendly architecture.

I hope this is not the case in the next console generation. I hope that we will see true console parity in the years to come because it doesn't matter what console you own. You should be able to enjoy it as much as everybody else.
I agree, but just as a little nitpick, I think Valve, post Orange Box, actually took a liking to the PS3. I remember Portal 2 on the PS3 exclusively coming with a free Steam copy and being noted for superior technical quality over its 360 counterpart. BioWare... I stopped with BioWare after DA: Origins, to my disappointment, so I don't know, but what's going on with ME3 on the PS3?

Bethesda admit to knowing the game was broken before release

PostPosted: Tue May 22, 2012 3:53 pm
by Victoria Vasileva
Shouldn't there be a sticky that explains what steps a PS3 user should try when they have the problems that you guys knew they were going to have before the game was even released?

What about how to get ones money back for a defective product?

Hello? Bueller?

Bethesda admit to knowing the game was broken before release

PostPosted: Tue May 22, 2012 12:32 pm
by Albert Wesker
It does seem to have fixed the game for a lot of people, but you can't call it fixed until it's fixed for everyone.
Exactly Alecto.

Bethesda admit to knowing the game was broken before release

PostPosted: Wed May 23, 2012 2:11 am
by Scotties Hottie
No man, my game freezes last night as usual, what are you talking about? the game is still broken.... FREEZES FREEZES and MORE FREEZES....
The patch has worked on the vast majority of us. There's something in your system that the patch couldn't fix. Perhaps there's just ot much or something environmentally wrong. There could also be a less common issue affecting your game that they haven't addressed. It doesn't mean that the game isn't fixed, just that you were lucky enough to find a crack (joke).
It does seem to have fixed the game for a lot of people, but you can't call it fixed until it's fixed for everyone.
Simply isn't true. Most games have problems that make in unplayable for some users. The goal of a developer is to make that number statistically insignificant which it seems they have done (by gathering save files and dealing with the most common problems).

Bethesda admit to knowing the game was broken before release

PostPosted: Tue May 22, 2012 1:39 pm
by Laura-Jayne Lee
The patch has worked on the vast majority of us. There's something in your system that the patch couldn't fix. Perhaps there's just ot much or something environmentally wrong. There could also be a less common issue affecting your game that they haven't addressed. It doesn't mean that the game isn't fixed, just that you were lucky enough to find a crack (joke).

Something in my system???? my Ps3 is perfect, I've started a new game, I've reinstalled the game. Yeah probably I'm the only guy getting freezes. You're right. (sarcasm)

I know the kind of peopple like you, always saying that the game is perfect now, the patch fixes all the problems and then comes back to say... ohhh the game is broken, I'm getting lag and my game crashes everytime I play it...

If your game runs perfect, what are you doing still here? go to play it!

Bethesda admit to knowing the game was broken before release

PostPosted: Wed May 23, 2012 4:14 am
by ..xX Vin Xx..
Something in my system???? my Ps3 is perfect, I've started a new game, I've reinstalled the game. Yeah probably I'm the only guy getting freezes. You're right. (sarcasm)

I know the kind of peopple like you, always saying that the game is perfect now, the patch fixes all the problems and then comes back to say... ohhh the game is broken, I'm getting lag and my game crashes everytime I play it...

If your game runs perfect, what are you doing still here? go to play it!
Dude, I've been here since day one of the game. I catalogued the issue and was the first person to tie actions taken (quests, dungeon delving, exploring new town, dragons) to the game problem. Here's a thread I made on November 19th, just 8 days after the release: It's entitled, "Only certain actions increase the save file" http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1281304-only-certain-actions-increase-the-save-file/page__fromsearch__1 The save file serves as a sort of canary for the problem. Rapid increase in save file = rapid increase in memory consumption.

The 1.4 patch is the FIRST patch that actually solved the problem for most of us.

If your system is still having trouble, then we need to figure out why. Perhaps your hdd needs defragmented (do you play a lot of demos on it?), perhaps space needs to be cleared out (I'd recommend at least 10GB to always have around on your ps3), perhaps there's something else that you haven't deleted yet?

That being said, I've noticed some problems people are having with starting a completley new game. I wonder if they didn't introduce a problem with that? Maybe first time players of the game should follow similar steps to people who have been playing the game. Because patch 1.4 IS still rewriting code. If we had to load an existing game, save, reload, wait, save again then maybe new characters need to do something similar or the patch causes issues...?

Bethesda admit to knowing the game was broken before release

PostPosted: Tue May 22, 2012 1:09 pm
by Monika Krzyzak
This may have been posted but to be honest I'm too lazy to look through them all:

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/121/1218881p1.html

Bethesda admit to knowing the game was broken before release

PostPosted: Tue May 22, 2012 8:09 pm
by Wanda Maximoff
All 1.4 did in terms of optimization was tweak garbage collection and shrink the LOD bubble. (get on a horse and ride and the engine absolutely falls apart...still)

Many can't even tell that the IQ is getting worse and that the same texture streaming issues which still persist on the 360 are present on PS3 and PC. Skyrim is wholly developed for a platform with shared RAM and it's at the expense of the other two platforms with dedicated memory pools.

So it was developed for the only system that uses shared ram.......the 360.

Bethesda admit to knowing the game was broken before release

PostPosted: Tue May 22, 2012 3:56 pm
by meghan lock
This may have been posted but to be honest I'm too lazy to look through them all:

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/121/1218881p1.html
It makes a good point for why they didn't delay the release. They simply didn't realize the scale of the impact the memory issue was having.

Still, that's a pretty big mistake. It also explains why Pete Hines said only a small percentage was impacted when it ended up not being the case. They probably all thought it'd just be a few individuals (compared to the whole).

Bethesda admit to knowing the game was broken before release

PostPosted: Wed May 23, 2012 12:58 am
by ~Sylvia~
This is why the game should have been delayed on all versions. When you put a date that far out in advance and with gamesass reputation as being notoriously bad with debugging, issues will happen. Not to mention they knew that they had a problem before launch and only thought it would affect a small number of people :wallbash: .

This sounds exactly like what happened with Fallout New Vegas although thankfully that game has mostly been fixed of it's major issues. Maybe Skyrim could be the same but it's still too early to tell.

Bethesda admit to knowing the game was broken before release

PostPosted: Tue May 22, 2012 1:45 pm
by RUby DIaz
I must be reading that story differently to everyone else. Even before the new addition made to the link, it seemed pretty clear that he was saying they foresaw that there could be problems with the engine on the ps3, but made changes that they thought would manage these. Everyone else seems to read it as "we knew the game was broken and didn't care". I'm sure my grasp of English isn't that bad so it seems odd that I'm not seeing what everyone else is seeing.

Whether you think he's lying or not is another matter entirely of course...

Bethesda admit to knowing the game was broken before release

PostPosted: Tue May 22, 2012 4:19 pm
by Emily Shackleton
Surprise, Surprise, Surprise...er...right....of course they knew, they've always known since day one, being the same engine with a new renderer thrown on... :yuck:

Todd Howard, the Grey Fox and true master of the Thieves Guild, known as Bugthesda!

Bethesda admit to knowing the game was broken before release

PostPosted: Wed May 23, 2012 2:45 am
by Kayleigh Williams
I must be reading that story differently to everyone else. Even before the new addition made to the link, it seemed pretty clear that he was saying they foresaw that there could be problems with the engine on the ps3, but made changes that they thought would manage these. Everyone else seems to read it as "we knew the game was broken and didn't care". I'm sure my grasp of English isn't that bad so it seems odd that I'm not seeing what everyone else is seeing.

Whether you think he's lying or not is another matter entirely of course...
It seems to read that they saw the problem, thought it'd only impact a few people and then decided to fix it post release. The problem, of course, ballooned.

Bethesda admit to knowing the game was broken before release

PostPosted: Wed May 23, 2012 2:47 am
by Margarita Diaz
Surprise, Surprise, Surprise...er...right....of course they knew, they've always known since day one, being the same engine with a new renderer thrown on... :yuck:

Todd Howard, the Grey Fox and true master of the Thieves Guild, known as Bugthesda!
That was probably just Pete Hines wearing the Grey Fox's mask.

Bethesda admit to knowing the game was broken before release

PostPosted: Wed May 23, 2012 4:21 am
by Kristian Perez
It seems to read that they saw the problem, thought it'd only impact a few people and then decided to fix it post release. The problem, of course, ballooned.

It doesn't say that though. It says there foresaw the problem and believed they'd made enough changes to stop it happening. Then that post-release they saw a "small percentage" of players experiencing the problems have been working to fix it since.

Like I say, whether you think that's all bull or not is up to your own point of view, but that's definitely what it says. That's how it reads to me, and there's been a clarification paragraph added since that spells it out even clearer.

Bethesda admit to knowing the game was broken before release

PostPosted: Wed May 23, 2012 4:54 am
by Lynette Wilson
It doesn't say that though. It says there foresaw the problem and believed they'd made enough changes to stop it happening. Then that post-release they saw a "small percentage" of players experiencing the problems have been working to fix it since.

Like I say, whether you think that's all bull or not is up to your own point of view, but that's definitely what it says. That's how it reads to me, and there's been a clarification paragraph added since that spells it out even clearer.

I'm not sure where you got the impression they thought the problems were all completely fixed before release. I think it's pretty clear from what was said that they knew there'd still be problems post-release and had plans to fix them, but simply had no idea how serious or widespread those problems would be.

Bethesda admit to knowing the game was broken before release

PostPosted: Tue May 22, 2012 5:09 pm
by James Shaw
That was probably just Pete Hines wearing the Grey Fox's mask.

ROFL, perhaps! Either way, amounts to roughly the same thing doesn't it? :blink:

Bethesda admit to knowing the game was broken before release

PostPosted: Tue May 22, 2012 5:12 pm
by Smokey
It doesn't say that though. It says there foresaw the problem and believed they'd made enough changes to stop it happening. Then that post-release they saw a "small percentage" of players experiencing the problems have been working to fix it since.

Like I say, whether you think that's all bull or not is up to your own point of view, but that's definitely what it says. That's how it reads to me, and there's been a clarification paragraph added since that spells it out even clearer.


They'll never admit to knowingly releasing a broken game. They knew there "could" be a problem for ps3 users. They will never say we knew people would have issues due to memory management and released the game anyway. Do you think bethesda, a lead developer, one that is known for creating great games, a studio that has been developing games for many years would not know that skyrim ps3 users would have problems due to their error? Don't you think they have the knowledge, expertise and experience to know if a situation such as memory management would or would not cause problems?

They knew. They're trying to save face by saying "could".

Bethesda admit to knowing the game was broken before release

PostPosted: Wed May 23, 2012 12:30 am
by rebecca moody
I'm not sure where you got the impression they thought the problems were all completely fixed before release. I think it's pretty clear from what was said that they knew there'd still be problems post-release and had plans to fix them, but simply had no idea how serious or widespread those problems would be.

I got that impression from reading the words in the linked article. Call me crazy.

Bethesda admit to knowing the game was broken before release

PostPosted: Tue May 22, 2012 2:50 pm
by c.o.s.m.o
They'll never admit to knowingly releasing a broken game. They knew there "could" be a problem for ps3 users. They will never say we knew people would have issues due to memory management and released the game anyway. Do you think bethesda, a lead developer, one that is known for creating great games, a studio that has been developing games for many years would not know that skyrim ps3 users would have problems due to their error? Don't you think they have the knowledge, expertise and experience to know if a situation such as memory management would or would not cause problems?

They knew. They're trying to save face by saying "could".

Like I said (twice now) whether you think the words in the article are true or not is another matter. I'm not getting into whether or not I think they're true, I'm just talking about what they actually say.

Bethesda admit to knowing the game was broken before release

PostPosted: Tue May 22, 2012 9:03 pm
by An Lor
This has gotten some press attention:

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/121/1218881p1.html

Bethesda admit to knowing the game was broken before release

PostPosted: Tue May 22, 2012 12:34 pm
by Jordan Fletcher
This has gotten some press attention:

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/121/1218881p1.html

Yeah, I read that article earlier without the update. The update just appeared a short while ago.

Bethesda wants to make sure we understand they knew there "could" be problems with the ps3.

Bethesda admit to knowing the game was broken before release

PostPosted: Tue May 22, 2012 4:00 pm
by CHARLODDE
This has gotten some press attention:

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/121/1218881p1.html

Wow, even they're totally misreading the original article. What's wrong with people. THe IGN article says...

"...The intention, he goes on to explain, was to fix the game post-release, after developers noticed problems and were unable to tweak the code enough to solve them in time for the planned release date on 11th November last year."

But nowhere in the original kotaku article does it ever say this at all.

Bethesda admit to knowing the game was broken before release

PostPosted: Tue May 22, 2012 3:28 pm
by Pixie
Pure comedy love the retraction

Update: Bethesda has now issued a statement, saying that Kotaku misquoted the game's creative director Todd Howard. It has now issued this clarification


What they need to do plain and simple is offer ps3 either a free copy of the pc or 360 period.