Wasn't sure if I should post here as many folks have already more or less voiced the same opinion. I guess what compelled me is was my love for Bethesda.

I'm a 37 year old husband and father. Gen-X. My life has pretty much been a timeline of computer/gaming technology. From playing the Atari 2600 back in 1980 when I was 6 to present day. Granted my gaming time is far more limited these days but gaming has been in my blood since a square dot that represented a ball being bounced between 2 solid lines was the pinnacle of gaming. While I've owned pretty much every console ever made (Atari 2600, Coleco, Intellivision, all iterations of Sega, Sony, and Nintendo hardware), gaming on a PC has been my preferred platform since the Commodore 64. The closest I had ever come to a sandbox RPG was the Ultima series. It grabbed me and never let go. All other games seemed finite and rigid. RPG's, even the most limited ones, still had an element of freedom to them. I actually felt like my choices were affecting the game.

Fast forward to the early 90's. I'm in high school. The dawn of PC gaming. Doom is released. The first person perspective immediately appeals to me as a simple but effective way of making me feel like I am in the game. Then 1994 rolls around and Bethesda releases Arena. I had never heard of it but I remember seeing the cover in a store and picking it up. Flipping it over I saw that this appeared to be an RPG, my favorite genre, in a first person perspective. I don't recall this as having been done before. A game that combines the immersiveness of RPGs with a first person perspective? Must have. I grabbed it and so began my 17 year love affair with The Elder Scrolls series.

Arena was a fantastic game but it was no stranger to bugs and quirks. One in particular that I actually contacted Bethesda about - after bumping into a Vampire and realizing I couldn't defeat it, I began to run. Anyone who has played Arena knows how huge the world was and the lack of obstacles to slow you down. You could literally run for hours and not bump into anything. Well, this Vampire must have been really hungry because no matter where or how far I ran, the Vampire was always right on me. It wasn't fast enough to catch up but wasn't slow enough to fall behind either. The only thing that kept me alive was running. I eventually grew bored and let the Vampire kill me so that I could restart. Loaded back up and began exploring again. Within about 15 minutes, I bumped into another Vampire. Reload. Same problem. It became apparent that somehow this Vampire had become connected with my character, even across previous saves. Ultimately I had no choice but to restart a new game with a new character. Hilarious in hindsight but frustrating back then.

The years passed and I purchased every TES game Bethesda released. My obsession with Daggerfall was the breaking point for a relationship with a girl I honestly thought I would have married. Morrowind took TES to an entirely new level with modern graphics. I actually have 3 copies of Morrowind due to my inability to find my other copies resulting from various moves during this time. Over 600 hours sunk into Morrowind + expansions. Over 350 into Oblivion. And now Skyrim...

One of the benefits to being an advlt with a job is that I can buy myself things. In my youth, scraping together money to buy a computer took effort and creativity. Today, I can buy one outright. So due to my expanding family which eliminates the ability to have an office with a desk in my house, or any other decent place for a desktop PC, I chose - specifically for Skyrim - to buy a new laptop. I went with a Clevo reseller and I really splurged. P170HM3, 17.3" laptop, 1920x1080 FHD 120mhz 3D matte screen with 75% NTSC , i7 2630QM, 16GB 1600mhz RAM, nVidia 580M graphics card, Intel 120GB 510 solid state drive, Blu-Ray burner, Killer 1103-N wireless, just a monster of a laptop. I wanted to be sure I could play Skyrim in all it's glory with everything maxxed out.

So I unlock and begin playing Skyrim last night and I begin to notice things. The first thing I do in any game is to remap WASD to EDSF. I like having a few extra keys within reach. Everything mapped fine however I noticed when doing things like manipulating inventory and picking locks, the input keys for these actions did not remap to coincide with my keyboard mappings. My strafe movement is S and F but to rotate a lock, I have to move my fingers back over to A and D. Same with Activate. I remapped it to G, however in inventory manipulation, the screen is showing E.

Graphically there doesn't seem to be much to any improvement over what I've seen of the console iterations, despite promises from Bethesda devs that there would be better textures, higher render modes, and an improved interface.

As a veteran of TES and FPS games, I managed to use the in game console to fix the FOV after realizing that the view seemed way too narrow and limited for a 1920x1080 screen. Bumped that up to 80 and a major improvement.

The final frustration which caused me to quit and head to bed was the difficulty with the mouse. I had to turn the sensitivity all the way so that I didn't have to move the mouse 20 feet to my left or right just to turn around in game. And I won't even mention trying to look up. It feels as if something is physically fighting me and doesn't want me to look up.

This long, overdrawn, breathy post is really to express my disappointment in Bethesda. As a long time supporter of yours, from the beginning, it feels like a bit of a slap in the face to the people and platform that gave you success. I understand that all businesses are in it to make money, conscious be damned, but does it really have to be that way with a gaming company? I think Valve has proven that it doesn't have to be. For a very long time I considered Bethesda in the same category but since Oblivion, I've come to the sad realization that Bethesda's interest lies in the green stuff and is indifferent to anything else. Would it really have been that hard to spend a little more time on the controls and interface for the PC version? The way a player interacts with a game is through it's controls. Of all the things to "get right" in a game, control scheme has to top that list. All one has to do is look at the GOTHIC series which could have been on par with TES games but never really hit big time due to it's abhorrent control sceme. Bethesda hasn't had a PC control problem before so why now? Why such a blatantly obvious lack of attention to detail with PC controls?

Like all affairs, an end is inevitable. I've realized the motivating factor for Bethesda and I can't really blame you. To be honest, if I were head of a gaming company, I'd probably sell out to cater to consoles too when shown the numbers behind making a game for consoles versus PC's. However as a consumer I have the luxury of not thinking that way. I have the luxury of being selfish and wanting a good gaming experience for my $60.00, especially if it's coming from a company that I know is capable of delivering as it has in the past.

I won't deny, despite the failed promises regarding PC graphics, that Skyrim is a beautiful game which I will continue to play and ultimately finish. I have to justify this $60.00 purchase somehow. I'll eagerly await mods from the fanbase to fix problems that your company couldn't. However going forward, I don't think I can justify spending the better part of $100.00 to purchase a game that was half-assedly ported to the PC. Oh, I'll still inevitably play the game but I won't be using my hard earned money to do it.

So...much.....text

Good post.

There's a solid difference between creating a game putting consoles first (which is sane, and reasonable, and perfectly acceptable in the current videogame market) and not spending a week of time creating a PC-specific interface. The devil is in the details, and the control problems on PC for Skyrim aren't excusable.

PC's are meant for WoW. That's what the video game section of a game store that is a small corner tells me these days. I'm 28, so I'm also on the older side of gaming, and the last PC release I purchased was Civilization 4. PC gaming is a near dead industry.

You're one of those self righteous jerks. it's ok to not like the game but to threaten to pirate future releases is a scummy move. Be a man and don't buy the game and accept that you won't play it if you don't. Your kind is the reason that PC gaming isn't as good as it should be.

PC gaming is dead. http://www.tomshardware.com/news/nvidia-pc-console-sales-battlefield-3-bf3-pc-gaming,13499.html

Good post, game plays/feels like a consol port the graphics are poor and the bugs when you remap are not on

- I can't drop anything from my invent (the R button doesnt work) so spend 90% of the time walking slowly,
- The favorites button doesn't work, and a little bit of thought for the PC platform would of had you using the F1-9 buttons for preset weapons and spell, just like you used to,
- Having to use a different button to close the "loot" window
- NPC's that float above the ground
- Armour that turns invisible
- washed out colours (must cost more to colour something)

All in all disapointed

Yeah, because console piracy doesn't happen, right? Got news for you, it's just as easy to pirate a console game as it is to pirate a PC game.

Consider it credit for my buying 3 copies of Morrowind.

Fine it's jerks like you that are ruining gaming.

I fully sympathize with OP.

I didn't buy the game on release date because this was obviously to be expected. Actually, I almost never buy games on release date anymore, since they started pushing out incomplete games and finish later with patches and/or free DLCs.

I think there will be fixes for most of the problems you're experiencing. A share of the sales money will be assigned for maintenance, and I hope it will be enough to address all these things.

No need to pirate, just try to have patience. It's hard with all the hyping. they want people to buy it on day on, for the $ as well as for the stats (gotta please those shareholders).

With patience, you get decent prices, and already patches and major glitches out, for most games (at least the most popular).
My only exception is for indie games that can't do anything without an initial support. But it's not the same amount of money and pretention at all.

Just dropping by to express how wonderfully it played on the 360 last night. Smooth and beautiful. I'm already addicted to it and can foresee many man hours put into this game.


Quit yer [censored]in. If it's not fun for you, don't play it.

the only reason great RPG's were PC exclusive in the past is because that was the only technology that could support them. Now consoles, being the vast majority of the market, can truely go toe-to-toe with PC's in that genre.

I welcome the transition.

Awesome!

This is the closest thread to "Bethesda betrayed me" so far. I love it

Seeing as it will always live on as a word processing tool, it will probably get more indie developed games that aren't trying to cater to the mainstream.

OP is on PC not Console, he's got every right to be miffed as there are legitimate problems with the PC UI.

Hexxus doesn't like thinking. It hurts him.

This was an interesting post to read.

I'm on a similar track, I too am a child of the 80s that has just returned to gaming after a six year hiatus. I needed a new PC to run Solidworks at the office, needed new hardware and decided to give gaming a little whirl while I was at it for old time's sake. I started on the Atari and the IBM AT, I played the original daggerfall to death and enjoyed it.

It all eventually lead to becoming a game dev (I worked on AvP, can't say much more, OPSEC) and a career developing software products in my own company.

Things have changed and the Personal Computer (monitor, keyboard, mouse, tower) is no longer top dog in the platform fight. Instead, the industry has moved to a much less powerful Personal Computer (that's essentially what consoles are - repackaged computers with mid-line specs) which have been designed for ease of use, easy packaging, hardware compatibility and cheap production). That's okay, it was bound to happen. Development times (read, the bottom line) for console are much more appealing as compared with the variability of their counterparts. I can't say that I really like the fact that consoles have taken over but such is life.

I don't think you have much to worry about. Bethesda has committed to support the product. I see that we have a change-log for the first update at the very top of the forum? That's excellent news. I expect that the bugs will be addressed quickly.

That said, I am not looking forward to having to deal with the bugs. Hopefully they will be few and far between..

That is a good point. And I'm sure some of those games will be quite good. But in this case, Bethesda is taking the role of your favorite band that hits mainstream. I can't fully see where you guys are coming from because I'm like the guy who came on during their second album. (but don't worry, I'll be pretending I knew them during their first).

edit: this was a reference to migrating towards console, the fantasy/lore is significantly more true than Oblivion

Nah. I dun sum that there book learnin' in the past.

I'm just sick of people complaining about stupid things. Graphics != a good game. If the interface isn't as good as it should be deal with it. Or since PC is vastly superior, mod a better one in.

I used to be 100% PC, but adapted and migrated over to consoles since that seemed to be where the market was going. Learn to play some jazz

While I sympathise with some of the OP's concerns (as I am a PC-only player), I can hardly believe ppl get surprised by the many problems with Bethesda's games.

If for nothing else, the HORRIBLE experiences with released Daggerfall (mainly) and Morrowind should indicate how t hings would work - create a hype, ship 'whatever' on promised date and fix later (or let the community fix free of charge).

I do not trust *any* game companies in general to do a nice job on release, least of all Bethesda. Ppl's apparently growing game-addiction is too big an opportunity to miss for any company in any business. Nothing new or illegal here, folks...

Daggerfalls UI is fairly atrocious as well....

Graphics are part of what makes a game good. You don't get to decide for everyone what their opinions on the graphics of a game should be.

not sure I'd name-drop Valve as the be-all company that does right.
I've heard horror stories (although I'm sure ANY large company is going to have them) and have personally had small horrid problems with them in the past (which took ages to resolve)

Why not?
The Graphics junkies seem to think they can.

Where did I say graphics was the biggest problem? Do you seriously think the interface is just graphics? Mind-boggling. You think a seriously flawed native control scheme is a "stupid thing"? You have to be intentionaly trolling; no one can be that stupid. In which case, your future posts here will be ignored.

Graphics is the one thing I don't really have an issue with except for Howard's promise of delivering a higher quality experience for PC gamers. Please reread the post, even just the second half of it if you have ADD or reading hurts your brain, to understand my issues.