Hello,

Although I purchased Skyrim on 11/11/11, I never really played it as I knew it would be buggy (it was) and that many quests would be broken (they were). In fact, I only visited four towns, just getting a "feel" of the game and I was VERY impressed.

So, I waited over 2 months for patches to be released which would correct the main (and subsidiary) quests.

So my question is this: After the release of patch 1.4, are the quests fixed? Can I safely play knowing that my enjoyment won't be spoilt by quests that can't be completed, quests that don't even start, items that can't be dropped, etc? Or do I have to wait for a few more weeks/months until other patches (or mods) address those problems/bugs which have not been fixed as yet?

Anticipated thanks,

Uh, on my second playthrough, the thieves guild was glitched so I couldn't join it, but patch 1.4 cleared that right up. Honestly though, if you are on PC, console commands can get past most glicthes, I'm sure lots of people on this forum would know what to do.

As for mods, there are a lot of great mods that make the game look a whole lot better, I would download a couple of those too before you start

I don't know why you didn't played or try earlier to see ?

I don't wish to use the console, as getting the commands to correct the bugs spoil the entire quest. You can't help seeing how the quest is supposed to progress and this is a spoiler for me.
As to the mods, can you please recommend a few?


Sorry, I don't understand. Play earlier to see what? If you mean play again after patch 1.4 was released well, I didn't do it because of my style of play. I basically pick up EVERYTHING with of view to selling it. Even brooms and wooden plates. As you can imagine, this is a VERY lengthy process and I don't really wish to start a new game if quests are still bugged.

Realistic Water Textures, No more blocky faces, Skyrim High Definition, Improved User Interface to name a few. These are all on Skyrim Nexus, so you may need to create an account if you haven't done so. Don't worry it's free

Also, I find loading a previous save will undo many glitches, so just save often

Thanks for the Skyrim Nexus headup on mods, I wasn't aware of them.

I haven't had any bugs that I've considered to be major problems, so I'm not speaking from experience here, but I've heard from others that patch 1.4 fixed a lot of stuff, especially compared to the other patches, so you should be fine.

If you're going to start playing from a character made pre-1.4, you should go into an area with little-to-no NPCs and wait 72 hours. This is supposed to reset cells/scripts and should allow the 1.4 fixes to take effect on any quests that are already in progress. If you're starting a new character then you shouldn't have to do anything.


Make sure you download their http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/content/modmanager/ as well. If you start downloading lots of mods, some of them might start conflicting, and having the mod manager lets you rearrange them to avoid that.

I started a brand new game after 1.4 and have had no problems. Game runs smooth and looks great.

On the other hand, I can refer you to hundreds of posts from people who have minor complaints, all the way to the game is unplayable for them after 1.4.

So, play the game, and take your chances. It affects different players in different ways.

If you're waiting for patches that will fix everything, you'll never play the game because Bethesda doesn't release that many patches.

Also, I wouldn't start out with downloading mods to take care of certain issues, because you don't know if you'll have those problems, or not. And installing mods you don't need can cause other problems.

Play the game, and try to fix what needs fixing. And if you're not willing to use the PC console to fix certain quests, then I suggest you play another game.

Good luck.

I've played for something like 350 hours now and I've yet to see one game breaking bug, and the game has never crashed for me. My suspicion is that 99% of the bugs are caused by resource problems (memory, video memory etc). After playing with the creation kit it's apparent that many of the potential features of the game (like more inteligent AI) were "turned off" at some point in development, presumably so the performance would be okay on consoles and older pcs. For the size of the game I'd say this is one of most bug free pieces of sowftware i've ever used, the problem is that they wanted all versions to be comparable which basically means the pc version is gimped, while the console versions were maxed and unstable. The pc version with mods which unlock key features (bigger spawns, new enemy types, inteligent AI, better textures etc) is a vastly better game than vanilla.

Agreed. And don't forget all those messing around with console-commands and unstable mods.

No offence but you're being a tad silly here. I can say sure, go for it, you won't have one bug and then boom, you get a bug. Why? Because you play different than me and so does millions of other people. My seal of approval can (and should) not mean anything to you because there are too many factors involved in determining whether or not everything will be to your liking.

If you want to wait until you get get a personal guarantee that all is well from someone capable of giving such you will wait for eternity. Play the game and find out for yourself. It's what we all had to do.

items that can't be dropped are mostly quest items and so on


no, i am quiet sure that you, especially you, are not going to have a good, clear run. if you start a game with this attitude, you shouldn't do it at all. bethesda does thank you for the purchase, though.

edit: many bugs are fixed, but i had completely new bugs happening here and there, that never happened before, with new characters. at the end of the day it's a huge game with lots of room for little bugs to occure.

The game's not nearly as buggy as some people like to pretend it is. Only one major bug in my copy, and that's easily worked around. Play the game and ignore this thread; I guarantee it works out fine.

Surely it would've been better to play and suffer some bugs that will eventually be fixed (well, hopefully) than just not play at all? That's my thoughts anyway.

I bought this game on 11/11/11 and have played hours and hours of this game and have had one major bug. You have to understand that in a game this size there will ALWAYS be minor bugs/glitches it's just the way it is. If you cannot come to terms with that i'm afraid you need to find a different game.

But to answer your question , the 1.4 patch fixed the only quest bug i've ever had.

Play the game , i promise you'll be hooked

Thanks for your replies. Sorry if I appeared to be too "elitist" in my original post. Of course I can live with minor bugs and glitches!

No, my main concern was mainly about broken quests (quests that can't be completed and quests that won't even start) and also about serious bugs that affect gameplay (like spells, weapons or perks which are incorrectly programmed and don't do what they are meant to do).

After all, if you visit this thread http://support.gamesas.com/eng/products.asp, click on Skyrim, then click on Windows 7 (for instance), then click on Quest/content specific issues, you'll notice that there are hundreds of bugs, more of less serious, most of which Bethesda were aware for several weeks.

I was just wondering if, in patch 1.4, Bethesda corrected them. Looking at the official list of issues fixed, it would appear that Besthesda corrected some of them, but far from all. But then, I'm pretty sure that they corrected many bugs without mentioning that they did...

As far as mods are concerned, I'd rather download mods that add something to the game (new locations, quests, items) than mods that actually correct things since, as some of you have written, a plethora of mods can make the game unstable and, furthermore, future patches may correct (some of) those bugs.

No, I was just wondering if, now, I can start afresh in the knowledge that, on the whole, I'll get a good run without major frustrations. From what you wrote, it seems that I now can, so thanks for taking the time and trouble to share your thoughts.

There will always be a few bugs left. Nobody can guarantee you that your game won't screw up at a certain point, patches or not.
Just save often and you'll be alright.

Is not hundreds of bugs, there are a number of them, but let's not exaggerate. However, almost all of them are resolved with a reload of a an earlier save. I have never had a quest glitch that I could not fix this way since Morrowind. That illustrates the issues with fixing the conditions that cause these glitches. They are not all caused by bugs, in that they are not repeatable in all cases. So, what do you fix? To fix one thing, might break something else. Can the code be made more robust, sometimes yes, but if it gets too locked down, then things start to get to linear. In that one quest line has to be done before another one can be. So, it is a balancing act. One that will result in just having to load an earlier save to fix some issues encountered in the game. Because you can repeat the steps and not have the issue if you go far enough back in your save list.

Also, they are not done patching the game, they are looking at the bugs that are reported in the forum, separating out the ones that can be repeated, and determining the best way to fix them.

If you're not willing to at least try and correct some of the bugs you come across on your own, this may not be the right game for you. Bethesda is less than 100 people, and on top of fixing countless bugs, they also have to worry about DLC and getting ready to start on their next big game. Bottom line, they're not going to catch every bug.

Yes, there are plenty of mods that can break the game, but it's really not too hard to figure out which mods those are. And just for the record, mods that add new quests, places and items are just as likely to break the game as mods that correct things are.