I find it very ironic that i cant play A SINGLEPLAYER GAME unless im connected to xbox live...i took my console over to a buddies to show him the game cause he wanted to play it...he doesnt have internet, but its singleplayer, no big deal, right? WRONG. when i tried loading my game it says "save is a later version of skyrim please download patches"...why arent the patches saved on my console? what if i want to stop paying for internet? i cant play skyrim without internet? Thats totally absurd. Im not going to have "offline" characters and "online" characters. Basically you are stuck with a broken game if you dont have the internet? im sorry but thats just straight f*cked. This needs to be addressed and changed, IMMEDIATELY. Not everyone with an xbox has internet, youd think bethesda would know that.

edit: i uninstalled the game from my hard drive then reinstalled it, and now it works fine offline. Apparently you need to reinstall the game after every patch if you want it to work properly offline

Obviously you cant play saves from a newer patch with an older version of the game.

Wait, I was under the impression that patches, dlc, and other "downloads" were stored on the Xbox hardrive. At least they are on mine.... :/ not sure why that would happen pal

I guess it's the same reason that us PC players have to play the game through steam.
And that reason is... I have no [censored] clue.

Hmm... I've not had this problem, and I never play online except to patch my game (Which I don't think I've done since 1.1)

I still play on patch 1.1 and it works fine.
I never have the xbox plugged into the internet, I need that cable for my pc.

If they change it in such a way that I wont be able to patch the game anymore lest I end up with a game that can only be played while connected..
Then Im going to demand my money back.
I dont care if Ive had the game for too long, I dont care about return policies but I will not put up with tripe like that.
I might even try to garner some media attention, as this is so far from ok that ok cannot be seen on a clear day from a high place.

So I really truly hope that this is caused because patched and unpatched conflict with each other because under normal circumstances I am already the original grumpy old man.

Pay to play at its finest.

As long as the most current patch is on your HDD, the most current that your Save file was saved on, you should be able to play.

I'd think that somehow patch info got deleted, if you are playing on the console you patched Skyrim on, but wish you luck.

(Resist urge to preach about Steam and Live)

i SHOULDNT have any issues if ive been online since the latest patch, but i AM having issues. The latest patch should save itself on my hard drive. I shouldnt have to settle for the "broken" version of the game just cause im not online. Obviously i have internet access at my house, since im posting on here, but what if i couldnt afford the bill? I have to pay a monthly fee to enjoy skyrim to its fullest? thats bull

I patch on my husband`s Live account and play the game on my offline login just fine. Not sure why you`re having this problem.

could it have something to do with the fact that i have the game installed to my hard drive?

Ill will lay odds on the OP deleted his system cache, therby wiping the updates.

@OP ; The game plays perfectly well offline, your only issue is that your patch data is no longer on the system. The games saves absolutely require the day 1 patch for Skyrim (1.1) to work. Download the patch again, and your good to go. Just dont go deleting you cache unless your hooked up to the LIVE network to replace the patch data.

How could i have wiped my cache? Ive never done it manually, is there some way to do it accidentally?

Welcome to the new age of video gaming my friend. Video game companies are becoming real tight ass commies especially pc game companies like this one. They just don’t want you to really own your game, they want to be tethered to it for some reason. Im sure it has something to do with hoarding money, or drm, who cares why any more, it just is.

Yeah i made the mistake and bought a steam version,at the time i didn't care,i just wanted the game and then spent 2weeks downloading at speeds of 3-2 kbps,sometimes on a good day i got 10 kbps,i only have a wi-fi prepay stick to access the net and you pay $20 a Gig down here at the bottom of the world, anyway i complained to steam about their server speed and finally after 3.8 gig down the speed suddenly spiked to well over 2mb.it was my fault for not reading the disk package properly but i will never buy a steam game ever again.

It could have become corrupted which would also show the same issue. If you didnt do it manually, then its fair to say that in moving the system to your friends and powering up there you had the problem. It could be that the HDD needled was jogged during transport damaging data on the drive, or that there was a power surge prior to you disconnecting it from the mains, or when you plugged it to your friends mains outlet there was a surge. The area he is in may be having a "brown out", with electricity supply lower in his area causing HDD corruption. And thats just the obvious things I can think of off the top of my head.

In short though; The game works offline no problem, as long as you have at LEAST the 1.1 patch saved to the HDD.

Who cares if it has Steam? You can play without being online. You have to download the game, I think, but then I think you can actually get the game off the game disk, and it only requires online activation. After that you can play it forever offline.

This thread lol. It makes me laugh. Patches ARE saved on your HD. I play offline everyday.

Your save game is a save with a certain patch ID. If you try to play that save on a HD that doesnt have that patch..it obviously won't work. You have either cleared your cache thus wiping patches, or aren't using an HD with the same patches as rhe save.

There's no way that can happen. I play offline all the time. Must be user error.

The weirdest thing is, there is no non-steam version of Skyrim. Even storebought versions make you install steam.

I was under the same impression, but steam offline mode is pretty screwed up and won't always work.

Really? I haven't had any problems with it. I had to finish downloading Supreme Commander 2 while I was in Iraq, of all places, which took quite a while - but once it downloaded I was able to play offline with no issues.,

Mines starts in offline mode every time and Ive never had a problem playing an SP game that way. Ive had steam for nearly 10 years, and I only really use it if I have to. Online verification takes seconds normally, and after that you are free to set it to offline and play that way forever if you so choose. I only ever go online with it to get patches or if Im playing an online only game (ie TF2).

Honestly I had no issues with steam either, until I read posts saying it doesn't always work in offline mode. So I disconnected and tried to play a game and it refused to switch to offline mode, it did eventually but it worried me at first. So I'm a little paranoid now from what I've heard, possibly for no good reason. ^.^;

At any rate, it's still strange for steam to be forced on you. And that first install can't be done unless you have an up to date version of steam on your PC or are connected to the internet.

skyrim has not come out of my console since 11-11-11 (well, i take it out when i move my console), and my hard dirve has not come off of my console since then either

The amount of people who did not understand the OP is hilarious. He tried playing the current version of the game (1.3) on his friend's 360, which did not have any patches at all. So his save was from a later version of the game, so there would be no way that backwards-flying dragon could exist in his friends game. The game save is not compatible. Simple as that.