It's been roughly 48, 49 days. Not two months. PC gamers probably have it the best (assuming their hardware setup isn't what's causing some of the issues), considering their saved game corruption issue was patched (and I THINK the Strip issue?), other than that I don't really know what else is really "game breaking", considering I've beaten it twice on an Xbox (for Yes Man and Mr. House), my girlfriend beat it as well (for the Legion), so any of the other glitches I came across weren't "game breaking" (like not being able to finish Raul's quest... I'll live).

I agree with this.

My experience with FONV has not been bug free, but then as a Bethesda customer for some years; I've come to expect a certain measure of "unpredictability" to my sessions ever since The Elder Scrolls. In that time, Bethesda has become more ambitious in their open world designs, scripts and settings.

Does that make it "OK" for some of the bugs that have negatively impacted some of the player base? Absolutely not, but the company is only responsible to patch their game if that's their desire; in an effort to remedy those bugs.


The notion of compensation in the form of a free or discounted DLC for those affected is ridiculous. No matter how well spoken the OP may have been in his request; the request itself is not thought out; realistic or within the scope of the teams responsible (patching and dls respectively).

The example would be apt if washing machines were not designed as standalone devices, beholden only to their own mechanical limitations. No matter how it cleans your clothes or the fancy manner it does so; it's still a relatively simple machine.

Software runs on several platforms, more hardware and component variables than one would like; and more importantly, any number of other software applications all wanting to make use of the platform the primary one is currently using.

When washing machines require the same enormous variations that come with designing them for PC or cross platform play, I'll look back at this post and say "Boy, that poster sure knew his stuff!"

You have to understand that compensation would be admitting that they are incapable of properly producing a game. While I'm all for free stuff, it would be extremely hard to execute something like this successfully.

Well, it wouldn't be for those affected, but everyone who currently has the game. The request isn't out of the ordinary in and of itself. It's typical for many businesses where customers have a bad experience to appease them. I could compare it to the movies, or to a washing machine...or many other things, but I won't. It's not like anything so comparisons are always going to fall short. Here's how I see it. They are known issues with the game, and there are people who've experience it. More than the average game. That creates alot of bad word of mouth and you lose potential customers. You should do something to try to keep them as fans to "show you care". Releasing a patch for some may be it, but that seems minimal. You're probably not going to keep many of the customers who had problems with it just by releasing a patch. You have to entice them to stay and to spend money.

Releasing the new DLC as free has 2 benefits. Sure, you lose out on the money/income that would bring, but only temporarily. If the patch is released on the 18th, then you can give people till the 24th to download it. This way those who are going to be getting it for xmas won't have free access to it and those are still potential markets. The first benefit is those who did not experience any/few bugs will love the company even more, it strengthens their resolve to buy and spend with the company because everyone loves to support a company who cares about customers. The second benefit is that some of those who had issues with is that you may have lost as customers will be more forgiving. So if you can get just 50% of them to still buy and spend with the company they are going to be more likely to spend the money on new DLC that will be released in the future.

If they are a strictly business company they would simply have to figure out if the number of people pleased who will spend money on future DLC (and other games) is going to be worth losing the money you would get from the 18th-24th. I can't answer that. I don't know how many people have had a problem with it. Like I said, message boards are only a small fraction (maybe) of who had trouble. You'd have to calculate in the phone calls and emails.

Wrong, people will buy the DLC no matter how buggy the game is.

Just look at COD Modern Warfare 2. People spent 15 DOLLARS for just 5 maps. People pay ridiculous amount for DLC.

I absolutely agree, they do have a right to be annoyed.

But Unplayable? I find this very hard to believe honestly. If the game was Unplayable on any of the platforms, it would be national news and the game would not have sold millions of copies and have been touted as a success.

Like everyone, I do hope the patch comes soon.

Some things that people "opposed" to the idea of some sort of gimme as compensation are failing to consider...

In the U.S. at least, there isn't ONE (yes,1) gaming software retailer who will take back an opened game and issue a refund. You would only be able to exchange it for the same (broken) item, regardless. This is understandable. Best Buy or WalMart etc. aren't in the game "borrowing" business. That still leaves a customer with a defective product, and the only recourse if they aren't patient enough to wait for a patch (that they may, or may not even be able to get) is to turn it in at a second-hand store like Gamestop, for 1/6th or less of what they spent on it, or try to sell it for more to someone else. There goes the "refund" answer...

I mentioned earlier about how much used copies of NV were going for locally. ($25) The retort form a couple folks was to illustrate "supply and demand". To those who did, THANK YOU! That illustrates my point exactly. I cannot recall any "AAA" title that sold for less than half of retail within the first 3 months of release, let alone 6 weeks. That says to me that A LOT of people are dumping this game, at a much faster rate than most other new titles. This doesn't explain why people are getting rid of it, but there it is. Even games from a couple years back are commanding higher prices. "Supply and demand" defined...

Lastly, and something I didn't even consider when I posted originally, is this. Believe it or not, even if/when a patch comes, not every customer or potential customer will be able to get it, because not everyone has internet, or at least internet capable of downloading anything in a reasonable manner. This right here is enough to make me reconsider the whole "free DLC" thing and propose instead that the publisher offer a patched version of the game on disc as a replacement to those who purchased the original in exchange for their original disc with proof of purchase.

After reading a lot of the responses here, it seems that quite a few people don't mind being victimized, as long as the offender promises to "fix" it, and that anyone who expects to be treated better than that is at the very least, unreasonable. "Don't worry baby, I'll only put the tip in..." Well, enjoy the rest of your life! Makes me sad for the future.

Somehow, it's also fine for game developer or publisher to get some "slack", because they apparently have a hard job. I know I couldn't do it, but make no mistake, they are being well paid for their work, however well done OR shoddy it is, and there are far fewer customer recourses with gaming software than ANY other consumer product. That is the difference, and one that ALL publishers should keep in mind every time they pull the trigger on a release. With one patch basically already waiting for early purchasers when they first loaded the game, NOBODY can tell me that the pubs didn't know there were issues with this product.

In fairness, people can't jump to conclusions about new DLC being pimped, and no mention of a patch. Odds are, at least the first 2 and likely more (especially given one exclusive) were already in development before the "finished" game hit shelves. I too would have appreciated more testing and fixes though...

Well, it's a small minority of players who experience ridiculous amounts of crashes and stuff apparently.
Cause if their games are as buggy as mine then I don't see what they are complaining about, my game works fine.
A small bug here a tiny bug there but nothing major or gamebreaking.

I'd be interested to learn how long the the QA process is - I reckon it is absurdly short. If release dates are announced, then the QA period should be at least many months, six, before it. The product should be locked long before the release date, and play-tested up the ass in the months leading up to when it is announced as "gone gold" and is ready for the retailers. I think F:NV went gold in early October? I'm assuming this was after a certain testing period, before it was shipped off to the shelves to sit waiting for our money. October to the November release, work was going on the first patch, which was obviously being worked fairly solidly, and what was it, three days after the US release the patch was released on Steam?

Even if free DLC and rapid patches weren't/aren't a reality, I think at the very least consumers need more information beyond shoddy previews from game critics and shoddier reviews that fail to mention glitches when they're clearly apparent. Given enough transparency the pre-order customers could then make more informed decisions on their purchase. All this talk of "Hey it's a big game, we couldn't catch all the bugs in time." Is horse poo, frankly. "Hey it's a big game, so let's do what we can to propose realistic release dates and apply long and extensive testing periods. Rather than vying to make the date, pumping as much as we can into it - even if quantity out does quality - and then release it in a state that pleases these chumps who expect a certain amount of bugs and glitches and instability from us, and to those who don't expect it... well... they'll learn."

An open letter or something. More insight into the development and testing process for the consumers is needed. Game critics, magazines and websites should be reporting problems, not bigging up franchises and getting consumers pumped. All hype and no journalism. Insight, whether it be voluntary on the part of the devs and publishers, or whether an organisation working in an official capacity when it comes to QA should be implemented. The industry is huge, and pockets of critics, dev studios and publishers are being lined by consumers, us, lined at our expense - and yet there's a fairly vocal crowd 'not caring' and 'not blaming'. S'mad. lol

How long was the QA for Vegas, anyone wanna hazard a guess or speak in an official capacity? Heh. :laugh: Normally we'd expect some kind of, uh, statement. But, "Hey, it's a big project." Doesn't cut it. At least in most other projects you'd hear reasonable reasons for delay or error. "Yes, sir, we estimated your skyscraqer would be finished by now, but as you can see, our contractors failed to deliver the toilets in time for us to finish the bathrooms." We get, "Hey, it's a big game." :lmao:

How can people possibly defend a company bringing out a game this bad with so many glitches/bugs etc. Must be pretty big [censored]. The game should never of been out the way it is now.

Not any more buggy than any of my other games for me. Seems perfectly reasonable on my end to defend the honor of Obsidian.

Never fear Obsidian! I will avenge thee!

I can't argue that many of these bugs should have been found and squished before release. That is just common sense.

However, I find the idea that Bethesda doesn't care, or that there is a conspiracy, or that they are laughing their way to the bank, or that they aren't trying to fix things, or that the DLC is an insult to either PS3/PC player or all players who have bugs, or that fixing everything is really easy and they just can't be bothered, fairly absurd.

I'd like to see the patch out faster, but I'd rather have it out better. And I don't think compensation is required for a game that I only use to fill otherwise wasted time anyway.

Three and a half hour gap. I'll accept that.

Who would agree that a good compensation, and one that may be doable for a reasonable cost, would be a two-player online version of Caravan that reads your savegame for the deck and connects people through the forum to play against each other?

No one plays caravan though... plus the rules are terribly balanced for play between two intelligent people.

Every game would end up a draw thanks to decks of nothing but 10s, 7s, 9s and kings.

So don't make that your deck.

It's easy to block someone using only those cards, so a more varied deck would be a requirement for success. A jack undoes a King without problems and a Joker used against a 10-7-9 player would destroy them.

Excuse Me? The majority of people do not have major bugs? What rock have you been living under? Go to Amazon.com read the the buyers reviews.

OR How about some quotes from around the intetrwebs..... Here's just a couple to get ya started

"However, as time wears on, the constant glitches invade almost every element of the game and eventually grow wearisome. This role-playing adventure is both more impressively intricate and more damaged than any major RPG in recent memory."
Source GameSpot -Fallout: New Vegas Review (Fair disclosure - they still gave it a 7.5 rating out of 10)

"No, I can only point to one real, genuine, unequivocal misstep Obsidian has made here (OK, two if you count the soundtrack): It's a technical embarrassment. Three times the game locked up on me completely, forcing me to restart the 360. Entering the outside world is more often than not accompanied by 20 seconds or so of the framerate slowing to an absolute slide show. Load times regularly hover between 25 and 50 seconds, in spite of a full hard drive installation. That's not so bad when you happen upon the occasional building in the Mojave Wasteland, but quest lines that take you in and out of several buildings in a row are utterly demoralizing."
Source Joystiq.com - Fallout: New Vegas review: War sometimes changes, a little

"Sadly, that wasn't the case, as New Vegas is currently filled with bugs and glitches, ranging from hilarious ones to serious, game ending others."
Source Softpedia.com - Obsidian Defends Fallout: New Vegas Engine

Trust me there are a TON more. Why not do a Bing or Google search for Fallout New Vegas Game-ending glitches - Google had 59 pages of links to this issue that according to you only small minority of us are experiencing!

As to your assertion that the reason FO:NV is only $25 is because it's used, why is Halo:Reach which was released before New Vegas still $49.99 used or DA:O which was released last year still $32.99????

I doubt you can make a conclusive argument either way. With literally millions of copies of the game sold there simply can't be enough reviews/comments/articles/threads/rants/praise/whatever on the web to make a majority. Couple that with the fact that angry people are more prone to speak up than happy people.....and you just can't prove it either way.

It will simply have to suffice to say that a lot of people have problems, a lot of those people have major problems. A lot of people are happy, and a lot of those people seem to have no significant problems at all.

No...not wrong. You just misinterpret it.

You want people to buy your item. You want everyone to buy your item. If you can spend $15 to get someone to spend $80, it's good buisness. It's not that people won't buy it...it's that you'll have less people buying it. People will buy it of course, but you don't want them to buy it second hand, because as a company you don't get that money.

Allow me to clarify. So far, Fallout has released expansion not just to download, but to buy. They do this because not a everyone has internet/download capabilities. Those who live in the boons, but, they still want that money. By offering a physical copy, they can get more money. The issue you run into are those who are disenchanted with the product, but like it enough to play. These are the ones who'll wait for the expansions to end up at the local gamestop to buy cheaper. It's good that they like the game, but it's better if you can get them to buy it when it first comes out because that is when you make the most money. By offering something (like a free DLC as penance) you can reinvigorate those who feel burned by the game. If you can entice someone who was not going to buy any expansion into buying 3 of the 4 by giving one away, you're doing really really well. Especially if there is reason for it (bugged game).

I'm not familiar with Modern warfare 2 and the number and type of bugs that came with the game, so I cannot comment.

You make a good point.

But the proof will be in the pudding. Either people feel that FO:NV met their expectations of value and playability and FO4 will set more opening-day sales records, or they've lost faith and it won't.

That's why I want free DLC... because I'd hate for FO4 to have people so nervous about quality and support issues that they hold off and cool response ends up killing the franchise.

There is also the fact not everyone who has a problem will go though the internet medium. We have no idea the number of calls and emails they get, which is why no one can really say "A small amount of players are X"

Unless you know the total number of players and the percentage of those players that have problems, you will never know if they are in the majority or not. So are there many complaints about glitches? Yes. Does that prove they are the majority of players? No.

I'd like to chime in to say that I'm yet another player that has experienced game ending bugs, and this sort of talk is what inspired me to just register and say so. I'm honestly confused as to why some people are ripping into people complaining of these bugs. If you've been playing Fallout: New Vegas with no bugs or glitches at all - huzzah for you! Grand! Marvelous! But going online and trying to tear these people who shelled out money for this game down because you've had no problems yourself... well, it doesn't seem quite kosher.

It's like saying that all blind and deaf people are lying about their disabilities because you've never had any trouble seeing or hearing yourself. Your personal experience is the be all end all of the discussion? I played this game for a good amount of time and only experienced minor bugs that I fixed by reloading a previous save. Still, I prefer a cleaner game than this and I awaited a second patch to show up with the same speed as the first one. Then I ran into some of the infamous game ending ones about a week ago. Am I annoyed that we haven't heard anything more about it? Yes. Am I suspicious that the console patch came out a mere three days after the release - and on the *same day* for the first PC patch? Yes. Putting that aside, and assuming they thought this game was free and clear when they shipped it, why hasn't this second patch come out with the same speed as the first one if they were able to respond *that* quickly? And, putting that aside as well, why haven't they been keeping their customers more well informed?

Personally, I'm not asking for free DLC, though I would take it if it was offered and would make me feel more warmly towards the companies and keep that in mind with future purchases from them. What I would like to see is their admitting that they screwed up and offer an apology at the very least, instead of just saying that F:NV is a 'big game'. Throwing in a bit of complementary DLC along with it (assuming its not something completely inane like being able to find pens to scavenge along with pencils) would go a long way towards mollifying a lot of people.

I have experienced bugs in Fallout: New Vegas and I'm speaking up.

I will concede you are absolutely correct and I will further concede personally, even I do not believe that a majority of players are having game-breaking bugs and glitches. In my 1st playthrough while I did experience a plethora of bugs, broken quests and graphical glitches, none were game-breaking. OTOH due to the broken quests, I cut that playthrough short and re-rolled to experience the joy of EVERY damn game-breaking bug reported thus far.

Anyway, my point was this; it is not merely a SMALL isolated group of unreasonable players as the poster I was replying to seemed to imply, but a massive problem with a huge number of consumers very unhappy and complaining OUTSIDE of these forums.

Also bear in mind as has already been pointed out a lot of people will never even come to the internet to complain, some will call, some will spread bad WOM to any and everyone they know, and some will just quietly eat their lost, and NEVER buy another Obsidian or Bethesda game again.

I know if I were Bethesda, I would be working as hard on a way to win back my hundreds of thousands of disgruntled former fans as I would be on the mythical patch.

Edit: Thank you for your post GBW - it's sounds both like we got here the same way and registered for the same reasons

See you're lobbing people like me (those that acknowledge that there are problems yet don't have any themselves) into the category of those that are just being ignorant jerks (those that truly believe that there are no problems and that people who claim to have them are just complaining for the sake of complaining).

I know there are problems with the game despite the fact that I don't experience them. However, I despise the fact that so many that complain (as well as those that rail on complainers) automatically assume that they're part of the majority. My suggestion is that nobody assumes they are the majority until they can in fact prove it to be true. Until the day that we can obtain the knowledge necessary to say that the majority of players do or don't have major problems with the game, we should just stick with the fact that some players have problems and some players don't.

You have problems with the game and that really does svck, because the game is pretty damn awesome. I don't have problems but I wish that was the same experience that everyone had. I'm not saying anything to be mean. I'm just stating what I've experienced to add further honesty to the conversation.

Capiche?