So in February's issue of Game Informer...

A. Skyrim is listed as GOTY.

B. Skyrim is 10th on the top 10 disappointments of 2011. Due to "Having to have 100 different saves because of the constant fear of quest breaking bugs..." (Ouch)

Thoughts??? Or just more of the non-sense we see every day on the forums.

Personally I still love the game...looking forward to patch 1.4, but still love the game.

One statement doesn't contradict the other. Even while flawed, something can be an impressive achievement worthy of recognition.

At least it's an honest notion. Anyone know when the patch comes out? I have a mammoth that wants to come down from the sky.

If I was to rate this game, it would be in-between a 8.9 to 9.2. (out of 10). That doesn't mean squat to the next person who's opinion differs from mine.

That's why I tend to ignore reviewers and anolysts. I test things out for myself and then I would normally draw my own opinions afterwards. This game will do fine.... it's the future of this series is what I'm truly concerned about. But I'll save that discussion for another thread, at another time.

You think when people have problems with the game, it's non-sense?

Contrary to popular belief, there are a lot of players that are still battling game-breaking and minor bugs. You don't see them here because most of them have learned to use the Hardware/Software forum, which is broken down by platform. Get more help there - from other players.

I started out with the program assigning keys to random positions which made my assassin/bow user unplayable for the first 4 days. Some minor issues since then.

Overall, it's a great game and I'm over 270 hours into it with 3 different characters and enjoying it immensely.

As far as patches go, don't expect too much. Bethesda is not known for putting out a lot of patches.

I'm glad the press is doing its job pointing out how badly Bethesda dropped the ball on bug-testing for this game. Especially since they apparantly lied about it (Todd claiming a brand new rigorous bug-testing scheme which apparantly did bugger all).

So another GOTY spree for Skyrim means TES VI is likely to be done after another four to five years. I do hope that in that time, they can learn their lesson and stop releasing games in an unfinished state.

Skyrim should have been delayed. But nope, Bethesda just couldn't pass up that 11-11-11, could they? Here's a tip guys: your audience is not swayed by marketing gimmicks. If it interferes with a quality product being released, we will nail you to the door (and we did).

It's a flawed gem.

Either this or 2011 was a disappointing year for games

I'd say it's more of a commentary on the state of the game industry than anything. In the strongest year of releases in memory, everyone stumbled. Ironically, the game of the year candidates stumbled more than most.

I am glad that reviewers have slammed Bethesda and Skyrim for its numerous bugs and glitches, this game should have been delayed to remove the bugs and add additional polish to the game.

It's an amazing game but the bugs are seriously detracting from my overall enjoyment of this game. The enemies not respawning after a year in game time. Also weapons and ash piles littered everywhere are not being swept from the world, then there is broken quest like Blood on the Ice.

The entire 11-11-11 was a ridiculous gimmick to release a game on, Skyrim was rushed and pushed for an early release clearly when it needed much more time.

Not surprised it got GI's GOTY although I disagree with the bug issue as that's being completely overblown.

Even with the bugs it's better in terms of stability then Oblivion or Fallout 3. I would've had at least 3 times as many freezes or issues with Fallout 3.

I don't think the bugs have been overblown at all. I am glad Bethesda has made some good leaps in the stability department, but that only goes for PC, which is only a quarter of their total audience. Considering the sorry state the console versions were released in (broken texture streaming on 360, and the infamous PS3 lag-fest), it is time for Bethesda to get their just desserts.

I agree with the PS3 lag, that's a huge problem. I don't have a problem with the broken Textures for the 360, is it a problem yes but in comparasion to what the PS3 is dealing with it's not an issue.

Yay, Someone else who thinks that any negative posts regarding skyrim & it's issues are just nonsense.

Well, I guess if beth listens to some of its most devoted fans/players, perhaps they WILL wait on the next game til it is more polished. I would have been more than willing to wait a couple more months. As I have only run into one or two glitches, that I can defintely say are not a problem with my x-box, for me it may not really have mattered much. But I do read the posts and see the problems others have/had especially ps3 players. Not sayng that their aren't problems with the pc or x-box versions, but the ps3 players seem to have gotten the worst end of it.

Another 5 yrs to next game? hmmm maybe before then I'll get a new pc, I realy really love some of the mods I see pics of and read about. I don't think my laptop is up to it though.

So it's good enough to get GOTY, and bad enough to scraqe it's way into the top 10 disappointments-OTY (in the opinions of the author, not getting into arguing that stuff).

Surely everyone saw it coming? The best game of the year was obviously going to get GOTY, and clearly the hyperbole was too much for the game to deliver upon. Games of this scope are really only ever going to be a disappointment, too much hype is the crux.
Not even GTA:V is going to be able to deliver on it's hype, once R* swing PR into motion.

The competition must have an awful lot of bugs.

I'm not a big subscriber to penalizing the technical issues more than necessary. Just because of an issue like CTD, it's unfair to penalize the game because it's unknown whether it was a validation error, user error, or game error. Over time, these can be root caused and maybe then we could say that Skyrim is an execution nightmare.

It's just too common in all releases that we get the response "I can't believe they shipped this, didn't they test it?" Even one big bug can't disqualify it legitimately when the competition suffers as well. I can't remember the last major release I've purchased where the forum base didn't say "worst ... game ... ever."

I agree the Ps3 lag is totally unacceptable but the recurse glitch for the 360 is a mile graphical glitch I can live with.

What is bugging me is the non respawning enemy bug. Also the weapons, arrows, and ash piles never being cleaned up from the world.

Then there is the save game bug on the 360 where your saves trail off the screen and you can not see them, some of your save files disappear and reappear. You try to save over one file it overwrites a completely different file.

Then the exploding item bug makes it impossible to decorate your houses.

I cannot begin Blood on the Ice.

The texture issue is minor compared to these in my opinion.

You have a point, I guess people tend to notice good things and bad things, but the bad things are what leave the strongest aftertaste. You can eat sugar, then immediately eat mud, which taste would you remember more vibrantly? In a fair test, mud would be eaten first followed by sugar, I bet sugar isn't sweet enough to erase mud.

I hope you see where my brain was trying to go with that.

I agree that the bugs aren't "non-sense". They're frustrating to say the least, but being an advlt you learn to live with it and move on instead of posting a rage thread daily that doesn't necessarily solve anything. I believe in bug reporting and I'm glad they have a separate forum for it...been in there a few times.

But the game is awesome...just means more play-throughs for me when better patches and DLC come out.

I guess my point in saying "non-sense" is that I'm assuming people are getting tired of writing negativity and I an only hope that they enjoy what they can when they can. Some people do not own a console/PC or the game...so we're privileged to marvel in what they have accomplished so far.

The soundtrack alone is worth it. Though Malukah should be put in as a bard somewhere. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4z9TdDCWN7g%5D

B is completely [censored]. I don't ever keep one save file. That's just asking for trouble. I have over 1000 saves for FO3, 900+ for FO: NV and around 500 for Skyrim. Why anyone would want just one save file is stupid.

Whenever Skyrim starts to lag on me, I pause the game and create a new save. Lag disappears. Problem solved.

Cant' stop playing the game, but I am also looking forward to the first real Data Patch to fix the bugs.

Mods from the CC will be awesome also.

This attitude rather annoys me, honestly. Yes, I am grateful to have Skyrim. The Elder Scrolls is, perhaps, my favorite game series. But just because you are grateful does not mean you should turn a blind eye to bugs and design flaws.

The game is great and I enjoy it, but it does have it's flaws. The only way it's going to get better is if people push them to do better. As long as people are willing to turn a blind eye and accept medicority, that's exactly what companies will produce. Even Bethesda.

If you have the game for the PC, "quest breaking" bugs don't really matter. You can debug it yourself using the console to bypass it in almost all cases (which is incredibly rare this ever happens). Crashes are few and far between. You can create backups of saves if you think you need to. Sorry you bought the game for your PS3 or XBOX, games this size are bound to have issues with them that isn't a surprise. Your inferior machine can't cope with it - just gotta deal with it.

It's a heavily flawed gem (for some even a broken gem). The game is amazing but at the same time horrible. The first overwhelm the latter though, you just need to look past it.
Sometimes that's hard though, because the bugs, flaws, issues of Skyrim can be so big that you can't even play the game at all or enjoy the game properly. I'm one of them. All my mountains flicker like crazy that you almost get seizure by looking at it, which is why I think the game is amazing and horrible at the same time.

Skyrim only deserves GOTY if Bethesda steps up and actually fixes the most fatal and major bugs and issues.