I played for the first time today since patch 1.4. Before the patch came out I was on my way back to Riften after completing several quests. I get there today only to find everyone but Madesi and the blacksmith standing outside Riften, in a single file line by the carriage. I can't buy or sell anything because the merchants all tell me to wait until they are in their shops. I've tried waiting, fast traveling away and back, but they won't budge. I punched one and they ran off, but after things settled down they returned to standing around the carriage.

leave area....Wait 73 Hours (this resets the scripts) Then try again.

Scripts reset @72 hours. +1 for good measure...post back if that works or not.

Ohhh...and on first load ....Save a New hard save.....then Load that new save...

(Thank you Bethesda for letting us "Beta" test the patch) these things were learned during "Beta phase".

I don't think that will do anything since this is the first time I have been to Riften in several game weeks. I was just south of Windhelm when I resumed playing after the patch. I don't use fast travel, so I traveled to Riften on foot.

Riften is just completely messed up. I left Riften, came back 4 game days later and everyone is still outside by the stables. Merchants refuse to deal with me, telling me to wait until they are at their stand. Is there a way I can reset their daily routine script? I have their refID and I tried going to the market area and using the console commands kill, disable, moveto player, enable, resurrect, but they turn around and go back outside to the stables.

Now I have a new quest where I have to talk to someone at the docks. The person I need to talk to is at the stable, not at the docks, and I can't advance the quest because they won't talk to me while they are at the stable.

I found out what the problem was if anyone is interested. After experimenting with console commands with no luck, I began going through my saves to see if I could find one that wasn't bugged. I found the last one where they weren't all standing outside and compared it to the next save where they were. It turns out it was the animal extermination quest. The quest is to kill a random beast in a random location, in my case it was to kill an ice wraith in a Riften citizen's home. The quest causes all of Riften's citizens to go outside until that quest is completed, meaning returning to Aela in Whiterun after killing the beast. I had killed the beast earlier, but I left Riften using the rear gate. I haven't gone back to Whiterun and finish the quest yet, so when I returned to Riften everyone is still outside.

That is kind of messed up because if you have a this quest active and another quest active that requires interacting with someone in Riften (as I do), they won't interact with you while they're outside.

Whoa. Never would have guessed that one. Glad it wasn't something game breaking!

May not have broke the game, but it "bent" it pretty good - it's almost funny how these bugs can mess up the game.

These scripting problems indicate that the game is too linear - if you do quests out of order, or overlapping, you can run into problems - some of which are game-breaking

"Why is everyone in Riften is now outside by the stable?"

Horse sale.

Beers for free.