Yes it's pointless, yes it's frivolous, but I felt compelled to post this message regardless.

Only in the video game industry can a company get away with this. Imagine buying a book only to get halfway through to find that it's suddenly written in another language, or perhaps purchasing an album from your favourite band only to find that tracks 5, 6 and 7 are silent. It amazes me that this joke-of-a-situation - which basically amounts to a company releasing an unfinished product - gets ignored. Yes, there have been articles written, and we've all seen the many posts stamped on this forum, but how do Bethesda get away with it legally? Try selling a pair of shoes with holes in them and hoping no one notices.

Listen, I know we're all fed up of waiting, moaning and overdramatizing, but seriously, this situation needs to be addressed. I for one will never buy a Bethesda game on launch again. From now on I'm going to wait a few weeks and then buy a pre-owned copy (which there will be lots of). At least that way Bethesda won't see the colour of my money - plus it'll give the game time for the inevitable patch.

As for the poor excuse of 'a game of this size is impossible to launch bug free'. That's complete nonsense. We're not talking about a bug that 1/1000 people experience or a minor quibble with a character's physics: these are blatant issues that any decent testing department should have noticed. Which leads me to believe that the game was probably shipped knowing that the issues were there (yes, I also haven't been able to play my copy for 2 weeks due to the DLC bug). It's become all too easy to ship an unfinished product and just roll with the punches. Besides... where's the apology? All I seem to see in this forum and in the press is "hold on... it's coming" type messages or stern defensive words. People think it's unreasonable to expect forum replies to every comment: I totally disagree. Bethesda should be eating from our hands. They should take some of the $300 million they've made from the 5 million copies sold and pay someone to reply to every issue on this forum. At the very least - an apology wouldn't have hurt.

The attitude stinks, the company's priorities are wrong and I think more people need to make their voices heard.

It's a joke.

yeah i agree its pretty pitiful how this whole things been handled..

absolutely agree with you on this but it's not just Bethesda that do this - look at GOW2, COD-MW2, COD-Blackops, Halo etc etc.. i was just thinking how games manufacturers got on before we could connect consoles to the web.

in those days we would have taken these games back as broken but these days.. well

Honestly people, take a step back and think before griping. The game is massive and is a multi-platform game, and with only a couple hundred testers to test this game before launch it would be impossible for them to find all the bugs and fix them. To top it off some people experience certain bugs while others dont, I let my friend borrow FO NV and he experienced different bugs than I did, none of which were game killing.

Lets be honest, it would be a ton easier to debug older video games because most of them weren't nearly as expansive or complex as video games these days. Then there is the fact that now days developers can fix their bugs and then just release a patch for you to download instead of having to re-release a game. I support this because instead of having a couple hundred people playing a game and testing it, you'll have hundreds of thousands if not millions of people playing the game more thoroughly than an average tester, they'll be able to get much more detailed feedback this way.

Whats funny about all of this is the fact that gamers are to blame for the bugs that they [censored] about constantly. Gamers constantly demand for games to be released sooner and sooner every generation, a developer can't work on the game for more than a year or two after announcing a game without the gaming community starting to bleed out it's backside.

haha, what's funny is you thinking it's the gamers whining that makes the developers ship games too early. I mean how blue eyed can you be? When has EVER popular demand made a game been released before it was scheduled, oh thats right: NEVER. It's the publishers and stock holders that want their money back asap who pushes these kinds of games forward or backwards, have no delusions about it.

As to the OP, i agree whole-heartedly and will also stop buying bethesda games and just go second-hand. Having these kind of grave error and no public relations except for the "oh we're aware, and the patch is weeks out" Game has been out almost a month now and it's still unplayable for a large portion of buyers, anything short of a public apology for shortchanging consumers is as the OP so eloquently put it : An utter disgrace.

yeah everyone knows this but thats still no excuse really..but i think in hindsight if everyone knew the problems they were gonna get with the game no one would have complained if it had been delayed another few months or even 6 months...also thats no excuse for the attitude of the companys as far as communication with the ppl that bought the game and it make me wonder if they think if they dont say anything maybe well all just shut up and go away..

Actually, it's a perfectly legitimate excuse. Because of us gamers these companies are pressured to release these games as quickly as possible, if Bethesda announced that the game needed to be delayed because Obsidian needed to work out some non-game killing bugs, gamers would be infuriated. It's a loose-loose... At least this way you can play the game, and when the patch for the game is ready you can download it when available, instead of waiting for 6 or more months for a game that you know people will still find bugs to complain about.

To be perfectly honest, most of the complaints I've read just peg these gamers as grumpy and unappreciative. As both me and my friend concur, as well as the more reasonable gamers will agree that most of the bugs in FO: NV are annoying at worst.

The save file corruption is something legitimate to complain about, that much I would agree, I ran into it once and it was because of the "Classic Pack" DLC. But, since I didn't want the content to begin with I deleted it and started all over.

yeah in reality some of us realize that they have deadlines they have to meet and if they worked on every single problem the game would never come out.

So much complaining its redonkulous..... The way I see it if you can get a bunch of people together and make a better less bug free game in the same amount of time then you can complain because some of us aren't going to pretend its so easy.

Your anger should be directed towards Obsidian as they developed the game. I blame Bethesda as a publisher for not insuring the test cycle at Obsidian was adequate. If you played KOTOR 2 then you would know Obisidian has some history with taking a working product and screwing it up.

anyone who was going to buy this game would have bought it regardless if it had come out 6 months later than it did..i know some would have whined and cried a little but so what? at the end of the day it would have been better for everyone even the designers and publishers because they wouldnt have this disappointment on their hands or the egg on their faces..i really hope this is a lesson to them in the future but really i think its too late..i know im not going to buy one of their games day 1 like i did nv..

I've seen far more, and much better games get pushed back over and over again and still have huge successful launches. And in the end, it doesn't matter what "gamers want" or "stock holders want", it's the fact that an actual company released a broken/ unfinished/ nonworking product and has yet to do anything other than say "yes, we know it's broken and we're looking into it, it should work some time soon." As the OP said, there's really no other product out there that can do something like this and get away with it legally. And the other thing that I'm sure people have said about this is, play testers and the like get paid. We don't, we actually pay them for us to point out all the problems and mistakes they should have found to begin with. And again, I'm agreeing with the OP and am NEVER (hope Bethesda/Obsidian read this) buying another one of their products until it's old and used so they wont see a single penny of my hard earned money.

i think it all boils down to greed..the sheep are going to want a new fallot game and we need to get it out there asap so we can put more moneys in our pockets and if the games not 100% throw a patch on it..

Actually the whole industry is like this. I do have a couple albums with messed up tracks.. recorded at the wrong speed. And I do have the first printing of Stephen Kings' the Gunslinger series books 5,6 and 7 where the pictures are attached into the books upside down. Some messed up things become rare and valuable .. others don't because it's all based on if someone is willing to buy a messed up product for more than it's worth. However it does happen all the time. In the game world it happens simply because of the cost of fully testing a product.. They can't release free beta's of single player games for the public to test because of the format. It would be copied and out on the net for everyone to steal if they did that. And they can't afford to hire 1000 testers to test a game so big. It's sad that the industry is run this way but really it all comes down to money. Either we pay the companies who make the games we want.. or they get bought out by a bigger company and take the titles we love and turn them into junk.

You can blame this on two things, hard deadlines and simultaneous multi-platform releases. It affects pretty much every game out there and the larger/more complex the game the more issues. Without hard deadlines, game development would and can drag on forever. Look at Gran Turismo V for example. Or anything ever made by rare (except for their kinect mini games). It's one thing to have a platform exclusive stable product years in the making like say Alan Wake, but it's another thing to race against time while simultaneously keeping all the builds in sync only to be forced to ship a product that is not complete with the intention it can be patched later. That's how the gaming industry works right now, and it svcks for us consumers but it also svcks for developers. It isn't their choice, it's a business decision that they have no control over. These guys work long hours and skip vacations over this sort of thing and most of them don't even get paid what you think. Even still, making any sort of video game costs lots of money (especially when multi platform) and even though we brag about $60 games and DLC that costs on top of that, a lot of games don't recoup their costs. NV will, but say Dead Rising 2 for example probably won't.

Don't blame Bethesda, blame the industry. And pray for a one-console future (PS3 development, contrary to popular belief, is still a nightmare)

Ya, I Reached Level 30. I Have All but 4 Achievements. 73 Hours Of Gameplay On One Character Then Bam... DLC bug... I REALLY REALLY hope That The Next Patch Fixes Saves That Have Been Affected Rather Then Fixing Just The Problem From Happening Again.... That Would svck And I Prolly Wouldnt Play New Vegas Anymore...

I got about 8 hours out of the game before I got the bug. Then I just created a new character and explored the map since I've been waiting for this fix. Honestly If i had known it would have taken this long to fix the process or get the patch out I would have returned the game. Eventually I would have purchased it when I checked to see it was patched but from now on all i'm going to check forums and wait months after release (at least 4). After this bad release I kind of expect everyone to wait a few months. To be honest the bug ruined my game experience. now instead of playing how I would like to play it with doing quests. Having to check forums for patches and looking for ways to avoid bugs I've seen so many spoilers that this game in some ways is pretty much ruined for me.

Well, you're right that most of the bugs in FO:NV are just annoying. NPCs changing gender in mid-dialog. Scorpions being halfway stuck in the ground. Your arms constantly flipping up and down over your head when you crouch holding a rifle. The Pip-Boy disappearing. There are dozens and dozens of stupid little bugs that you can simply play right through and ignore, and which won't prevent you from finishing quests even if they do distract from the immersion. There are more of these irritating minor bugs in this game than in any other I've played, but they're not the ones that really piss people off.

I haven't hit the corrupted save file bug yet... at least not the one that seems to be triggered by Come Fly With Me. But the first patch that was released the first weekend did manage to kill my main save file. It caused my Xbox to lock up entirely whenever I tried to go into VATS. So I had to revert to a much earlier save, and I got a bit irritated that I lost several hours of work.

The small, non-game-killing bugs are just a sign of sloppiness, which gamers will quickly forgive if the overall game experience makes it worthwhile. FO:NV shows a much greater degree of this kind of sloppiness than FO3 did. If nothing else, I'm appalled at all the typographical errors that show up in the dialog. This is carelessness far beyond that befitting a studio creating a followup to a major GOTY. But whatever; who cares about spelling anymore?

But where you're wrong is to describe the bugs as "annoying at worst." No, they're annoying at best. The worst FO:NV bugs are about as bad as bugs get, locking up your Xbox and corrupting your saves. The only way they could be worse is if they triggered a RROD, ran up your phone bill, burned the HUD permanently into your plasma, and killed your cat.

Nobody really cares if a game's launch is delayed; it happens all the time. Some people will squawk, but who's gonna organize a boycott? At that point, nobody's lost any money over it. But when a game is released prematurely, and loaded with a minefield of game-breaking bugs, that's when there's a problem. There will be a certain minority of customers who have bought the game and do not have broadband internet access. How exactly are those guys going to get their busted game patched? Will Obsidian mail them a disc? They damn well better.

This is not the state of the art. Other game studios know how to do this properly. Halo:Reach managed to come out on time, and I've played the hell out of it. If it has any bugs, cosmetic or game-breaking, I haven't seen them. But Reach was in a playable state over a year ago, the public beta was several months in advance of launch, and Bungie tests their product exhaustively. They'd be way too embarrassed to even think about releasing a game in FO:NV's condition. How many people begged them for a release date in 2009, or even 2008? "Soon," was all Bungie would say for the longest time. And why? Because they wouldn't allow themselves to be rushed into releasing an inferior product. And how much did the delay cost them? Probably not much: they grossed $200 million on launch day alone.

"At least this way you can play the game," you say.

No, many of us can't. Take another peek around this forum, and see how many people are locked out of the Strip, or can't get an NPC to initiate the dialog that will begin a crucial quest. See how many people have seen days of work flushed down the crapper when all of their carefully-spaced save files got corrupted.

Greed killed Fallout: New Vegas. You can't blame the fans. If over three million North American gamers could wait for a relatively bug-free Halo:Reach to be released when Bungie was good and ready to release it, then Fallout fans could reasonably be expected to wait however long it would take for a relatively (if not perfectly) bug-free FO:NV to come out. But Bethesda and Obsidian wanted to cash in early, to capitalize on the eagerness of fans to get a new heaping helping of the postapocalyptic experience that made FO3 a truly deserving GOTY, without investing in all that expensive testing.

It's indefensible greed, plain and simple.

"You can blame this on two things, hard deadlines and simultaneous multi-platform releases. It affects pretty much every game out there and the larger/more complex the game the more issues."

That's a valid point but I've got close to a 50,000 Gamerscore on my Xbox account which is made up of over 100 games. I've had bugs - some frustrating and pretty bad - but never have I had a game sat dormant next to my console literally days after buying it. So although the point you make might be true, this game breaks the mold. Is it really just a case of me being unlucky, or is it more likely that the game was shipped in an unfinished state? I think this forum answers that question quite clearly. If someone had told me the situation, I wouldn't have brought the game. Simple.

And in regards to game dev and testing procedures: I've been working in the industry for 10 years and I'm aware of the challenges involved. Is Fallout an ambitious title that creates more potential for error than any other game? Maybe. But no excuse can skirt around the fact that Bethesda are providing a broken product and charging for it. Delay the game's release, issue a statement, pay for a bigger test department, hire more programmers... do anything, but don't charge ￡40 for game that has a high probability of being useless.

The other annoyance is the fact that Fallout: New Vegas is effectively a Fallout 3 spin-off. It uses the same engine and shares many common features. Add to this that Oblivion came before that (which wasn't a dissimilar game) and you've got 5+ years of dev time making nothing but free-roaming, save-anywhere-you-want adventure games (and yes, I'm not counting Morrowind). You'd think in all that time they would have figured out the pitfalls of testing/completing a game of this scope. I'm willing to give leeway to a company that tries anything new and ambitious, but c'mon... this is Bethesda's bread-and-butter.

Finally, does anyone else find it ironic that the issue is related to DLC? Also another telling point in regards to there their priority is. I suggest getting the main game finished - and working - next time, before worrying about typing a line of DLC code.

all of this ^^^ FTW but special mention to the bugs -lol

look, i loved FO1, 2 & 3.. Morrowind ES and I love FO:NV - i'd still buy the game even though i know it's got probs (might not be helping the issue, i know!)... but why have I had to avoid doing Come Fly With Me or going onto the strip in playthrough 2? These aren't minor bugs, FO:NV has its fair share of those, these are game ruining issues.

And the jokey tech help (where resolution is spelt resoultion) seems to think that a save reload, cache clear or a simple "you gotta work around us" approach is a-ok.

It's poor communication from the company that creates bad feeling amongst consumers. I saw the same with Epic and GOW2 and don't understand why it's difficult for a company with a forum to update it's customers frequently.

Shoddy customer care

It's the norm for gaming these days or didn't you guys get the memo.
It one of the reason the internet is a bane to gaming. Yea there would be bugs, but not as bad as some of the bugs that caused my system to RROD.

As I've said before, the only way game developing companies are going to change their way of doing things is to stop buying their product. Unfortunately no one will do that. Maybe some will, but not enough that would send the message that their customers are fed up with crappy games.

SmaugJr absolutely NAILED it. I completely 100% agree. There is no argument to his post, if so, I'd like to see someone try.

Were you dropped or something? This is about the most idiotic thing I have read, short of bible thumpers arguing evolution. Its MY fault that I bought a game thinking, "Golly Gee, I sure can't wait to play this game!" only to find it unplayable? What are you smoking? If it was known that the game would be unplayable I wouldn't have bought it, regardless of when it came out. Because an unusable, unfinished product is just that. About as useful as a terd on a stump. Apologists like you make me sick. Take your yellow-bellied back side to France.

You're naive if you honestly think its gamer demands that push a game out early. No, its about money. They wanted to avoid competition. They wanted to beat COD. They wanted to beat the holiday rush. And because they cut corners now a lot of us have broken, unusable products. If it wasn't for the fact that games are unreturnable, this piece of crap would be gone from my life already. And then there's idiots like you trying to blow smoke and being all sympathetic to the poor widdle programers....if I screw up this bad in my job someone dies....

Actually gamer demands do factor. It's "OUR MONEY" they want so sadly part of your arguement loses bite and you come off as just being a jerk. Money does make the industry go around, but the comapnies do, preform survey's and feel out for what's hot on the market and the demand from us, the gamers. As for trying to beat the holiday rush, that's a toss, given how many other games have been and are still being released around this time. The Sept-Dec months are hot buttons for game releases as Christmas is around the corner and companies want their product out to rake in the holiday cash like everyone else.

As for the topic of the glitches and bugs, I am very irate given that I'm unable to finish my Independant Vegas playthrough because everytime I try to get into the Fort to upgrade the Securitron army, it freezes my game. I started a second playthrough as a back up, but I'm always wary of how to proceed, and my copy has been mostly sitting on my shelf save for some free-roaming I haven't touched the other alternatives for the endgame out of fear of something screwing up. So I do feel that Obsidian and Bethesda, due to the increasing amount of the bugs and the number that can ruin the game entirely, should be more active in informing us of the patch status and replying to our inquires on the forum more actively. While they took too darn long in releasing a patch for Metro 2033's Ranger Pack, THQ and the developers at least did a good job via Twitter and a few other venues in keeping the gamers updated on the patches stages to release. Same for Gearbox on the 4th DLC achivement bug patch, they took awhile but their forum was updated more with news on the patches than we've seen here.

However I feel it is childish to go on about "never buying their products again", or demonizing the company beyond any needed scope, and I feel some of us here are griping beyond our understand of how development and bug testing goes. I'm not offering a get out of hot water card for Bethesda and Obsidian; but I do feel in some regards people here are critizing them unneccesarily. Given the number of bugs and new ones reported and the cross plateform avaibility of New Vegas, they have to make patches for the PC, Xbox 360, and PS3 (and Blu-Ray games are still murder to program for). That actually takes alot of time and effort, plus pegging down some of the random probabilities that generate these bugs is no easy feat. I grant using the existing Falout engine which already had bug issues may have contributed to this, but a sandbox game this massive and with such variety is open season for bugs that sometimes even manifest so randomly they're missed during testing.

Either way I say to those of you who are utterly fed up, trade in your game copies and just go play another game. To those of us willing to wait before turning in the towel, let us return to our vigil.

and just accept the loss? what about compensation for the game we paid for in good faith but did not get? how would that work i wonder if the roles were reversed and they felt they didnt get their just due in some business deal they made? some of us, me included, paid upwards of $80 for a game most of us can not play. if bethesda/obsidian were to at least show so sympathy and understanding it would be a different story instead they choose to pretty much ignore the fact they screwed the pooch here..is it really so hard to say we understand your frustration and apologize for any inconvenience weve caused? it must be if your a company thats just made millions of dollars selling a broken lemon of a game to a faithful gaming community..id be embarrassed to show my face anywhere for a good while if i had pulled a stunt like this..but hey im not the one smiling all the way to the bank am i..

Yeah I wonder how they would like it if I only paid them 8 dollars for this game? Cause that what they did to us. Sold us a game at FULL price but it turned out to be only 20% done.
I was at the video store the other day and someone came in to rent this POS game and the lady behind the counter told her to save her money and rent another one. Told her that they had recieved complaints that the game is unplayable...
I had to chuckle when I heard that...
And remember for ever complaint you hear, there are at least another 50 people who feel the same way...