"General functionality fixes related to remapping buttons and controls (PC)"
Sounds like it. Scrolling is too damn slow in the PC version, and you have to use both keyboard and mouse alternatively for different menus, it makes no sense. I hope they fixed it, but I'm also playing far less since I finished the main story. Still lots to do, just not much incentive.
They might just mean they fixed the inability to 'properly' remap controls. The give/put inside container key is by default 'R'. This also has some other functions. If you remap said key, it remaps it sometimes but not all the time, so sometimes you have to press 'R' and sometimes your custom key. Various other keys also fail to remap properly.
You can always grab one of the mods to tweak the UI. I use one that at least helps by listing weight, value, and value/weight in a table format, though it doesn't allow sorting right now.
This game is so stupid. I played it for all of 5 minutes on the PC and couldn;t stand it. When are console ports going to end? Please, make some real PC controls. This game is 100% unplayable on the PC. Epic fail!
The menus were annoying, but not enough for me to skip out on an otherwise great game. You can play it with a 360 controller too by the way, but I used a mouse anyways. Hope this patch makes it better.
Come on!... the menu's are the worst. Until this patch you couldn't even press escape to exit them. Other times the mouse decides not to work on buttons. Worst of all though is that they're completely designed for a console controller. It could be SO much quicker and easier if they changed it for PC, or done it like in TES: Morrowind back before the dev's became console whores.
Apart from that it's possibly the best game i've played all year, certainly the most played.
Because Bethesda are a bunch of lazy bums. I would never buy any software from this company. They certainly don't deserve our business. Someone at their level, it is inexcusable for this mistake.
I sort of agree. They spend a lot of time and money on games this large, but at the same time it seems like they should do more beta testing and stop relying on mods to fix their mistakes. Bethesda, make a finely POLISHED game for once, even Oblivion never got fully fixed. After the last patch I was still finding rocks floating in the air...
You didn't play the game. No one could play 5 minutes of this game. It is too addictive. Game of the year without a doubt. And for the people moaning about menu's, press TAB, it isn't that hard!
PC Version, almost every time i open a sale or trade window as soon as i click a category on the left side of the screen the trade closes, and I have to ask the NPC to trade again. click a category, closes again....back and forth until it eventually opens.
I have found that scrolling all the way down the list until books and ingredients are above the halfway mark on the screen, then it is less likely to close when clicking...
//inventory management in these games is time consuming enough without having to open/reopen/reopen/reopen/reopen just to sell some junk.
I've never had a tendency to punch my monitor in my 31 years of gaming (im 31 :), that is until this bug looped THIRTEEN TIMES on me
"I'm sworn to carry your burdens...", click, "I'm sworn to carry your burdens...", click, "I'm sworn to carry your burdens...", click, "I'm sworn to carry your burdens...", click, "I'm sworn to carry your burdens...", click, "I'm sworn to carry your burdens...", click, "I'm sworn to carry your burdens...", click, "I'm sworn to carry your burdens...", click, "I'm sworn to carry your burdens...", click, "I'm sworn to carry your burdens...", click, "I'm sworn to carry your burdens...", click, "I'm sworn to carry your burdens...", click, "I'm sworn to carry your burdens...", AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH
I've noticed on a regular basis that the UI gets "stuck" so that I can't select an item, so I click once and it deselects, and then a second click will get what I was after. Of course, that could be because of the UI mod I'm running.
But the granddaddy of them all, and I've yet to see it mentioned, is you select your character's name to view all of your inventory while buying/selling and as you guide the cursor away from your name to navigate the item list, you accidentally highlight "Misc" from the NPC's categories. When you click on an item to sell in your inventory, it says instead "$$$ removed from your inventory". You just bought your own sh!t. If ever you had less gold then before you talked to an NPC to sell, now you know why.
Sounds like most of the "bugs" I keep hearing about are simply because people are moving through the UI menus to quickly and creating errors for themselves. How about slow down a bit so you don't press the wrong button on accident. This happened to me, but I decided I was rushing through the inventory to quickly. I now relax a bit more in UI and have enjoyed the way it was created since.
I think I know what you are talking about... You are clicking too far to the left, hitting just left of the actual menu item, why they wouldn't let that run the whole width of the menu is a good question, or why missing it would close the menu.
I'll be happy for the HD install fix on the 360 -- though I will say, I haven't been all that bothered by the load times from disc. I think devs are pretty clever about that these days. Still, nice change, hope it shaves some seconds here and there.
And kinda interesting about the dragons-not-attacking thing; in my time so far I've encountered maybe 5-6 non-story dragons, and two of them wouldn't attack, just circled around overhead. Pretty high percentage for a rare bug. The effect wasn't without worth though; it's kind of unnerving to have a dragon hanging around, wondering when the other shoe (claw?) will drop. Fun effect if you get into it.
...except in that it wasn't planned. There are a ton of other aspects about the game that make me scratch my head along the same lines, such as Lydia saying the same damn thing over and over when you want to look at her inventory, AND the game makes you listen to it unless you click a button repeatedly... They should fire their testers.
I'm not sure if you've ever been in QA before. They don't decide what get's fixed, the product managers/owners do. Some of the QA stories from the gaming industry are grim. The PM will go through and set a demarcation line, all bugs under it don't get fixed in the shipping product. That could be in the 1,000s. Whether or not any of the ones in Skyrim are/were/should have been show stoppers is a matter of debate, but blaming the testing/QA staff shows some ignorance on the development cycle.
No sir, you're the ignorant one. First off, what I mentioned are not bugs. Noone said a word about bugs. They are intentional parts of the game that are annoying. My point was, who the hell decided that was ok? The time to change what I mentioned in code is literally less than a minute, ie she shuts up after the first 5 iterations...
The only people in their team who would find Lydia annoying are the testers.
Yes I have been in QA, and yes I am now a programmer. Again, they should fire their testers.
I'm confused. You blame the testers, then say that these are design decisions and not bugs (indicating it's not a QA issue), and then go right back and say fire the QA team again.
Daveman509 is right. Deadlines are set all the time by people who are not as concerned by the quality of the product, but rather the bottom line. If you don't understand this, then I can't imagine what environment you've tested/programmed in.
Our testing team finds bugs and occasionally (but rarely) design issues all the time that don't get fixed due to deadlines set by our CEO. Just because software is released with bugs or design issues, doesn't mean the QA team didn't find them.
I've been enjoying the new comic by the Penny Arcade guys working with Scott and Kris, The Trenches: http://trenchescomic.com/ Particularly entertaining are the stories below, the "tales from the trenches".
If you think it's the testers missing stuff, you're probably mistaken. Even more likely considering the game shipped right at the start of the holiday season.
I'm talking about an NPC saying one line possibly hundreds of times during each playing session that takes .01 man hours to change. And it's an NPC that 99% of the playing population will use for at least a while. It doesn't matter who speaks up about it, just that someone should have said something and the person most likely to get annoyed by it first is the one playing it constantly. That's it, no need for diving into how your company works, or how you'll never grow because you don't have the backbone to make sure something gets implemented.
Everyone else I know that plays the game have all complained about the annoyance of some of the NPCs that you consistently interact with.
As a result of this dumb discussion about a blatant quality oversight, I killed Lydia today. I replaced her with Uthgerde and it's a welcome change. So fire the guy over Lydia only. Or maybe that was the designer's goal... right.
This is really going to make the PC version ultimately unplayable for a lot of gamers. "Fixed crash on startup when audio is set to sample rate other than 44100Hz (PC)" this is the only type of crash they fixed? This was an easy fix to do manually in the first place. Instead of focusing on the crashes that NOBODY in the gaming community can find a way to fix themselves, Bethesda fixes the one type of crash any gamer can easily fix.
If this is really all the patch does then I'm going to demand my money back because I CANNOT PLAY THE GAME. I understand that this is a huge open-world game and that bugs were to be expected, but why spend $60 on something that gives you nothing but frustration? And yes the issues will probably be fixed in the future, but this has become an issue of principle. This is like buying a season of your favorite show on blu-ray and you only get the first disc out of 5 in the box. You're able to watch the first few episodes and are able to get the gist of the plot and where the story may be going, but instead of putting in the next disc you find a note that says "Sorry working on it, we'll send you disc 2 as soon as it's available". This would be totally unacceptable to most people!! But because Skyrim is such a huge game and has totally been geared to be played on consoles, PC gamers are left with having the game crash to their desktop or getting a black screen and having to manually reboot their system with the hope that Bethesda may fix these issues sometime in the future.
By making it mandatory to have to start the game through steam, Bethesda has made it exceedingly difficult for PC gamers to even be able to play the game. If I spend $60 on a game I should be able to play it however I want. I shouldn't be having to start up steam, and get a bunch of pop-up ads for other games that are on steam just to play the game I've been looking forward to all year.
I'll wait till the 1.2 patch comes out, although it seems that the issues affecting me aren't going to be addressed. If they are and my computer stops crashing then I guess it would be worth it because Skyrim seems like an incredible game from the few hours I have been able to play. But if my issues haven't been addressed and I'm still not able to play the game I will be asking for my money back.
It's come down to the point to where I feel like Bethesda really doesn't give a crap about my experience as a gamer, but more importantly I feel that they don't give a crap about my experience as their customer.
If you're having issues with quitting to desktop I'd heavily advise getting the LAA patch - that enables you to use 4gb of memory like was mentioned in the article. This not only makes the game a lot more stable, it also gives you an executable that lets you skip steam. As long as you're logged into steam in offline mode, you never have to look at it.
Just so you're aware and you can get back to enjoying Skyrim sooner. It really is a great game.
About the screen going black.. that sounds more like an issue with your system. I've experienced skyrim on 3 different PCs at varying performance levels and haven't seen that. Try updating your video card drivers or seeing if you may have a hardware problem, like GPU or bad memory stick. It could be that Skyrim is the only thing you have that is really pushing your system hard enough to fail in that manner. Good luck.
hahaha, you really think the LAA patch adds stability to the game? Sir, the game only uses 700mb of ram most of the time. I'm gaming at 2048x1536 and my game memory is still below 700mb for the most part. The LAA patch won't even be needed until some SERIOUS mods become available. So no, LAA currently doesn't add any stability. The game will never crash due to short memory until around 1.7gb. This is FACT. I'd say if anything, his system is lacking in memory to begin with and when play Skyrim, he is running short on system memory. My suggestion, go by another couple gb of ram. ;) Free up your OS and anti virus some so your game can breathe.
Underwhelming patch considering the number of bugs in this game. I don't get why they say "Fixed rare issue with dead corpses being cleared up prematurely" is rare. It happens often for me. I'm kind of sad about "Dragon corpses now clean up properly". I thought it was intended for the dragon bones to stay forever.
Check the wikis for the bug patches, some are quite hilarious, some are scary and some make you wonder who's in charge of QA at bethesday.
My personal favorite is the guy that got decapitated while on god mode and is stuck walking around with a neck stump and no head. Close second to dead dragons falling out of the sky randomly for some people.
I agree, the patch is kinda weak considering all the other issues others have found. Dragon corpses cleaning up... Hmm, I've seen when a dragons bones will hang around for a few days after I kill it, then a few days later only the skull remained, and then after another day it disappeared. Maybe that's what they meant.
Anybody would think that such a big release of a $60usd game would get a more decent patch, perhaps some enhancements for the PC version, and while there is virtually no problem with the gui if you use a gamepad, I can understand and respect those who hoped for better support for KB/M.
If sheeople would stop pre-purchasing games then maybe developers and publishers would make a better effort to polish their products more as a requirement to earn their share.
that's PR spin. These bugs are "very rare"... makes it seem like they don't want to fix anything and they are bending over backwards just to fix these issues... Why not make the 'release' build more stable to begin with? I mean, TES is widely known to be buggy/broken! Why not just say "addressed a possible issue regarding..." instead of "fixed a very rare issue"?
I can only imagine in the near future people will have to PAY for updates/bug fixes. I can see it now... "sorry you purchased the 1.0 software and license. To fix the issue you are having you will need to pay for the 1.2 or the 1.3 software license." The CEO will take the official stance of: "(we stand behind the process we have and) We will continue to churn out mostly unusable/unstable horse manure on the release date - suckering pre-order and release day customers while maintaining a healthy profit margin" and they will have to add one of these in there too: "we apologize for any inconvenience this may cause".
"Improved occasional performance issues resulting from long term play (PlayStation 3)" They didn't play the game for hours. "Fixed issue where textures would not properly upgrade when installed to drive (Xbox 360)" They didn't try installing on Xbox. "Fixed crash on startup when audio is set to sample rate other than 44100Hz (PC)" They didn't test other sample rate. "Fixed issue where projectiles did not properly fade away" They didn't fire projectiles. "Skeleton Key will now work properly if player has no lockpicks in their inventory" They didn't try other scenario. "ESC button can now be used to exit menus (PC)" They don't like the keyboard. "General functionality fixes related to remapping buttons and controls (PC)" They don't care about PC gaming.
I have adopted a new outlook on the Bethesda PC games I love so much. Whenever I encounter something that doesn't work right in the game, and it sends me to .ini files, or beta drivers, or the command console, or some strange registry setting buried deep in my system, I see it as a new branch in the story line. One that takes me on an epic quest through Google, and various forums with questionable downloads and strange executables. This should be something listed on their description of the game. Printed right on the box, because it has been a staple of their games since I can remember.
Some of you guys that make broad sweeping condemnations of a game that at launch quickly won the industry respect and admiration of virtually every reputable reviewing source. You won't play anymore? Gonna return it? Some of you guys are so hypercritical, are capable of finding fault with anything and everything. You guys could find faults in a rainbow.
Yes the PC version has some quirks. And it does get somewhat frustrating once in a while? I'm a lvl 15 conjurer/sin type and the game, as most agree, is incredible.
Some of you need to to chill out lol. Sure there's lots of problems well guess what it's a MASSIVE game. . I fail to understand all the hate on the menu, I mean yeah it needs some fixing but the overall idea is pretty sleek and well done. I find it to be very fast/intuitive and don't believe it was designed solely for console users.
Admittedly some of the bugs like the big PS3/XBOX ones are incusable, laughable really. Did they even play the game on PS3 lol? Patch is also a bit underwhelming expected some more fixes hope another one is on the way soon.
+1 to the guy who said creation kit is out soon then we can rely on community patch which is 1000x better anyway regardless of game :p
It was definitely designed for consoles, and rightfully so considering the market distribution. This is a non-argument. For you to say otherwise only eliminates your credibility on any other opinion you might have uttered, especially the part about "incusable."
I don't know why PC Gamers are so hell bent on creating an image of being cry babies. Its saddening to say the least. It also baffles me that folks who claim to have respect Bethesda has just lost it because of this game. Odd.... I thought it was known that Bethesda releases buggy games. Fortunately I have not run into any of the said issues. Since I play this game with the controller, the interface is not a problem and works quite well.
I noticed that you cant jump while sprinting, you cant shoot while jumping (arrows or spells), you cant jump while immediately in front of an object (like say a railing), and your running speed is about as slow as a normal games walk speed... your walk speed is about as fast as low crawling through mud or sand. I also noticed that if you are sneaking and hit someone while invisible they some times detect you (presumably because you get too close and touch them) obviously your sneak attack will fail but your guy wont stand up when you hit the stand up key and then the sprint key really quickly while trying to cast a spell (in my case invisibility). He ends up just standing there doing nothing but getting hit with his back to the enemy and you have to hit the keys all over again.
There are numerous broken quests (pantaea's flute, some guy's drum, and someone else's lute to name a few) where you cant get rid of the item even though youve completed the quest. Other broken quests are like the galdurs amulet i think its called. when I went into the tomb to get the second piece I had already cleared the place from a previous quest and the fragment of the amulet wasnt there. there was an arrow pointing to the ground where I was supposed to get the amulet but it wasnt there. Then there's the stones of barenziah ... who thought it would be a good idea to make it so A) all of these 24 stones had to be found haphazardly with no help from anyone outside of the internet? and B) the one in the dark brotherhood can only be obtained on the first 2 missions they give you even though after the whole attack and subsequent burning of the place you can still get to the room where the stone was... so if you dont steal from the group of assassins the first time you walk into their den youre boned! Great idea bethesda! Then there were the NPCs constantly getting in the way of my arrows and then attacking me for shooting them... hey jackass dont cross the tube and that wont happen!
Also what's the point of getting married in the game? I mean it wasnt as thought out as it was with mass effect where you spent the whole game cultivating a relationship with a character... my guy put on the amulet of mara and went home to whiterun and bang the first girl that he talks to wants to marry him. Then when I do marry her she sits at home supposedly running a shop of some kind and only says the same 4 things to me from then on. What's the point if all I can do is ask her about the shop and to cook me something and the other 2 options she said before we got married?
All that being said it was still a really cool game and I played it for about 2 weeks straight for 12 or 15 hours a day (unemployment has its benefits)... got to level 63 and just finished the main quest a couple of days ago. Not really interested in the whole petty fight between the stormcloaks and the legion so Im pretty much done with the game now. I could go on more thieving missions and more assassination missions but that's hardly a reason to keep playing.
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tipoo - Monday, November 28, 2011 - link
"General functionality fixes related to remapping buttons and controls (PC)"Sounds like it. Scrolling is too damn slow in the PC version, and you have to use both keyboard and mouse alternatively for different menus, it makes no sense. I hope they fixed it, but I'm also playing far less since I finished the main story. Still lots to do, just not much incentive.
Lonyo - Monday, November 28, 2011 - link
They might just mean they fixed the inability to 'properly' remap controls.The give/put inside container key is by default 'R'. This also has some other functions.
If you remap said key, it remaps it sometimes but not all the time, so sometimes you have to press 'R' and sometimes your custom key.
Various other keys also fail to remap properly.
JarredWalton - Tuesday, November 29, 2011 - link
You can always grab one of the mods to tweak the UI. I use one that at least helps by listing weight, value, and value/weight in a table format, though it doesn't allow sorting right now.dusteater - Monday, November 28, 2011 - link
This game is so stupid. I played it for all of 5 minutes on the PC and couldn;t stand it. When are console ports going to end? Please, make some real PC controls. This game is 100% unplayable on the PC. Epic fail!tipoo - Monday, November 28, 2011 - link
The menus were annoying, but not enough for me to skip out on an otherwise great game. You can play it with a 360 controller too by the way, but I used a mouse anyways. Hope this patch makes it better.Souka - Monday, November 28, 2011 - link
Hmmm... I'm about %50 done, menu's aren't really a problem for me.My $.02 (since people are commenting on the menus)
B3an - Monday, November 28, 2011 - link
Come on!... the menu's are the worst. Until this patch you couldn't even press escape to exit them. Other times the mouse decides not to work on buttons. Worst of all though is that they're completely designed for a console controller. It could be SO much quicker and easier if they changed it for PC, or done it like in TES: Morrowind back before the dev's became console whores.Apart from that it's possibly the best game i've played all year, certainly the most played.
Makaveli - Monday, November 28, 2011 - link
"ESC button can now be used to exit menus (PC)"For the love of christ how do you release a pc game and this isn't checked by a beta tester or the developer??
Are you fucken kidding me?
dusteater - Monday, November 28, 2011 - link
Because Bethesda are a bunch of lazy bums. I would never buy any software from this company. They certainly don't deserve our business. Someone at their level, it is inexcusable for this mistake.FITCamaro - Tuesday, November 29, 2011 - link
So shut up and don't read threads on this. I love people who just shit all over a game because they don't like a few bugs or some feature in it.Leonick - Tuesday, November 29, 2011 - link
I don't know, I kind of liked the menus... Well after I learned to navigate it mainly with the keyboard that is...There are far bigger problems in Skyrim, like main quests being broken by doing certain side quests...
JonnyDough - Thursday, December 1, 2011 - link
I sort of agree. They spend a lot of time and money on games this large, but at the same time it seems like they should do more beta testing and stop relying on mods to fix their mistakes. Bethesda, make a finely POLISHED game for once, even Oblivion never got fully fixed. After the last patch I was still finding rocks floating in the air...JonnyDough - Thursday, December 1, 2011 - link
To add to that, Morrowind is still my favorite game of all time probably. That or Fallout 2.Wozar - Thursday, December 1, 2011 - link
You didn't play the game. No one could play 5 minutes of this game. It is too addictive. Game of the year without a doubt. And for the people moaning about menu's, press TAB, it isn't that hard!dsleif - Monday, November 28, 2011 - link
They going to fix the clunky inventory system on PC too? Maybe make it so I can actually see the things I am putting on my character?far327 - Wednesday, November 30, 2011 - link
That's why you use 3rd person view while you equip armor/weapons.StraightPipe - Monday, November 28, 2011 - link
PC Version, almost every time i open a sale or trade window as soon as i click a category on the left side of the screen the trade closes, and I have to ask the NPC to trade again. click a category, closes again....back and forth until it eventually opens.I have found that scrolling all the way down the list until books and ingredients are above the halfway mark on the screen, then it is less likely to close when clicking...
//inventory management in these games is time consuming enough without having to open/reopen/reopen/reopen/reopen just to sell some junk.
Iketh - Monday, November 28, 2011 - link
I've never had a tendency to punch my monitor in my 31 years of gaming (im 31 :), that is until this bug looped THIRTEEN TIMES on me"I'm sworn to carry your burdens...", click, "I'm sworn to carry your burdens...", click, "I'm sworn to carry your burdens...", click, "I'm sworn to carry your burdens...", click, "I'm sworn to carry your burdens...", click, "I'm sworn to carry your burdens...", click, "I'm sworn to carry your burdens...", click, "I'm sworn to carry your burdens...", click, "I'm sworn to carry your burdens...", click, "I'm sworn to carry your burdens...", click, "I'm sworn to carry your burdens...", click, "I'm sworn to carry your burdens...", click, "I'm sworn to carry your burdens...", AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH
JarredWalton - Tuesday, November 29, 2011 - link
I've noticed on a regular basis that the UI gets "stuck" so that I can't select an item, so I click once and it deselects, and then a second click will get what I was after. Of course, that could be because of the UI mod I'm running.Iketh - Tuesday, November 29, 2011 - link
nope, that's another one...But the granddaddy of them all, and I've yet to see it mentioned, is you select your character's name to view all of your inventory while buying/selling and as you guide the cursor away from your name to navigate the item list, you accidentally highlight "Misc" from the NPC's categories. When you click on an item to sell in your inventory, it says instead "$$$ removed from your inventory". You just bought your own sh!t. If ever you had less gold then before you talked to an NPC to sell, now you know why.
far327 - Wednesday, November 30, 2011 - link
Sounds like most of the "bugs" I keep hearing about are simply because people are moving through the UI menus to quickly and creating errors for themselves. How about slow down a bit so you don't press the wrong button on accident. This happened to me, but I decided I was rushing through the inventory to quickly. I now relax a bit more in UI and have enjoyed the way it was created since.Leonick - Tuesday, November 29, 2011 - link
I think I know what you are talking about... You are clicking too far to the left, hitting just left of the actual menu item, why they wouldn't let that run the whole width of the menu is a good question, or why missing it would close the menu.far327 - Wednesday, November 30, 2011 - link
Doesn't happen for me. Maybe an ID10T errorCisephys - Monday, November 28, 2011 - link
I'll be happy for the HD install fix on the 360 -- though I will say, I haven't been all that bothered by the load times from disc. I think devs are pretty clever about that these days. Still, nice change, hope it shaves some seconds here and there.And kinda interesting about the dragons-not-attacking thing; in my time so far I've encountered maybe 5-6 non-story dragons, and two of them wouldn't attack, just circled around overhead. Pretty high percentage for a rare bug. The effect wasn't without worth though; it's kind of unnerving to have a dragon hanging around, wondering when the other shoe (claw?) will drop. Fun effect if you get into it.
Souka - Monday, November 28, 2011 - link
I shot some magic/arrow at one of those dragons...he came after me right away.At the time, I didn't even think it was a bug.. .just part of the game.
Iketh - Monday, November 28, 2011 - link
Yea that gave the dragons personality. Not sure why that is considered a bug.Iketh - Monday, November 28, 2011 - link
...except in that it wasn't planned. There are a ton of other aspects about the game that make me scratch my head along the same lines, such as Lydia saying the same damn thing over and over when you want to look at her inventory, AND the game makes you listen to it unless you click a button repeatedly... They should fire their testers.Daveman509 - Tuesday, November 29, 2011 - link
I'm not sure if you've ever been in QA before. They don't decide what get's fixed, the product managers/owners do. Some of the QA stories from the gaming industry are grim. The PM will go through and set a demarcation line, all bugs under it don't get fixed in the shipping product. That could be in the 1,000s. Whether or not any of the ones in Skyrim are/were/should have been show stoppers is a matter of debate, but blaming the testing/QA staff shows some ignorance on the development cycle.Iketh - Tuesday, November 29, 2011 - link
No sir, you're the ignorant one. First off, what I mentioned are not bugs. Noone said a word about bugs. They are intentional parts of the game that are annoying. My point was, who the hell decided that was ok? The time to change what I mentioned in code is literally less than a minute, ie she shuts up after the first 5 iterations...The only people in their team who would find Lydia annoying are the testers.
Yes I have been in QA, and yes I am now a programmer. Again, they should fire their testers.
mpschan - Tuesday, November 29, 2011 - link
I'm confused. You blame the testers, then say that these are design decisions and not bugs (indicating it's not a QA issue), and then go right back and say fire the QA team again.Daveman509 is right. Deadlines are set all the time by people who are not as concerned by the quality of the product, but rather the bottom line. If you don't understand this, then I can't imagine what environment you've tested/programmed in.
Our testing team finds bugs and occasionally (but rarely) design issues all the time that don't get fixed due to deadlines set by our CEO. Just because software is released with bugs or design issues, doesn't mean the QA team didn't find them.
JarredWalton - Tuesday, November 29, 2011 - link
I've been enjoying the new comic by the Penny Arcade guys working with Scott and Kris, The Trenches: http://trenchescomic.com/ Particularly entertaining are the stories below, the "tales from the trenches".If you think it's the testers missing stuff, you're probably mistaken. Even more likely considering the game shipped right at the start of the holiday season.
Iketh - Tuesday, November 29, 2011 - link
I'm talking about an NPC saying one line possibly hundreds of times during each playing session that takes .01 man hours to change. And it's an NPC that 99% of the playing population will use for at least a while. It doesn't matter who speaks up about it, just that someone should have said something and the person most likely to get annoyed by it first is the one playing it constantly. That's it, no need for diving into how your company works, or how you'll never grow because you don't have the backbone to make sure something gets implemented.Everyone else I know that plays the game have all complained about the annoyance of some of the NPCs that you consistently interact with.
As a result of this dumb discussion about a blatant quality oversight, I killed Lydia today. I replaced her with Uthgerde and it's a welcome change. So fire the guy over Lydia only. Or maybe that was the designer's goal... right.
eachbraveeye - Monday, November 28, 2011 - link
This is really going to make the PC version ultimately unplayable for a lot of gamers. "Fixed crash on startup when audio is set to sample rate other than 44100Hz (PC)" this is the only type of crash they fixed? This was an easy fix to do manually in the first place. Instead of focusing on the crashes that NOBODY in the gaming community can find a way to fix themselves, Bethesda fixes the one type of crash any gamer can easily fix.If this is really all the patch does then I'm going to demand my money back because I CANNOT PLAY THE GAME. I understand that this is a huge open-world game and that bugs were to be expected, but why spend $60 on something that gives you nothing but frustration? And yes the issues will probably be fixed in the future, but this has become an issue of principle. This is like buying a season of your favorite show on blu-ray and you only get the first disc out of 5 in the box. You're able to watch the first few episodes and are able to get the gist of the plot and where the story may be going, but instead of putting in the next disc you find a note that says "Sorry working on it, we'll send you disc 2 as soon as it's available". This would be totally unacceptable to most people!! But because Skyrim is such a huge game and has totally been geared to be played on consoles, PC gamers are left with having the game crash to their desktop or getting a black screen and having to manually reboot their system with the hope that Bethesda may fix these issues sometime in the future.
By making it mandatory to have to start the game through steam, Bethesda has made it exceedingly difficult for PC gamers to even be able to play the game. If I spend $60 on a game I should be able to play it however I want. I shouldn't be having to start up steam, and get a bunch of pop-up ads for other games that are on steam just to play the game I've been looking forward to all year.
I'll wait till the 1.2 patch comes out, although it seems that the issues affecting me aren't going to be addressed. If they are and my computer stops crashing then I guess it would be worth it because Skyrim seems like an incredible game from the few hours I have been able to play. But if my issues haven't been addressed and I'm still not able to play the game I will be asking for my money back.
It's come down to the point to where I feel like Bethesda really doesn't give a crap about my experience as a gamer, but more importantly I feel that they don't give a crap about my experience as their customer.
**fingers crossed**
jesh462 - Monday, November 28, 2011 - link
If you're having issues with quitting to desktop I'd heavily advise getting the LAA patch - that enables you to use 4gb of memory like was mentioned in the article. This not only makes the game a lot more stable, it also gives you an executable that lets you skip steam. As long as you're logged into steam in offline mode, you never have to look at it.Just so you're aware and you can get back to enjoying Skyrim sooner. It really is a great game.
About the screen going black.. that sounds more like an issue with your system. I've experienced skyrim on 3 different PCs at varying performance levels and haven't seen that. Try updating your video card drivers or seeing if you may have a hardware problem, like GPU or bad memory stick. It could be that Skyrim is the only thing you have that is really pushing your system hard enough to fail in that manner. Good luck.
far327 - Wednesday, November 30, 2011 - link
hahaha, you really think the LAA patch adds stability to the game? Sir, the game only uses 700mb of ram most of the time. I'm gaming at 2048x1536 and my game memory is still below 700mb for the most part. The LAA patch won't even be needed until some SERIOUS mods become available. So no, LAA currently doesn't add any stability. The game will never crash due to short memory until around 1.7gb. This is FACT. I'd say if anything, his system is lacking in memory to begin with and when play Skyrim, he is running short on system memory. My suggestion, go by another couple gb of ram. ;) Free up your OS and anti virus some so your game can breathe.diggernash - Monday, November 28, 2011 - link
The work-a-rounds are a pain. It would be nice to have more resolutions fully supported.darksbane3k - Monday, November 28, 2011 - link
Underwhelming patch considering the number of bugs in this game. I don't get why they say "Fixed rare issue with dead corpses being cleared up prematurely" is rare. It happens often for me. I'm kind of sad about "Dragon corpses now clean up properly". I thought it was intended for the dragon bones to stay forever.morfinx - Monday, November 28, 2011 - link
I for one am glad for that. I have like 5 sets of dragon bones clogging up the Winterhold courtyard :Peuler007 - Tuesday, November 29, 2011 - link
Check the wikis for the bug patches, some are quite hilarious, some are scary and some make you wonder who's in charge of QA at bethesday.My personal favorite is the guy that got decapitated while on god mode and is stuck walking around with a neck stump and no head. Close second to dead dragons falling out of the sky randomly for some people.
far327 - Wednesday, November 30, 2011 - link
I agree, the patch is kinda weak considering all the other issues others have found. Dragon corpses cleaning up... Hmm, I've seen when a dragons bones will hang around for a few days after I kill it, then a few days later only the skull remained, and then after another day it disappeared. Maybe that's what they meant.arjuna1 - Monday, November 28, 2011 - link
Anybody would think that such a big release of a $60usd game would get a more decent patch, perhaps some enhancements for the PC version, and while there is virtually no problem with the gui if you use a gamepad, I can understand and respect those who hoped for better support for KB/M.If sheeople would stop pre-purchasing games then maybe developers and publishers would make a better effort to polish their products more as a requirement to earn their share.
jesh462 - Monday, November 28, 2011 - link
Yeah, that's it because the creation kit is on the way. The player base can fix the rest of the game.far327 - Wednesday, November 30, 2011 - link
Truer words have never been spoken...Iketh - Monday, November 28, 2011 - link
Half of the listed fixes begin with "Fixed a rare..." which is worrying considering there are many more bugs that are anything but rare...anactoraaron - Tuesday, November 29, 2011 - link
that's PR spin. These bugs are "very rare"... makes it seem like they don't want to fix anything and they are bending over backwards just to fix these issues... Why not make the 'release' build more stable to begin with? I mean, TES is widely known to be buggy/broken! Why not just say "addressed a possible issue regarding..." instead of "fixed a very rare issue"?I can only imagine in the near future people will have to PAY for updates/bug fixes. I can see it now... "sorry you purchased the 1.0 software and license. To fix the issue you are having you will need to pay for the 1.2 or the 1.3 software license." The CEO will take the official stance of: "(we stand behind the process we have and) We will continue to churn out mostly unusable/unstable horse manure on the release date - suckering pre-order and release day customers while maintaining a healthy profit margin" and they will have to add one of these in there too: "we apologize for any inconvenience this may cause".
far327 - Wednesday, November 30, 2011 - link
Hey hey hey!!! Don't give them any ideas!Subzero0000 - Monday, November 28, 2011 - link
Those suppose "bugs" are just plain stupid."Improved occasional performance issues resulting from long term play (PlayStation 3)"
They didn't play the game for hours.
"Fixed issue where textures would not properly upgrade when installed to drive (Xbox 360)"
They didn't try installing on Xbox.
"Fixed crash on startup when audio is set to sample rate other than 44100Hz (PC)"
They didn't test other sample rate.
"Fixed issue where projectiles did not properly fade away"
They didn't fire projectiles.
"Skeleton Key will now work properly if player has no lockpicks in their inventory"
They didn't try other scenario.
"ESC button can now be used to exit menus (PC)"
They don't like the keyboard.
"General functionality fixes related to remapping buttons and controls (PC)"
They don't care about PC gaming.
sintaxera - Monday, November 28, 2011 - link
I have adopted a new outlook on the Bethesda PC games I love so much. Whenever I encounter something that doesn't work right in the game, and it sends me to .ini files, or beta drivers, or the command console, or some strange registry setting buried deep in my system, I see it as a new branch in the story line. One that takes me on an epic quest through Google, and various forums with questionable downloads and strange executables. This should be something listed on their description of the game. Printed right on the box, because it has been a staple of their games since I can remember.far327 - Wednesday, November 30, 2011 - link
hahahahah!!! again so true!!!Chaser - Tuesday, November 29, 2011 - link
Some of you guys that make broad sweeping condemnations of a game that at launch quickly won the industry respect and admiration of virtually every reputable reviewing source. You won't play anymore? Gonna return it? Some of you guys are so hypercritical, are capable of finding fault with anything and everything. You guys could find faults in a rainbow.Yes the PC version has some quirks. And it does get somewhat frustrating once in a while? I'm a lvl 15 conjurer/sin type and the game, as most agree, is incredible.
Ahnilated - Tuesday, November 29, 2011 - link
I haven't seen anything about fixing the SLI issues or did I just miss it?euler007 - Tuesday, November 29, 2011 - link
You might want to try the nvidia beta drivers, they added a sli profile for skyrim.I'm running two 570 in SLI with no issues (didn't have any before changing driver either).
KaDomoT - Tuesday, November 29, 2011 - link
Some of you need to to chill out lol. Sure there's lots of problems well guess what it's a MASSIVE game. . I fail to understand all the hate on the menu, I mean yeah it needs some fixing but the overall idea is pretty sleek and well done. I find it to be very fast/intuitive and don't believe it was designed solely for console users.Admittedly some of the bugs like the big PS3/XBOX ones are incusable, laughable really. Did they even play the game on PS3 lol? Patch is also a bit underwhelming expected some more fixes hope another one is on the way soon.
+1 to the guy who said creation kit is out soon then we can rely on community patch which is 1000x better anyway regardless of game :p
Iketh - Tuesday, November 29, 2011 - link
It was definitely designed for consoles, and rightfully so considering the market distribution. This is a non-argument. For you to say otherwise only eliminates your credibility on any other opinion you might have uttered, especially the part about "incusable."Menoob - Tuesday, November 29, 2011 - link
I don't know why PC Gamers are so hell bent on creating an image of being cry babies. Its saddening to say the least. It also baffles me that folks who claim to have respect Bethesda has just lost it because of this game. Odd.... I thought it was known that Bethesda releases buggy games. Fortunately I have not run into any of the said issues. Since I play this game with the controller, the interface is not a problem and works quite well.shin0bi272 - Wednesday, November 30, 2011 - link
I noticed that you cant jump while sprinting, you cant shoot while jumping (arrows or spells), you cant jump while immediately in front of an object (like say a railing), and your running speed is about as slow as a normal games walk speed... your walk speed is about as fast as low crawling through mud or sand. I also noticed that if you are sneaking and hit someone while invisible they some times detect you (presumably because you get too close and touch them) obviously your sneak attack will fail but your guy wont stand up when you hit the stand up key and then the sprint key really quickly while trying to cast a spell (in my case invisibility). He ends up just standing there doing nothing but getting hit with his back to the enemy and you have to hit the keys all over again.There are numerous broken quests (pantaea's flute, some guy's drum, and someone else's lute to name a few) where you cant get rid of the item even though youve completed the quest. Other broken quests are like the galdurs amulet i think its called. when I went into the tomb to get the second piece I had already cleared the place from a previous quest and the fragment of the amulet wasnt there. there was an arrow pointing to the ground where I was supposed to get the amulet but it wasnt there. Then there's the stones of barenziah ... who thought it would be a good idea to make it so A) all of these 24 stones had to be found haphazardly with no help from anyone outside of the internet? and B) the one in the dark brotherhood can only be obtained on the first 2 missions they give you even though after the whole attack and subsequent burning of the place you can still get to the room where the stone was... so if you dont steal from the group of assassins the first time you walk into their den youre boned! Great idea bethesda! Then there were the NPCs constantly getting in the way of my arrows and then attacking me for shooting them... hey jackass dont cross the tube and that wont happen!
Also what's the point of getting married in the game? I mean it wasnt as thought out as it was with mass effect where you spent the whole game cultivating a relationship with a character... my guy put on the amulet of mara and went home to whiterun and bang the first girl that he talks to wants to marry him. Then when I do marry her she sits at home supposedly running a shop of some kind and only says the same 4 things to me from then on. What's the point if all I can do is ask her about the shop and to cook me something and the other 2 options she said before we got married?
All that being said it was still a really cool game and I played it for about 2 weeks straight for 12 or 15 hours a day (unemployment has its benefits)... got to level 63 and just finished the main quest a couple of days ago. Not really interested in the whole petty fight between the stormcloaks and the legion so Im pretty much done with the game now. I could go on more thieving missions and more assassination missions but that's hardly a reason to keep playing.