Digital Foundry VS Bethesda: PS3 Skyrim is still shit

Dragon said:
This game has been getting universal renown. It's had bugs on all three platforms with various amounts of severity. Since I only have a PS3, I won't be getting the game, but is the game THAT good that you can ignore these bugs on the other platforms? I'm talking about the poor PC UI and the weird texture problem on the 360. I assume the texture problem got fixed with that latest patch. It just confuses me.

BTW, I don't see the incentive for Bethesda to do anything about this. It's almost the end of the generation and the PS3 version will still sell well enough that they'll think it isn't a big deal.
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The sky above see's all and Karma is quite the avenger. If this is even remotely going through their way of thinking they are doomed.
EviLore said:
Can I establish a new internet law stating that anyone complaining about entitlement as part of their argument is both A) wrong, and B) a giant douchebag?

Because it appears to hold true 100% of the time.
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I'll vote for it.
 
SolidSnakex said:
Were the developers of those games doing interviews where they talked about how much work they put into the Saturn version and how they watched the Saturn version being played and couldn't tell the difference between it and the PSone version? That's what was going on with Skyrim for the PS3. Bethesda did multiple interviews where they tried to convince PS3 owners that they were making sure to put out a high quality port this time.



It said a lot when they refused to show the PS3 version. Skyrim was even featured in Qore, but it was just 360 footage with the buttons removed.
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In that case, you have a good point. Especially since they were clearly the best ones in a position to really know about problems since they had to have playtesters test that version of the game thoroughly. If they made an attempt to cover the differences, shame on them.
 
EviLore said:
Can I establish a new internet law stating that anyone complaining about entitlement as part of their argument is both A) wrong, and B) a giant douchebag?

Because it appears to hold true 100% of the time.
Click to expand...

You have my sword.

This shit is completely unacceptable, hopefully someone holds Bethesda accountable asap, I didn't think the issues were so bad.
 
needs to be recalled, video games should be held to the same standard as other products even if safety isn't an issue
 
ghst said:
So, PS3 gamers are a bunch of spoiled children, who knew!?

Don't get me wrong, bitch about online passes and stuff. But don't bitch about getting "360 ports" because they don't match your magical expectation levels. The market has shifted: PS3 is a minority focus, just be glad you're getting some of the titles that the 360 gets and buy them. It seems like some people on PS3 simply don't do that because "LOL XBOX PORT!" :/

People throwing their arms up and whining and going "why aren't they supporting us!?" when they attempt to (even if poorly) is crazy.
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Whahahaha!!!!
Thanks for the laugh. Demanding a game you spent $60 on to be functional is now considered "whining".
 
EternalGamer said:
Are you saying there is a universal problem for everybody playing Fallout on PS3? I admit that I never played Fallout on the PS3 but I would have thought if the problem you described is a universal bug something would have been done or I would have at least heard about it.

In this case, as far as I understand it, it has to be a save late in the game, it is not always repeatable, and some people have found various remedies. Even that comparison video is something that looks bad but not "unplayable." And, as I understand it, it only happens in towns. That is the kind of thing that would not have recieved this kind of outcry in previous generations. My version of Symphony of the Night for Saturn had frequent slowdown. Tomb Raider's framerate in the pyrimid area dropped to single frame rates from time to time.

Yet I was still like, "well this sucks, but I'm glad I get to play it rather than this version not existing."
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yes, the problem was universal enough. sure if you're a casual Fallout gamer and only played the game for 10 hours, you didn't have major issues. but EVERYONE i talked to who had a large savefile (10mb-15mb or whatever) had gamebreaking performance. i talked to two people on my friendlist who gave up on it because it was unplayable. i did too. and nothing was done by Bethesda to fix it because they are either incompetent or crooks, like we know now.

i can handle slowdown and crashing, but if it happens CONSTANTLY... preventing you from progressing, the game is broken, right? and it didn't just happen to me. i challenge you to find a person who completed all Fallout 3 DLC on PS3 with a 15mb+ save file without gamebreaking performance...

and yeah i've been gaming for 25 years or so, and never have i seen such poorly performing games as Bethesda's releases on PS3. absolutely atrocious, in my mind without parallel in the history of videogames.
 
EternalGamer said:
In that case, you have a good point. Especially since they were clearly the best ones in a position to really know about problems since they had to have playtesters test that version of the game thoroughly. If they made an attempt to cover the differences, shame on them.
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Here's an exmaple of what i'm talking about

Yes, PS3 and 360 have reached a good place of parity....framerate, fidelity, etc. The PS3 version is getting a ton of attention
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http://twitter.com/DCDeacon/status/108594625547206656
 
EternalGamer said:
I think it kind of is if you are blaming the dev or automatically demanding that there should be console parity. I owned a Saturn so I understand shitty ports; I played a good deal of them (but I also played a lot of awesome 1st party games that never came out on Playstation). I would have been pissed if game reviewers told me "this version runs just as good as the Playstation version," but most of the time, back in the day, game magazines did a pretty damn good job of letting you know what the weaknesses of that version were, so you went in prepared to deal with them.

The failure here is a failure of information.
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I like that you come in this thread talking this shit when the first post is an empirical demonstration of a game that cannot be played. Did you watch those videos?

No one gives a shit how you played Tomb Raider in 1996. Skyrim is not playable at 8FPS. The failure is on the part of the developer.
 
EviLore said:
Can I establish a new internet law stating that anyone complaining about entitlement as part of their argument is both A) wrong, and B) a giant douchebag?

Because it appears to hold true 100% of the time.
Click to expand...

It is not wrong. I am frequently amazed at how many people in real life (in my case, college students) have a sense of entitlement. I can't count the number of students that get furious at me when they get less than an A on a paper because "they have always gotten As."

If Bethesda made an concerted effort to hide the discrepancies in the version, they people have a legitimate reason to complain. But if it is just a matter of the version performing shittier (and in particular, 60 hours in, only for some people, and only in towns) then I think they have a lot less reason to demand things like refunds or the developers heads.
 
EternalGamer said:
I doubt Sony "seethes" over descrpancies in ports to their system which reveal themselves after 60 hours of gameplay. Only fanboys are that fucking ridiculious. Not even the people who have money at stake are that stupidly psychologically invested.
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ok just stop talking now.
 
mavs said:
I like that you come in this thread talking this shit when the first post is an empirical demonstration of a game that cannot be played. Did you watch those videos?

No one gives a shit how you played Tomb Raider in 1996. Skyrim is not playable at 8FPS. The failure is on the part of the developer.
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See, our definitions of 'unplayable" are even different. I can guarantee you many of those Saturn games ran at 8fps at times. I absolutely watched those videos. I agree that it looked bad. I'm glad I'm playing it on PC. But to me "unplayable" means just that: the game literally won't play or crash everytime I try to play it. It does not mean "60 hours in the framerate is sometimes shitty when I do certain things like fast travel a lot then go into towns."
 
Averon said:
Whahahaha!!!!
Thanks for the laugh. Demanding a game you spent $60 on to be functional is now considered "whining".
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I agree . In this case people need to complain as loud as they can. This should not be tolerated. 60€ it is a lot of money for a game, it should at least work properly.
 
Ok correct me if i'm wrong but when a publisher releases a game to either Sony,Microsoft or Nintendo platforms,don't they need to also pass some sort of approval by the platform holder?How did Sony gave the ok to Bethesda to publish their game on their console if the game is as shitty as everyone says it is?
 
EternalGamer said:
It is not wrong. I am frequently amazed at how many people in real life (in my case, college students) have a sense of entitlement. I can't count the number of students that get furious at me when they get less than an A on a paper because "they have always gotten As."

If Bethesda made an concerted effort to hide the discrepancies in the version, they people have a legitimate reason to complain. But if it is just a matter of the version performing shittier (and in particular, 60 hours in, only for some people, and only in towns) then I think they have a lot less reason to demand things like refunds or the developers heads.
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You don't see a difference between a bad port of a game and a game that breaks in 100% of cases?

I say this as someone who loves Saturn Nocturne in the Moonlight.
 
EternalGamer said:
It is not wrong. I am frequently amazed at how many people in real life (in my case, college students) have a sense of entitlement. I can't count the number of students that get furious at me when they get less than an A on a paper because "they have always gotten As."

If Bethesda made an concerted effort to hide the discrepancies in the version, they people have a legitimate reason to complain. But if it is just a matter of the version performing shittier (and in particular, 60 hours in, only for some people, and only in towns) then I think they have a lot less reason to demand things like refunds or the developers heads.
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You seem to not get it at all cause I'm baffled how you don't and everyone else does or you're just really that clueless. Your post about Saturn and PS1 was quite a ride. You need sleep or reassimilation.
 
I've been playing for about 85 hours now maybe longer at this point and it's no where near as choppy as the 65hr side of the video, my save before the patch was 9.5MB and after it was reduced to 8.5MB but now it's slowly climbing back up again and is past 9MB.

Overall the patch did help a bit and the framerate was smoother but I never really had any major issues to begin with. Is there a difference in how the game runs on Phats vs Slims and Slims vs newer revision slims?
 
EternalGamer said:
There really is a stupid sense of entitlement this generation.

I mean, I don't recall Genesis players calling Capcom for their "money back" when their version of Street Fighter had garbled voices. And those of us that played the Saturn versions of Tomb Raider or Resident Evil were fine to live with lower framerates or the elimation of some features like transparancies. We were just happy to get some of the ports to enjoy alongside of the awesome first party games for the system we bought.

Obviously what is in that video is pretty crappy but the disservice you guys have been done is by the game reviewers that failed to adequately test and let you know that this is what you were facing if you bought that version of the game.

Console ports have had superior and inferior versions forever. And there have been ports that have been shitty forever. Yet the mentality used to be "buyer beware" not "fuck the company who made this." Buy the better version or live with the inferior one and be glad you still get to play it. Hell, we used to even decide to buy consoles BASED ON better versions of games. Now it seems like the very existence of a better version leads to crying of lawsuits, refunds, and general decrying of the developer.
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The internet has allowed these issues to become a lot more apparent than they were before. Which is great because you can expose the crappy reviewers.
 
Xater said:
Exactly and I think it fucking sucks that I can't do this with games. If I buy any other product and it is broken I can expect a refund but when it comes to games or software you can forget that.



Can't keep up with these fucking kids...
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If you're in the UK, just state the sale of goods act and that the product is not fit for purpose.

Surely there's a similar law in the US?
 
Y2Kev said:
You don't see a difference between a bad port of a game and a game that breaks in 100% of cases?

I say this as someone who loves Saturn Nocturne in the Moonlight.
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Maybe I misunderstood the situition here. I read that write up and according to the description fo the video they had to do certain things to get the problem to manifest including:

1) Playing 60 hours

2) Fast traveling between a number of areas

3) Enter a town.

Even then it seems, it is not universal and the big framerate drops are limited to towns (correct?). And there are some people who claim rebooting the game fixes their problem, for example. Obviously game design has gotten a great deal more complicated since the 32bit generation and Bethesda games in general are prone to weird glitches that are not always repeatable even under the same conditions on different hardware.

I certainly wouldn't be very happy if my version of Skyrim did that and I would be pissed if I felt that the developer and the reviewers did not inform me enough to prepare me to know this kind of problem is likely to occur, but I'm still not sure i would call it this a case where the game "breaks 100% of the time." To me that means a failstate where I can't continue playing the game. Literally.

Again, I do think there is a good reason for anger to be directed at the dev if they were trying to cover up the performance issues and/or at game reviewers for not putting in due dilligence to let players know about the potential issues.

Like this guy:
Paznos said:
I've been playing for about 85 hours now maybe longer at this point and it's no where near as choppy as the 65hr side of the video, my save before the patch was 9.5MB and after it was reduced to 8.5MB but now it's slowly climbing back up again and is past 9MB.

Overall the patch did help a bit and the framerate was smoother but I never really had any major issues to begin with. Is there a difference in how the game runs on Phats vs Slims and Slims vs newer revision slims?
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Are we to assume he is lying? We must if we hold that the game is 100% broken.

In many ways, I think it is save to say the Saturn version of Symphony is a lot crappier because it is framerate problems are universal and more frequent than non-combat scenarios like they seem to be based around here, primarily.

Granted, the internet was barely in existence back then, but I don't recall anyone calling for Konami's head or demanding refunds. It was awesome that we got to play it, even if it was kind of shitty, we were happy.
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If there is something to make the PS3 look bad, DF will find it! j/k

Good article, but in typical DF/Ledbetter fasion they get off their area of expertise (number crunching) and start down the road of subjective theories.

" the fact that this issue hasn't been resolved with its first attempt clearly casts doubts over whether an absolute fix is possible."

There is no reason to jump to conclusions. Bethesda got a patch out very quickly, does that imply more work on a longer term solution is impossible? No. DF should stick to facts and let the developers tell us what is and isn't possible on their engine. No one at DF is a developer and they have no more working knowledge of the PS3 than us.
 
AgentP said:
If there is something to make the PS3 look bad, DF will find it! j/k

Good article, but in typical DF/Ledbetter fasion they get off their area of expertise (number crunching) and start down the road of subjective theories.

" the fact that this issue hasn't been resolved with its first attempt clearly casts doubts over whether an absolute fix is possible."

There is no reason to jump to conclusions. Bethesda got a patch out very quickly, does that imply more work on a longer term solution is impossible? No. DF should stick to facts and let the developers tell us what is and isn't possible on their engine. No one at DF is a developer and they have no more working knowledge of the PS3 than us.
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Hmm good post
 
Sony should really step in and help Bethesda with a patch. They're clearly in over their heads, and Sony has been known to do that in the past - Bayonetta's install patch was basically made by Sony, for example.


sublimit said:
Ok correct me if i'm wrong but when a publisher releases a game to either Sony,Microsoft or Nintendo platforms,don't they need to also pass some sort of approval by the platform holder?How did Sony gave the ok to Bethesda to publish their game on their console if the game is as shitty as everyone says it is?
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They do, but with multiplatform releases it becomes political.

Neither Sony nor MS would basically never delay a high profile game from appearing on an announced release date on their platform, because that would basically be ceding sales to the other platform.
 
EternalGamer said:
If Bethesda made an concerted effort to hide the discrepancies in the version, they people have a legitimate reason to complain. But if it is just a matter of the version performing shittier (and in particular, 60 hours in, only for some people, and only in towns) then I think they have a lot less reason to demand things like refunds or the developers heads.
Click to expand...
The game isn't free, why is it that people can't have a sense of entitlement?
 
Paznos said:
I've been playing for about 85 hours now maybe longer at this point and it's no where near as choppy as the 65hr side of the video, my save before the patch was 9.5MB and after it was reduced to 8.5MB but now it's slowly climbing back up again and is past 9MB.

Overall the patch did help a bit and the framerate was smoother but I never really had any major issues to begin with. Is there a difference in how the game runs on Phats vs Slims and Slims vs newer revision slims?
Click to expand...

I have no idea... just know my game has become pretty much unplayable for two of my characters (I have a slim). Even after patch.

My third character (lol)... happens to be an enchanting mage who gets all defense from resistances. So... yeah. Patch didn't really fix my game for the first two characters and basically broke it for my mage.
 
AgentP said:
If there is something to make the PS3 look bad, DF will find it! j/k

Good article, but in typical DF/Ledbetter fasion they get off their area of expertise (number crunching) and start down the road of subjective theories.

" the fact that this issue hasn't been resolved with its first attempt clearly casts doubts over whether an absolute fix is possible."

There is no reason to jump to conclusions. Bethesda got a patch out very quickly, does that imply more work on a longer term solution is impossible? No. DF should stick to facts and let the developers tell us what is and isn't possible on their engine. No one at DF is a developer and they have no more working knowledge of the PS3 than us.
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Except that this wasn't written by Leadbetter.
 
EternalGamer said:
Even then it seems, it is not universal. And there are some people who claim rebooting the game fixes their problem, for example.
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So what? That shouldn't be necessary. This if this happened in say the food industry: HDear customers, I know our brand of canned tuna is making you sick before you even finish the can, but if you make yourself vomit halfway through you (might) be ok! Please don't sue.

Completely unacceptable
 
Fantomen said:
You'd think they would notice this while testing it, how can they miss such a big thing?
It's freaking unplayable and not acceptable at all.
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V_Ben said:
How much can a studio be held accountable? Completely fucking accountable! It's their game, and this is unacceptable! I own it on PS3, and I don't actually want to keep playing it until they fix it. How does something like this slip through testing?
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Evolved1 said:
I want a public fucking apology. And my money back.

Two of my saves have reached the point of unplayability and the patch didn't do shit but break the game more.

I honestly did not think I could see a worse release than the PS3 version of Dead Island... but Beth managed to make that mess fade into memory.



They obviously knew, because they hid the fucking game.
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Shanadeus said:
Game with this many bad bugs does not deserve 40/40.
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What they said. =(
 
rvy said:
The game isn't free, why is it that people can't have a sense of entitlement?
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If what they were buying was misrepresented, then they can and should. But if it is just a matter of it not running as good as the other versions after certain amounts of time for a certain percentage of players in certain scenarios, then I am really not sure they should.
 
What i dont want this to lead to is dumbed down games from them. If the ps3 is simply incapable of handling all the shit being tracked in this game, they will just end of removing what makes these games great.

Of course i doubt that there isnt a solution to this problem since 360 is getting around it.
 
EviLore said:
Can I establish a new internet law stating that anyone complaining about entitlement as part of their argument is both A) wrong, and B) a giant douchebag?

Because it appears to hold true 100% of the time.
Click to expand...

I prefer the law where people can have opinions on the internet, even stupid ones.
 
EternalGamer said:
There really is a stupid sense of entitlement this generation.

I mean, I don't recall Genesis players calling Capcom for their "money back" when their version of Street Fighter had garbled voices. And those of us that played the Saturn versions of Tomb Raider or Resident Evil were fine to live with lower framerates or the elimation of some features like transparancies. We were just happy to get some of the ports to enjoy alongside of the awesome first party games for the system we bought.

Obviously what is in that video is pretty crappy but the disservice you guys have been done is by the game reviewers that failed to adequately test and let you know that this is what you were facing if you bought that version of the game.

Console ports have had superior and inferior versions forever. And there have been ports that have been shitty forever. Yet the mentality used to be "buyer beware" not "fuck the company who made this." Buy the better version or live with the inferior one and be glad you still get to play it. Hell, we used to even decide to buy consoles BASED ON better versions of games. Now it seems like the very existence of a better version leads to crying of lawsuits, refunds, and general decrying of the developer.
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I can't believe what i'm reading.
I seriously hope you're from Bethesda.
 
EternalGamer said:
Are you saying there is a universal problem for everybody playing Fallout on PS3? I admit that I never played Fallout on the PS3 but I would have thought if the problem you described is a universal bug something would have been done or I would have at least heard about it.

In this case, as far as I understand it, it has to be a save late in the game, it is not always repeatable, and some people have found various remedies. Even that comparison video is something that looks bad but not "unplayable." And, as I understand it, it only happens in towns. That is the kind of thing that would not have recieved this kind of outcry in previous generations. My version of Symphony of the Night for Saturn had frequent slowdown. Tomb Raider's framerate in the pyrimid area dropped to single frame rates from time to time.

Yet I was still like, "well this sucks, but I'm glad I get to play it rather than this version not existing."
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When you spend $60 on a product, you are not expecting a broken item.

Dude, you are so messed up with how you think. The developers should be called out and boycotted till this shit is fixed. Back when you bought and played shit ports, the Internet wasn't that big. Guess what, times change and this shit can be posted all over the net so gamers are aware of the issues. Stop trying to down play this.
 
X26 said:
So what? That shouldn't be necessary. This if this happened in say the food industry: HDear customers, I know our brand of canned tuna is making you sick before you even finish the can, but if you make yourself vomit halfway through you (might) be ok! Please don't sue.

Completely unacceptable
Click to expand...

So even if the issue was a just a matter of having to reboot your system you would see it as "completely unacceptable"?

Comparing getting sick and vomiting with getting a crappy framerate and rebooting a console is a little absurd, don't you think?
 
AgentP said:
If there is something to make the PS3 look bad, DF will find it! j/k

Good article, but in typical DF/Ledbetter fasion they get off their area of expertise (number crunching) and start down the road of subjective theories.

" the fact that this issue hasn't been resolved with its first attempt clearly casts doubts over whether an absolute fix is possible."

There is no reason to jump to conclusions. Bethesda got a patch out very quickly, does that imply more work on a longer term solution is impossible? No. DF should stick to facts and let the developers tell us what is and isn't possible on their engine. No one at DF is a developer and they have no more working knowledge of the PS3 than us.
Click to expand...

We either have two options here ultimately.

#1 - Either Bethesda doesn't give a shit about fixing the PS3 version of its games (otherwise this 'bug' wouldn't have carried over into three separate games now).

or

#2 - The issue is not something that is fixable without a complete rehaul of the game (something that Bethesda is apparently unwilling to do as they find it much easier to do a smash quick port for the PS3 and expect us to be satisfied with it).

Either way you look at it, it doesn't put Bethesda in a flattering light right now. And despite the fact that I love the Elder Scrolls universe, this will be the last time I purchase a Bethesda game. I've lost all good will towards the company at this point and can't make any excuses.
 
~Kinggi~ said:
What i dont want this to lead to is dumbed down games from them. If the ps3 is simply incapable of handling all the shit being tracked in this game, they will just end of removing what makes these games great.

Of course i doubt that there isnt a solution to this problem since 360 is getting around it.
Click to expand...

Are you serious?
 
UrbanRats said:
I can't believe what i'm reading.
I seriously hope you're from Bethesda.
Click to expand...

Actually I don't even really like Skyrim that much. I've played it 20 hours on PC and I find it pretty underwhelming. The AI is still incredibly stupid (both NPCs and enemies) and game is janky as hell and kind of boring. It just seems mostly like a pretty version of Oblivion to me.

Believe me, my argument is not because I'm a Bethesda fanboy, far from it.
 
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