Digital Foundry VS Bethesda: PS3 Skyrim is still shit
- Thread starter AgentOtaku
- Start date
Uno Venova
Banned
It crapped out at 51 hours for me. 8.3 megs.
Zenimax?
I could go with that, considering they jumped at the opportunity to port Morrowind to Xbox's hopelessly outclassed 64MB RAM console. I loved it regardless, but understand the frustration.
Well then, if you think you have a case, then go ahead and sue Bethesda.
Treemonkeys
Member
I actually didn't buy the PS3 version luckily. But I am quite irritated that almost a month after release all of the broken quests etc. are still basically irrelevant to Bethesda because they are too busy fixing the version that actually just doesn't work at all after a certain point.
I can see this is probably mostly the publishers fault but ultimately it is up to Bethesda to find a good publisher that will allow them to meet the needs of their customers without fucking some of them over in the process. At the end of it all, Bethesda has the most responsibility to make sure things go well.
I don't know what's more frustrating. Having a busted game that may or may get a fix, delaying peoples desire to sell off copies to keep up holiday sales, or sludging through quests that might break progress anyway. I'm getting a coloring book next time i have the bright idea of doing something fun with my downtime. Crayola has never done me dirty.
AgentP
Thinks mods influence posters politics. Promoted to QAnon Editor.
They didn't do the PS3 port and as far as I know it did not have the same problems.
SolidSnakex
Member
The sad thing is that the Bethesda blog post will be enough for some sites. They'll just update telling gamers that Bethesda knows and then they'll go back to not giving this issue any attention. I don't know why there would have any hope that they'll fix this. Obsidian's comments made it clear that this is an issue that Bethesda knows about. It's been in their games before this. They've had years to fix it and they haven't done it.
Benjamin1981
Member
That is exactly how i feel about that blog entry. There is not even the slightest apology in there.
nickbreckon
Bethesda Community Manager
If it helps, I really am sorry you guys are having issues. Like the post says, we know how frustrating it can be when you run into problems. The team has been working hard to address this stuff as quickly as possible, and we're pulling in all sorts of data based on user save files to make sure it's as comprehensive a patch as it can be.
I'm kind of happy that at least Bethesda is acknowledging that there's a problem, even if they're downplaying it like it's some rare thing that only happens when the planets align.
But I just can't get it out of my mind that they lied to us. The very same Nick Breckon that just posted that link lied to us on these very forums about the PS3 version being "great as well" when people asked Bethesda to show it.
So I find it hard to believe that it'll be fixed. But acknowledgement is an improvement at least. I don't know. I have very conflicted feelings about this because I had a lot of respect for Nick from Idle Thumbs. But I just can't stop feeling bitter that I was lied to.
This isn't about being frustrated. This is about having my trust and faith betrayed. It's a deeper thing than $60 lost.
But I just can't get it out of my mind that they lied to us. The very same Nick Breckon that just posted that link lied to us on these very forums about the PS3 version being "great as well" when people asked Bethesda to show it.
So I find it hard to believe that it'll be fixed. But acknowledgement is an improvement at least. I don't know. I have very conflicted feelings about this because I had a lot of respect for Nick from Idle Thumbs. But I just can't stop feeling bitter that I was lied to.
This isn't about being frustrated. This is about having my trust and faith betrayed. It's a deeper thing than $60 lost.
RedNumberFive
Banned
Agreed. A "sorry guys" doesn't mean much after intentionally and deceitfully selling a broken product.
Yup didn't have issues with Oblivion.
No, you're downplaying the situation. It isn't SOME PS3 users...it's fucking all. So say it's all and own up to your mess. Take responsibility. That's like the first lesson you learn as a kid.
Hey, I'm busy too, I just don't think it's reasonable to expect them to have played 100 hours of the PS3 version of the game before writing their review. That's not "not doing their job".. they sunk what they felt to be an appropriate amount of time into the version of the game they were given. I just don't think that the reviewers are the ones to blame here- It's bethesda's fault for letting this game out the door knowing about this bug, not the reviewers for not finding it!
Yeah that's all I mean.
StunandStab
Member
Even if Bethesda does ever fix any of the PS3 issues, I probably won't want to be playing the game anymore by then anyway. I almost have the Platinum trophy...
freenudemacusers
Member
The reviewers didn't mind dropping the same score for their invisible ps3 version, strangely.
Wolfgunblood Garopa
Member
I'm not saying I have no sympathy for people who have to work long hours. But putting the 360/PC review on the PS3 version just isn't an unacceptable practice. You assign someone else to look at the PS3 version. If you don't have the resources, you simply do not review it. I don't find it at all acceptable to play another version of a game, and then toss it up as the review for all versions.
Bethesda is totally to blame. But review sites are not faultless.
They're supposed to act on the interests of the consumers, not the publishers/developers.
If something like this happened in any other industry with reviews, it would be a huge scandal. Imagine reviewing one type of restaurant and then assigning the same score to all other restaurants of that type.
It is your job to tell me if there's major issues with the PS3 version of the game in the PS3 review you posted on your site/printed on your magazine. You didn't do that. You didn't do your job. It's not reasonable to expect the PS3 review to be a review of the PS3 version of the game? Ridiculous.
Differences between different versions of games is not a new thing. The practice of umbrella reviews is dishonest and downright disgraceful.
It worked for MS with the 360, so why not here?
RedNumberFive
Banned
I believe that was "things break".
This issue sounds very much like a fundamental design problem and something technical leads must have known FROM THE BEGINNING. From reading the Obsidian bits, the memory management system is one size fits all despite knowing the core architectural differences between PS3 and the 360. No need for apologies since it's quite evident you pushed out a broken product to hit the 11.11.11 date.
Of course they shouldn't blindly give the same score to all versions of the game if they haven't played them, I just wouldn't expect them to play all versions to completion, on the off chance that 30 hours down the line there's going to be a bug in one of them. I just don't think that's a realistic expectation. Didn't IGN say that they had to buy their own copy of the PS3 version? That implies that they at least played it. If a site does review the PS3 version but really they only played the 360 version at all, yeah.. that's a really shitty practice.
jim-jam bongs
Member
Bethesda:
GAF:
GAF:
Agreed. Also worked for Sony, intentionally misleading their entire userbase while credit card information was being stolen. Also worked for Nintendo, convincing everyone the 3DS is a worthwhile purchase.
I kid, I kid
Given the PS3 version of the game a 9.5, a clear endorsement to their readers that it is a good buy?
Personally I liked movie reviews where it is a 0 out of 10 until the critic sees the movie. Probably saved a lot of people from watching the Astronaut's Wife.
It's a combination of publisher PR and accepted review outlet practices. At least in this case, it's looking like most sites got wind of the gamer backlash and pulled their PS3 reviews and/or their Metacritic entries for the supposed "PS3" version. Metacritic had well over 20-30 PS3 reviews posted at one point; now it's down to just over 10.
But this is an issue that goes much further than just Skyrim. It just so happens that this is the game where most gamers took notice of a long-running standard practice. The typical review situation is you get anywhere from two weeks to two days to play through and review a game by embargo day (and sometimes no review copy at all). The idea that you would as a reviewer play through all versions of a game to completion is ludicrous with so little time. But there it is.
Which is why I think two things need to be fixed in the review business:
1) only post reviews for copies of a game which the reviewer has actually played. Making some half-assed notation just doesn't cut it. It's still potentially misleading when a review for a 360 game pops up under a PS3 search on a review site.
2) don't post/submit Metacritic scores for versions of a game that haven't been played. On a recent Bonus Round, Michael Pachter made a comment about PS3 versions of multiplatform titles typically having a slightly lower average score than the 360 versions. But what he doesn't realize is that this has much more to do with how sites categorize and report their reviews than it does with any substantive differences between versions. Those sites that publish both a PS3 and a 360 review (to their site and to Metacritic) are generally only playing one version. Hell, this often applies to PC versions, as well.
And as far as PR goes, the only way to influence publisher's PR firms is for review outlets to do the above. Once publishers start seeing that only one version is being published, they might realize that they need to either get them all versions of a game and/or they need to get those copies to sites sooner. It's not the sort of "bad blood" offense that would get sites blacklisted IMO. But it might be enough to convince PR to quit the "favored console" shenanigans.
And if a review outlet doesn't have the manpower to play through multiple versions of a game, don't post multiple versions of a review!
Truespeed
Member
I was going to replace your reply with "stuff extrapolated from Obsidian guy" but that would have been rude. I'm just curious as to how you were able to definitively identify what the problem was and how you ruled out the myriad of other possibilities, such as a memory leak, that this problem could be attributed to? We can speculate all we want, but the only people that know what the real problem is work at Bethesda. That's not to say Josh Sawyer, director of Obsidian, is right or wrong as he's also speculating on what the problem could be related to. So we shouldn't prematurely rule out the other things that could be causing this nor telling anyone they're incorrect because we're all speculating.
The two leading theories both have merits and may even be intertwined for all we know. The speculation about a memory leak is an interesting one because the symptoms are exhibited by the game to such an extent that you could place a picture of Skyrim in the Wikipedia definition of a Memory Leak. And some memory leaks can be so insidious and difficult to find that they evade even the best programmers and code diagnostic tools.
Can you explain why you (Bethesda) have said that your 1.2 patch resolved the issue for most users? Do you have data to back this up?
Just look at Digital Foundry's analysis and if you haven't already, please watch the video. The problems people are having with extreme framerate lag are easily reproducible.
I've only had the time for one play session that was over 2 hours since the patch (I played one 6 hour sitting), but the patch has definitely improved performance significantly in my case. I'm at 90+ hours, 11 MB save file, and the game has been consistently playable for me since the patch. Before the patch, I was having the framerate drop to zero frequently, but the worst I've noticed post-patch is an occasional drop to around 15 fps after playing for 4+ hours (again, usually in big cities). I'm glad that I can at least play the damn game now, but it's still not acceptable, and the fact that Bethesda lied to consumers before the release still stands.
edit: Though the patch has significantly increased the number of times the game freezes. It's already froze on me about 6 times since the patch (always when autosaving or when at a loading screen), while before it had only froze once (at the character creation).
edit: Though the patch has significantly increased the number of times the game freezes. It's already froze on me about 6 times since the patch (always when autosaving or when at a loading screen), while before it had only froze once (at the character creation).
lorebringer
Member
I thought it was clear that my reply was an answer to the question I was quoting? Obviously I have no idea what's wrong with Skyrim seeing as how I don't have the source sitting in front of me. I was explaining to junkster what a memory leak was and wasn't and confirming that the scenario he had described was in fact a RAM issue and not a leak. I don't really care either way whether that is the actual issue or not.
Bethesda:
GAF:
fixed.
funkystudent
Member
so they think they might be able to fix it maybe?
Should we expect another patch before Christmas or is 1.3 it until 2012?
Its sort of raining like hell here so my "trade my unplayed copy of skyrim in for saints row" plan is on hold until the morning.
Should we expect another patch before Christmas or is 1.3 it until 2012?
Its sort of raining like hell here so my "trade my unplayed copy of skyrim in for saints row" plan is on hold until the morning.
I think they already said elsewhere that this patch to fix the issues 1.2 introduced was the last one this year. Then they're going on break or something until the new year.
A sure sign of an extremely shitty developer.
That is my frustration talking. It is pretty shitty of them to release a game in such unplayable condition. Its like they don't want their game to sell well. Ah well, we have passed on the game to an unfortunate friend of mine.
In addition to this, there is NO WAY this should have made it out of internal QA by Bethesda. My expectation for the QA department would have been to play this game for extended periods which they naturally would do even if the release team is cranking out updated versions. If the game is not functioning the same (performance wise) between hour 1 and hour 100 ... you have a problem. Full stop.
Bethesda:
Game review websites:
GAF:
Another fix.
Extremely shitty.
If they were working hard on it, why is it the same unresolved bug from fallout 3, "goty", and new Vegas? Or are they 'really' working on it this time?
I'm running a 100 hour character, 11mb save, and the lag has really killed my love of this game. At first, it was just short lag spikes here/there but I could deal with that even though it affected my immersion of the world. Now, it's far worse than what's shown pre-patch in the video (even though I have 1.2 patched). teleporting mobs (which does not bode well for a mage), constant drops to what appears to be 0 fps, a lot of system lockups, etc. I can't remember the last time I hit even close to 30fps.
After the first 20 hours or so I was hooked and wasn't going to stop until I had explored every inch of the world, now I could care less and am ready to pickup another game (until Skyrim PC drops to a cheap enough price that I don't care buying it twice).
After the first 20 hours or so I was hooked and wasn't going to stop until I had explored every inch of the world, now I could care less and am ready to pickup another game (until Skyrim PC drops to a cheap enough price that I don't care buying it twice).
Play long enough and you would have. Takes about 100 hours to even get a 5mb save (due to less things that can be saved more common cell resets).
Sye d'Burns
Member
Fixed that right up.
Uno Venova
Banned
I'm seeing around the Beth forums that people on Xbox are getting these problems but twice as longer than PS3 owners, around 110 -140 hours compared to 50 - 60 for Ps3.
I can't imagine it's as common as the PS3 issues though, I know 5+ people with that many or more hours on 360 with no real issues.