what i HOPE will happen is that beth takes the criticisms we have and apply them for future games. in the future, maybe have the general population in skyrim aware of the players status, as well as the world around them. maybe have the dark brotherhood ending quest mentioned by people.

what will PROBABLY happen is nothing. they'll fix the bugs and let the modders fix the rest

For the record most things about Skyrim are positive. It's just that the people that tend to dislike things tend to post more often so that they are seen.

this is nothing compared to the Kaos studios boards after Homefront's release.

Uhm.....no.

I am what old timers and elitists often despise, yet the company loves - a fresh player new to the fold. I never played Fallout 1 or 2, but played Fallout 3 and was absolutely blown away by it (it was long after the launch, so I never saw the raft of initial bugs). I played NV, and although it was interesting enough to compel me to see it through to the end, I didn't like it nearly as well as F3, for a number of reasons. The tidal wave of bugs least among them.

When I found out Oblivion was done by the same company who did F3, I tried to play it, and just could not get into it. At all. As a result, I had no intention of trying Skyrim. But then I read an interview (it may have been in one of my boyfriend's gamer mags, I can't recall where) with a Beth dev, calling Skyrim a direct spiritual successor to the Fallout 3 experience, and urging those who loved that game to give this one a try.

On that statement alone, I spent all the in-store credit I had and gave Skyrim a try. I've been blown away by it. I never thought I'd have as much fun as I had playing F3 ever again, but I am. And I'm someone that's never been sold on any fantasy game before. I've only experienced a couple of minor bugs.

I have no interest in the past for either series, but very much look forward to the future.

As long as it's not farmed out, and they try harder to work out the bugs.

To the OP, I'm guessing you weren't around for oblivions release?

"All of these Problems & Complaints - What does it mean for Bethesda? "

business as usual

badum tish

You know, I love Bethesda and in many ways love Skyrim. But that doesn't mean I'm not concerned about some missing aspects of gameplay, and that there aren't real problems. I did not particpate in the, "How could they release this game and How could they release this lousy patch?"

1. There is missing magic- both in variety, and ease of use
2. There are missing skills. (acrobatics meant something and would have meant a lot in a mountain range like Skyrim.)
3. There are restrictions of access to game area that were not restricted in Morrowind or Oblivion
4. There are truncated and therefore stereotyped quest lines for the guilds. If there is no room for character developement there is no room for game play. Shorten a story line too much and you have a comic book. Hey, I like Jim Starlin, but characters in Morrowind and Oblivion took time to develope and it meant more when they got there. That keeps people playing.


I'm worried because this is the number one company for my family. All of my sons play Bethesda games. Skyrim is a delight, but there are also real concerns. I don't like shortened story lines. The market is full of products with little storyline and just action.

It's too bad about the shortened guild stories, because Skyrim's writing in general is a step above Oblivion's. ( the style, content, conversation)

They'll probably do their best to patch things up as always. The only reason this is happening is because their games are getting more popular with the "common rabble" and many are not aware that Bethesda games have a reputation for being buggy anyways. I bought the game knowing full well there would be bugs. Hasn't stopped me from enjoying it.

People also say that things have changed a lot since last Elder Scroll games, but these kind of games evolve.

Couldn't have stated it better

They sold 3.5 million copies in two days, and are on track to hit 10 million sales by christmas. The amount of [censored]ing on this forum is an insignificant number compared to the presumably satisfied silent majority.

Nothing at all.

I know they'll release patches and DLCs to fix some of the problems. But every (and I mean every) game gets complains when it gets released. Just wait, things will get back to normal.

Would people stop relating sales over two days with product quality...

if something sells well in the first two days it's not because the product itself is high quality but because the advertisemants for it were good. It's how the game sells a year or two from now that truly shows if this is a quality game or not. Not to mention this game has a lot of hype from previous installments. I thought Oblivion was pretty good but I was hoping for a even better game with Skyrim, something with as much freedom and choice as Morrowind yet with the graphics and animations of Oblivion. So my 300$ which went to a shipped collectors went into these sales figures a week before the game was even out (pre-order) and the game turned out to be worse than Oblivion in most ways besides looks.

Yes, when people love a series they will buy into hype and as quickly as possible, Beth made promises they were not lying like they were at E3 with Oblivion... (see link)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjbx6-KQoRg

... however a lot of the praise they gave Skyrim doesn't even hold water in the actual game itself.

Don't get me wrong though, Skyrim is one of my top 10 favorite games. However when it comes to being a TES product it's a disgrace to the rest of the series.

If this was a standalone game I wouldn't blow too much steam about it, but when I know a company can do so much better yet they're not it really is quite frustrating. It's never nice to see talented people not focusing their talents on what they should be focusing them on (and I know they can do better, Morrowind and to an extent Oblivion are proof of that).

Imagine how a football fan would react if during a big game his or her favorite team would suddenly decide not to run during the entire game and the goalkeeper put his hands in his pockets and decided to block every shot with his feet only.

There is a very good reason for them to do that. They make more money making the wider audience happy then the few people who think like you do, and demand that they give up millions of dollars to please only you. Go figure! Life doesn't actually revolve around you.

Snarkiness aside, complaints on forums are meaningless. Usually it's just someone venting, or throwing a temper tantrum because the game which was produced did not match the gleaming example of perfection which was in that person's mind. "If only the company would scrap everything they've done and replace it with what *I* want then the game would be PERFECT! EVERYONE would LOVE IT then! Instead of despise it like EVERYONE DOES NOW!!! And it would be so EASY! All they have to do is...." they fume, with over excessive usage of exclamation marks and sad faces. Their posts usually end with declarations of DOOOOOM for the game, for surely something that is not what they want can NOT survive. The funny thing is, I've seen so many games over the year which forum goers have guarenteed would not live 6 months which, years later, are still around. City of Heroes comes to mind. These people can not comprehend that different people like different things, any company that wishes to create a game that makes a killer profit must appeal to the masses, and not to the 'elite'.

RRRRRiiiiiiiiiiiggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhtttttttttttttttttt!!! Okay. So you did not visit BioWare after Mass Effect2 came out did you?

To the OP: It means that blood is thicker than water, or should I say, money is thicker than water. If they are satisfied with the revenues then the complaints are nothing more than water droplets trickling on their shoes. When a company is small you're more closer to the masses, when they are big, the further you're from the minority lamentations.

Nothing serious. They know the bugs and glitches exist and I expect they will work to fix them as they recognize this is a valid complaint and something they should and must do.

The cries of "dumbing down" and "gutting the series" and "abandoning the fans" probably isn't going to faze them much unless they get the sense a majority of the people who bought the game think that and it will damage sales, but lets be honest - it wont. Aspects of these complaints are highly subjective and it seems plenty disagree (and clearly Bethesda has an idea of where it is going).

The core game has sold a ton, and people are going to buy the DLC and the expansions and download mods and probably buy the next game in the series and people will complain about that and it will go on and on. Plus it has gotten mostly brilliant reviews despite the bugs and glitches.

You work in a professional creative industry you face this - especially with a long running game series and comics. Fans have their ideals, their biases, their hopes, and woe to any developer who fails to honor that particular fan's vision. Crap games will get torn a new one, good games will also get roasted when people don't like some new direction etc.



I think there is a lot of hysteria and needless drama.



So do I.



You speak the truth.




You have been lucky. Of course it also depends on the forum. Plenty have mods that are far more active in closing down certain types of threads. The mods in this forum seem happy to allow posters to vent. Heh, you should visit some of the looser run comic forums when something big is going down. Internet anonymity can turn normal people into howling monsters of rage and self righteousness with a toxic level of self entitlement.

Of course plenty of it is ridiculous - some person makes an account, creates a single thread and will only ever have 1 post - often a terribly spelled block of text proclaiming the sky is falling and X has practically given them cancer because the product didn't do everything they wanted - and it creates the image of a lot of negative activity. Marketers and creators of whatever do often monitor things like this to a degree (getting ideas, getting feedback, spotting potential), but they probably aren't going to run around in a panic because of heated debate between a couple of hundred people (if that) on a forum (and it is debate, since I have been to very few Skyrim complaint threads where there hasn't been just as significant a number of people arguing in favor of the game as those arguing against it).



Pretty much.



Yes and yes.



It was indeed ugly over there.

Yup, as others have said, this kind of negativity is par for the course. This is just how the video game community behaves routinely. I have seen it consistently across numerous games and developers. Bioware, Rockstar, all the biggest studios have the largest fan bases, and in those fan bases will always be people who are furious or disappointed. People who post on the forums are always a small minority of people who buy the game, many millions of people buy, play and never post on the internet about their experience.

you just have to take it with a grain of salt, you come to the official forums of one of the biggest games of the year, and you will see everything from people literally naming their children after the game, to people trying to file class action lawsuits against the game. its not going to affect bethesda, they will be fine and will continue to patch and support skyrim.

As people think it's a buggy mess, it'll just be left as a buggy mess, just like Fallout.

But I don't have problems with Skyrim, it's frozen a few times, that's about it.

You guys know what's wrong with Skyrim these days....

:happy:

they will do nothing, because nobody ever listens to the forums, except bioware who used it to see what fanservice people wanted so they could f**k up their own games with terrible ideas.

mind you, those are the ideas of the people saying how creepily in love they were with certain characters, not the people raising discussions over gameplay and functionality.

at any rate, our complaints dont matter because we are no longer the target audience. beth has bigger, more generically appealing mediocrity to make now, they cant be bothered with making a quality RPG anymore. its basic business; a polished turd sells better than a rusty but practical product. not saying skyrim is a turd, thats just the metaphor: why waste you time on meticulous and professional design when you can get more from taking a dump and giving it a good rub down?

the gaming industry is at that place where the CEOs are testing the bounds of a new media and what they can get away with, where the creators dont really have enough respect yet to pull any weight and say "im the damn moneymaker, we do this my way or i find someone else to publish it."

RAGE was pretty bad. This is nothing to what I witnessed there.

Sometimes, I wonder if all the people complaining in the forums are also complaining directly at Bethesda's customer support. I mean, forums are generally made so that players can talk to other players who plays the game. It not the proper place to complain. Complaining here is just whining. Some will say that complaining is constructive criticism and it is what helps the developers make the game better. However, complaining in the forums is the wrong way to do it because it is not the proper place to complain. You will just get other players attention and not Bethesda developers.

Sadly, there are too many people today with a false sense of entitlement, and I'm not talking about PS3 owners, who once again have been treated to a poorly ported hash of terribleness, and Bethesda should be bloody ashamed of themselves. I instead refer to the people who, if a game doesn't play according to their preferences, it's instantly "flawed".

Not to say Skyrim is perfect - far from it! The guild quests (aside from the thieves guild, and the DB quests, which I found very enjoyable, and well realised - plus fun) are short, and very shallow. Hai, new player, you're a werewolf, plus you're kind of magicking stuff, here, be arch-mage. There are bugs galore in the quests, MOST notably Blood On The Ice, which is simply a massive smelly turd of bugness (Bethesda y u do dis???). Magic use is terrible. Even Master spells take grinding yawniness of spam blasts to take down a dragon, and that's removing magicka from the equation with Fort Destruction enchantments.

But there's also good... a warrior has numerable ways to play, and can really be tailored to any difficulty level you like. I find most of the shouts to be great fun. Fus-Ro-Dah never gets old. The world itself is beautiful. Simply beautiful. Well realised, and gives you a sense of wonder and excitement whilst exploring. Most of the NPCs are well realised, and as fleshed out as you would expect in a game with this amount of NPCs.

Overall, it's good. It's really, REALLY good. It's just not... perfect. Therein lies the rub. People demand perfection, but in reality, never sit back and think about the sheer scale of a world like this, and all those thousands of intermeshing parts, and realise it can't be perfect. Some people don't realise that. I don't know i that's down to ignorance or pettiness, but whatever it is, a lot of the vitriol, the sheer venom that has been directed at BGS on these boards is a little embarassing to watch.

I think this game is broken beyond repair, I'm about to give up. This is the first time I've even looked at this forum because I spend all my time in the bugs/glitches forum. I think I might prefer a smaller more stable game. Too bad because in a lot of ways it's the best game I've ever played.