If Bethesda Ever Manufactured a Car, I'd Be Terrified : V - Skyrim

» Sat Dec 10, 2011 2:42 pm

First allow me to say, despite the stigma and infamous reputation Bethesda has earned for it's games over the years, I am a huge fan of the Elder Scrolls and Fallout series -- that being said, I am saddened to say that I am no longer a fan of Bethesda itself.

Going to go a little offtopic here, but I almost stopped reading after the part in bold(I didn't). Bethesda doesn't have a "Fallout series" they have a Fallout game. The 4 other Fallout games besides the 3rd were made by Interplay/Black Isle Studios or Obsidian(which was founded by people from Interplay/Black Isle Studios). I don't care if they bought the IP or not, Bethesda's Fallout doesn't really deserve to be called a series until they have developed more than one of them, IMO.

On topic: While I agree they should probably start using a bigger team of testers and perhaps squash a larger portion of bugs before they release their games. I think a lot of people go a little overboard with their "sky is falling" bug complaints. I'm really sorry some people are experiencing bugs that "ruin the game" for them. Personally I have put over 80 hours into the game, and while I have experienced a few bugs, none of them have stopped me from thoroughly enjoying it. Which is what a game is suppose to be, entertainment. Not a form of transportation that costs thousands or tens of thousands of dollars, that I expect to get me around safely on the roads.

» Sat Dec 10, 2011 7:26 pm

Some elements could have used more polish, but to say they should be ashamed of what may be the greatest game ever released is just mind boggling.

Keep in mind that I agree that the UI is clunky, the bugs are present and annoying, and there are serious balance issues.. but it's still the best game out. The more ambitious a project, the more a project tries to do, the more fraying there will be. I'd rather have a rough, ambitious masterpiece like Skyrim than a polished but lazy game like.. well, every game EA has released in the past two years.

Oh it certainly is the best game out, and that's why I'm so upset -- I don't want to play anything other than this. THIS is the game I want to play, I just wish that quest bugs would allow me to actually do that.

» Sat Dec 10, 2011 9:37 pm

I made it to level 71 without any major drawbacks or game breaking bugs. Aside from the rampant crashing with no error message that escalated after steam patched something to Skyrim....

In game... personally no real problems.

» Sat Dec 10, 2011 11:09 am

I agree with OP, and yes the game made huge amounts of sales... Know why? Port.

That said, Bethesda and bugs go hand-in-hand and although I have found some, is it really that unbrocken for you, my friend? Really?

» Sat Dec 10, 2011 5:24 pm

OP's sentiments are spot on.

Quality assurance does not seem to be a high priority for Bethesda. Many of Skyrim's quirks could have been ironed out if they had play tested the game. Bugs in obscure locations or by strange means are acceptable in a game, but problems in plain site during scripted quests says to me that Bethesda has never played their game at great length, neither have they payed anyone to test their game.

Their idea of quality assurance and game testing is making a cell disconnected from the rest of the world where they can make sure object enchantments and crafting skills work properly. I would be shocked if anyone at Bethesda ever actually played through any of the quests in this game.

I love Beth and Skyrim and all of the other games they have personally developed. But this was getting ridiculous back when they released Oblivion. I get the feeling that not spending the coin on proper game testers to play through the game before they declare it finished is a bad habit for them.

» Sat Dec 10, 2011 4:47 pm

I would have to say putting together a game is much harder than a car. And judging by the millions of sales the game sure seems finished to me. is it perfect? no, it has bugs. just like how cars will have recalls

ever designed a car? ever put one together yourself? ever did an engine overhaul?

» Sat Dec 10, 2011 1:13 pm

First allow me to say, despite the stigma and infamous reputation Bethesda has earned for it's games over the years, I am a huge fan of the Elder Scrolls and Fallout series -- that being said, I am saddened to say that I am no longer a fan of Bethesda itself.

How many of you would feel comfortable driving a car manufactured with the same standard of care that is held for the mechanics and operation of Bethesda's games? I'd be horrified; every passing second would be filled with anxiety and fear for my life and my safety.

Is the game complex beyond common understanding? Yes. Are there innumerable positives to the game? Yes, and the standards for story telling, visual and auditory detail, and over experience are obviously evident; a lot of hard work, blood, sweat, and tears went into this game, but it does not invalidate or illegitimize this very simple fact:

As a professional, you do not release a product until it works properly.

Bethesda, your disrespect and disloyalty to your fans and customers is astounding; we spend our hard earned money, and waste our limited time, on products that are defective in every sense of the word, only to be met with a PR statement on twitter, dripping with condescension. The fact is, you're more annoyed at the fans legitimate reactions, when you should be more disappointed in your own selves, and your company and employees.

When I buy a car, a movie, a meal, a computer, a book -- the car isn't half finished off the assembly line. The movie doesn't stop in the middle, because they haven't finished filming. Portions of the meal aren't raw and uncooked. The author doesn't leave it a note on page 42 asking the reader to "calm down," because he hasn't finished writing the story.

We pay for games that are finished and ready for us to play; we are not interested in paying for a demo disc to hold onto while you finish your job, waiting for the game to become fully playable weeks or months later.

You should be ashamed. Get it together, Bethesda.

and you joined to say this :facepalm:

» Sat Dec 10, 2011 9:47 pm

Out of all that...

I still don't know what the hell you're talking about.

You didn't even explain, what makes you think, how this game is a half-finished demo of a product.

Your whole gripe is ironic and explains the problems with itself more than it does the game.

» Sat Dec 10, 2011 12:25 pm

I have a question: Has anyone NOT seen this kind of post on a game forum before?

I have had 1 crash bug in Skyrim... it happens about once a week.

It's frustrating, because it inevitably happens at a time I haven't saved in a while, so I have an hour of catch-up to do.

That said, I hardly think that makes Skyrim an unplayable game. The truth of the matter is unless the OP is playing an entirely different game, made entirely from flaming dog crap that someone threw on his front porch the other morning, I really don't think that there is enough evidence to say Bethesda has made a shoddily put together product. Bugs happen, like death and taxes. If your expecting a 100% bug free experience, I'd advise blowing the dust off your SNES and going back to Super Mario World. And then getting some perspective.

Speaking of perspective, you should look at someone else's other than your own. There is plenty of evidence if you look at the many reports of game breaking bugs, made by many people; just because some people have a "break free" experience, does not mean that many others aren't having serious issues that they shouldn't be having.

» Sat Dec 10, 2011 11:34 am

The worst bug i have had was Sven's mom in a sitting position, but not on a chair or anything, that was my worst bug, i'm pretty sure the game works fine.

» Sat Dec 10, 2011 2:13 pm

and you joined to say this :facepalm:

and you took the time to say ^that^.

» Sat Dec 10, 2011 7:01 pm

I fully understand what the OP ment. Yeah I would be scared as well. Basically the OP is saying why release an incomplete game? Like come on, Bethesda didn't know about the 360 installing to HDD doesn't have any textures? :shakehead: These are things that should have been caught before the release of the game.

The OP is basically saying is we got a car that didn't have the inteiror decorating in a car. How can you release something so blatant.

P.S. lots of resteraunts serve uncooked or raw food. Of course I complain about it and let them know. Would even want them to fix it right away instead of waiting weeks. Thing is, I get my money back or next round free.

Then again this is Bethesda. Did you really expect anything less from them? If Skyrim wasn't buggy, I would be saying what is wrong? I guess coming into the mindset of buying a beta game I am not so disapointed. After all, I did start from Arena, so I know very well about Bethesda's track record.

Bethesdas track record is Garbage. Can't make a finished game on release and needs 3 major patches then becomes abandoned. I am hoping the texture glitch when installing to HDD will be fixed, otherwise Bethesda should be ashamed of themselves.

» Sat Dec 10, 2011 3:33 pm

I agree fully with Op.
No matter how small or big a game, if its this filled with bugs there is no excuse.
Most of you state "a game this big is bound to have bugs" which is just plain stupid.
It just means that a game of this size needs more testing and more bugfixing.

And that is something you guys just dont seem to understand.

But it wont kill you.... Unlike a car if it was badly manufactured...

Silly comparison is silly.

» Sat Dec 10, 2011 9:13 am

I'm guessing you have never done any software developement.

You can't compare a physical product to a peice of software - they are two different things. I agree with the idea that if you pay for something, it should be in a good working condition. However, and I know this with some degree experience, producing a peice of software that is completely bug-free is nearly impossible.

How hard is it to test that a car carries out its primary function of moving from point A to point B? Not very. It either works or it doesn't - and if it doesn't you don't have to trail through endless code to try and figure out what went wrong. In a game like Skyrim the inner working of the code is extremely complex and delicate. Finding the cause behind bugs is hard and fixing one bug can easily create another.

Your comparrison is also flawed due to the fact that cars can have their own problems and are also often far from perfect. Go read a review of a car and I can guarantee there will usually be at least one complaint about it. The advantage that software has over cars is that problems can be patched much easier. Based on this, when I buy a game I generally care more about the post-release support than how many bugs there are to start with.

But my biggest concern with your argument is that I, personally, have found very few bugs.

» Sat Dec 10, 2011 12:43 pm

Out of all that...

I still don't know what the hell you're talking about.

You didn't even explain, what makes you think, how this game is a half-finished demo of a product.

Your whole gripe is ironic and explains the problems with itself more than it does the game.

I don't think you have a firm understanding of the word "ironic."

As for issues I'm having, for starters:

One quest requires me to go to prison, and while imprisoned, pick sides in a feud specific to a town. I choose, I get out of jail, and people that should have been dead have come back to life, and send me back to prison to see people that are no longer in prison, and the game becomes stuck in a loop that I am unable to progress from.

» Sat Dec 10, 2011 8:34 pm

I've long been of the opinion that software developers, whether they develop games, operating systems or word processors, need to be held to a higher standard. Of course you get your apologists (which have already appeared in this thread) making excuses like it's such a big game. You can't expect them to catch everything. And so forth. But I'm sorry, the state that some of these games and other programs are released in is just shoddy. They're rushed out the door without proper testing. Architects and engineers would never get away with such a poor level of craft. They'd be sued for millions, or even jailed. In fact, some have.

I suppose the only reason that game developers are not (legally) is because a buggy game isn't as likely to kill people as a buggy skyscraqer. So what really needs to change is people's complacency regarding their shoddy work. And the apologists need to go away.

» Sat Dec 10, 2011 9:21 am

I fully understand what the OP ment. Yeah I would be scared as well. Basically the OP is saying why release an incomplete game? Like come on, Bethesda didn't know about the 360 installing to HDD doesn't have any textures? :shakehead: These are things that should have been caught before the release of the game.

The OP is basically saying is we got a car that didn't have the inteiror decorating in a car. How can you release something so blatant.

P.S. lots of resteraunts serve uncooked or raw food. Of course I complain about it and let them know. Would even want them to fix it right away instead of waiting weeks. Thing is, I get my money back or next round free.

Then again this is Bethesda. Did you really expect anything less from them? If Skyrim wasn't buggy, I would be saying what is wrong? I guess coming into the mindset of buying a beta game I am not so disapointed. After all, I did start from Arena, so I know very well about Bethesda's track record.

Bethesdas track record is Garbage. Can't make a finished game on release and needs 3 major patches then becomes abandoned. I am hoping the texture glitch when installing to HDD will be fixed, otherwise Bethesda should be ashamed of themselves.

What's the texture glitch? I installed my copy of the game to my xbox on opening day, and all my textures are fine.

» Sat Dec 10, 2011 11:46 am

please lock this thread someone comparing a car being made to a game being made wow ignorance is bliss my friend you know why its so much easier for cars to be designed safer? better? because there are so many laws in place and so much more money on the line they hardly change anything from one year to the next and from someone who works on cars i think i have bearing on this. making a game is totally different you have to start over with a world and story and everything thats like asking a car maker to make a completly different car each year and the only thing they can use from last year is the chassis its impossible
next time you have a complaint shut your mouth and go back in a cave somewhere or actually learn what your talking about IMO i would rather have a completely new game that has some bugs that will be fixed than a recycled game every year that is pretty much the same o wait MW3 MW2 black ops lol who wouldve thought

edit: think of it this way when a car manf. moves a bolt to another side of the chassis and eliminates about 2 feet of wire or moves the location of pcm and looses about 5 feet of wire they save more money making that car line than any game has ever made in sales. this comparison is horrible

» Sat Dec 10, 2011 11:30 am

Read Title.

:rofl:

» Sat Dec 10, 2011 1:50 pm

Bethesda, your disrespect and disloyalty to your fans and customers is astounding; we spend our hard earned money, and waste our limited time, on products that are defective in every sense of the word, only to be met with a PR statement on twitter, dripping with condescension. The fact is, you're more annoyed at the fans legitimate reactions, when you should be more disappointed in your own selves, and your company and employees.

Please do talk for yourself. I enjoy this game quite alot.

» Sat Dec 10, 2011 5:50 pm

please lock this thread someone comparing a car being made to a game being made wow ignorance is bliss my friend you know why its so much easier for cars to be designed safer? better? because there are so many laws in place and so much more money on the line they hardly change anything from one year to the next and from someone who works on cars i think i have bearing on this. making a game is totally different you have to start over with a world and story and everything thats like asking a car maker to make a completly different car each year and the only thing they can use from last year is the chassis its impossible
next time you have a complaint shut your mouth and go back in a cave somewhere or actually learn what your talking about IMO i would rather have a completely new game that has some bugs that will be fixed than a recycled game every year that is pretty much the same o wait MW3 MW2 black ops lol who wouldve thought

Your rage is impressive. Done?

» Sat Dec 10, 2011 7:16 pm

One quest requires me to go to prison, and while imprisoned, pick sides in a feud specific to a town. I choose, I get out of jail, and people that should have been dead have come back to life, and send me back to prison to see people that are no longer in prison, and the game becomes stuck in a loop that I am unable to progress from.

Yeah, that's a bad glitch, granted. But a badly-glitched quest in a game is not the same as, say, the brakes failing and your car crashing. Yet you act as though it were.

If games studios made cars, they'd all crash. The only studio capable of putting out a resilient product would be Nintendo, and they'd only be toy cars.

» Sat Dec 10, 2011 9:09 pm

Most [censored] post ever read on these forumz.

grats mr. OP :down:

» Sat Dec 10, 2011 10:23 pm

So you're unlucky and have had a quest-breaking bug? Most people haven't. The only bug I've run into is not having Tolfdir cast a fireball at me even though I was using Ward. I just came back later and tried and then it worked.

Some people are gonna run into bugs and most aren't. We'll continue enjoying the game, and you can continue comparing it to a completely unlike product and criticizing Bethesda for releasing what, for most, is a quality game.

» Sat Dec 10, 2011 5:56 pm

Please do talk for yourself. I enjoy this game quite alot.

I'm not sure if you didn't actually read what I wrote, or if you just have difficulty retaining information, but I did illustrate that I love the game, and the reason why I'm upset is because I enjoy playing it so much, however game breaking bugs prevent myself and others from doing so.