I recently reinstalled Oblivion on my computer. I was playing this morning for several hours, then my game crashed. When I went back in, everything I had was in one save file, which is now corrupt. I'm really concerned about this being an issue for Skyrim. If Oblivion isn't cleaned up after all this time, then how can I hope for patches with Skyrim? I also have Morrowind on my shelf, and I'm hoping to add Skyrim to the list, but it's not worth battling mounds of technical details. If it's not PC playable out of the box, I'll have to pass this time.

That said, I need to study more anyways. This game is just my excuse to slack off. >_>

5 and a half years of development, I wouldn't worry about Corrupt Saves for Skyrim. Now if Beth cut corners then I'd be worried but as of right now I wouldn't worry.

Oblivion has been out for 5 years. A corrupt save could be the sign of other issues with your computer.

As with all Beth games: Save often and use hard saves. Quick saves are nice but both quick and autosaves for Beth games are not genuine saves and by the very nature of the games is somewhat prone to corruption. Many have found this to be an expensive lesson. I have personally never encountered a corrupt save.

I've never had any problems with my Oblivion saves, and I've installed and unistalled loads of mods in my time.

The only problem with a "corrupt" savegame I've run into is with Morrowind, and that was was when I had installed the expansions in the wrong order.

Save in different slots.

Problem solved.

You need at least three full save slots for each character:
1. Pre-Quest Save
2. Post-Quest Save
3. Done Playing Save

Adding more is a good idea, but this is the bare minimum.

I've only had a corrupt save problem once before, on console, but I think it was a fluke. It was a long time ago, and it hasn't happened since, so I wouldn't worry about it. Like others have said, if you're concerned about that, save in more than one file... Good luck!

Quick and Autosave are known to get corrupted if used excessively. Don't know exactly why, but it has to do with the fact that they're not just being overwritten but also keep some of the old file.

In all my years of playing Oblivion, I have never had a corrupt save. Sounds like it's more your problem than Bethesda's.

Also, as others have said, use multiple slots to save. I usually cycle through about 5, not including Quicksaves and Autosaves. There is no logical reason to use only one, it's just setting you up for problems like that.

I'm with Velorian. The file itself is saved by Oblivion's save file standard, which, used without external interference, shouldn't corrupt any files.

If you save the game then load it later and it is corrupted, it's probably an issue with your computer.

What OS are you running? Do you have any antivirus? Or automatic drive encryption software?

Read the loading messages. I believe one of them saves Save often. Anyway you should back up your saves, corruption can happen at anytime with any game.

Play it on ps3.. ?

After 100's of hours on Oblivion not a single corrupt save file

I expect them to solve that kind of things, in Skyrim.

Regarding Oblivion...

Do you have this installed? http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=5296

you know its funny, the only time I have ever got a corrupt save in any TES game or any game for that matter is if the coding with the saving was wrong from the start or when it was auto saving or saving my game i turned off the system for any reason which could include the game freezing when it was saving which rarely happend

so I hate these threads where everyone whines when it is either YOUR fault to begin with because you ddin't notice the game was still saving OR it was a good complaint and the game needs a patch to fix a freezing bug or saving bug or you just need to learn to use alteast one more save slot JUST incase :flamethrower:

I have played Oblivion on 360 for about 133+ hours and rising, not on one character mind you *tho one character I played for 98 hours yet was only level 23 O_O or was it 32?* and only ONCE have I gotten a corrupt save but even than I had a backup and the corrupt save was due to some type of freezing issue that the game froze when it was freezing on another character of mine

Edit: Started on MW but I can't see how many hours I have played on that since its on 360 and it doesn't show an option I love that game alot more than Oblivion except graphics BUT the game breaker for me is that inverted camera, I hate pushing the right stick up to look what I would think is UP only to be looking DOWN-___-

I have never had a corrupt save in Oblivion. Let alone any other game on a 360.

You should never only use one save. I'm not saying the corruption is okay, but it's not like save corruption bugs are common in Oblivion (to my knowledge).

I learned my lesson years ago. The game Chrono Cross has a bug that randomly corrupts your save. I lost like 15 hours of game play due to that. Now I always keep save files... sometimes dozens. Most major milestones I created a new save in Oblivion. It's kind of fun randomly loading them to see how much my character has changed over the course of the 160 hours of play time.

Use Wrye Bash and save in different slots frequently, autosave isn't good for backups

thankz for telling me lol I just restarted CC just a few weeks ago due to never beating it, I will make another save file now and hope both don't get corrupted if I can lol

Saving often and saving saves will save your behind no matter the game you play.

Freezing as freqeuntly as Fallout NV is a dealbreaker.

Owned both Oblivion for PC and 360 for 5 years. Not once did I have a corrupt save.

It's only happened to me twice but it's not unheard of (though it is a rare bug). I suggest alternating through 2-4 files. You don't know it's corrupt until you try to load it.

I did really enjoy NV, but the freezing was irritating. I'd still get Skyrim regardless (I wouldn't know if it had technical issues anyway since I'm getting it at launch), but I don't think this will be a problem. It's BGS's biggest game ever and coming off of Oblivion and Fallout 3 they'll make sure it's good to go. They also have a new engine and 5+ years of experience with the hardware.

There's also the fact that Bethesda isn't even the company that developed Fallout NV as well. People like to blame Gamebryo for that as well but other Gamebryo games didn't have nearly the issues Fallout NV did as far as I know (and Skyrim doesn't use Gamebryo anyway).