How buggy do you think TES V will be? : The Elder Scrolls Series Discussion

» Sat Sep 11, 2010 9:46 pm

I could of sworn I remember reading in a recent interview with Todd Howard, he was saying they want to make a game that is complete and fun to play rather than just barely getting the game to a "playable" state.

I sort of have high hopes for this next game, but I'm still aware that it can never be "perfect".

» Sat Sep 11, 2010 11:16 pm

I could of sworn I remember reading in a recent interview with Todd Howard, he was saying they want to make a game that is complete and fun to play rather than just barely getting the game to a "playable" state.

I was going to mention this, but you beat me to it. I thought it was in the interviewer Eurogamer did with Todd at QuakeCon, but I can't find it. (The quote, not the interview). But yeah, in some interview, and I'm paraphrasing here, Todd said about their current game that basically they aren't satisfied with their games just "working" anymore, that they want to them to be more polished.

Hopefully they come close to achieving that goal, but I know they won't make it completely. There will be some bugs and jankyness in the game. It's unavoidable with the types of games Bethesda makes.

» Sun Sep 12, 2010 4:30 am

I've never had so many bugs with an Elder Scrolls game, that each one wasn't still one of the most enjoyable gaming experiences I've had.

Huge Game = More Bugs. Any developer, or person involved with the gaming industry (tech side) can tell you that.

Elder Scrolls are huge games that provide more content, personality and general "stuff to do" than any other single player open world game. You can say that the only games which offer more content are the kind where you pay a subscription, like EverQuest 2, or World of Warcraft.

Their games are also heavily modder supported, which most Bethesda releases have Unofficial Patches and Script Extenders to fix, enhance and improve upon the original designs.

I have no love for Bethesda's PR, or the fact that they love Fallout, pushing TES into the background... but their games are solid, regardless of bugs. Bugs are a fact of life with an big game.

» Sat Sep 11, 2010 10:23 pm

it will be soo buggy that as soon as you put the game in it says "Laoding"

» Sat Sep 11, 2010 2:48 pm

Very. It's Bethesda, they always have bugs. I mean, in such huge games, it's hard to get everything. Bugs are bound to happen.

» Sat Sep 11, 2010 11:59 pm

I'd like to agree with you, but can't do so and still look at myself in the mirror.

If all the release-day bugs were nightmarishly complex, I might be able to- but looking at Oblivion, Fallout 3, and (as mentioned, made by Obsidian but approved and shipped by Bethesda) New Vegas, this isn't the case- look at the number of flaws "user-patched" in a matter of a few hours. Opinions differ, but mine based on the last 3 releases is that their QA is definitively lacking. There, I said it. I don't like being able to say it- but when Joe Modder can take your just-hit-the-shelves release and fix 10 problems in 3 hours, these aren't "takes a rocket scientist to figure out" grade bugs we're talking about, this is sloppy "Who cares, get it out the door and we'll patch it later- the guys in Accounting are getting antsy" work IMO.

So as much as I'd love to say otherwise, I predict TES V will be a bugfest on par with the warehouse for a national fishing bait chain. Just like the 3 before it.

And just like the 3 before it, Bethesda has little motivation to change their formula, with so many people willing to accept as "high quality" the "It's buggy as hell, but the community will do Bethesda's work for them and fix the worst of it so it doesn't matter" release plan that's worked for several games already. Which is why I don't buy their games on release day- I wait until whoever actually bothers to do it has had time to fix the most glaring, near-game-breaking flaws.

You have a point, but I like to think that because of how deeply we play the game, the gamers more than anyone else know what are the small bugs and fixes. I believe that the source of this weak-point in bug-hunting for Beth is how relatively closed-shop they are (probably not the right term, but I don't know what is) Beth don't like getting loud and involved with the community, at least not recently. I myself don't see why they can't simply take the unofficial patch, integrate into the official one while giving credit to the modders that did it. Considering that the modders used their code and everything, meaning Beth partially owns the mod, I don't see why they don't just do that.

Oh well, these are probably one of many mysteries about Beth's operations that will never be answered.

» Sun Sep 12, 2010 2:35 am

I'd like to agree with you, but can't do so and still look at myself in the mirror.

If all the release-day bugs were nightmarishly complex, I might be able to- but looking at Oblivion, Fallout 3, and (as mentioned, made by Obsidian but approved and shipped by Bethesda) New Vegas, this isn't the case- look at the number of flaws "user-patched" in a matter of a few hours. Opinions differ, but mine based on the last 3 releases is that their QA is definitively lacking. There, I said it. I don't like being able to say it- but when Joe Modder can take your just-hit-the-shelves release and fix 10 problems in 3 hours, these aren't "takes a rocket scientist to figure out" grade bugs we're talking about, this is sloppy "Who cares, get it out the door and we'll patch it later- the guys in Accounting are getting antsy" work IMO.

So as much as I'd love to say otherwise, I predict TES V will be a bugfest on par with the warehouse for a national fishing bait chain. Just like the 3 before it.

And just like the 3 before it, Bethesda has little motivation to change their formula, with so many people willing to accept as "high quality" the "It's buggy as hell, but the community will do Bethesda's work for them and fix the worst of it so it doesn't matter" release plan that's worked for several games already. Which is why I don't buy their games on release day- I wait until whoever actually bothers to do it has had time to fix the most glaring, near-game-breaking flaws.

I only now read your post and finally found someone to completely agree with.

My post just looks like yours rephrased (which it is not). You just said much better and clearly what I 100% believe is the case: this may all still be the entertainment business, but above all it is business 1,000 paces ahead of entertainment.

» Sun Sep 12, 2010 12:00 am

Enough with the insect jokes guys :slap:

@OP

Think for a moment how complex the game engine that is used in Beth games is for a moment, TES games will always be buggy, but that is not necessarily a bad sign. I agree in that it is strange Beth don't patch their games, when the community practically does it for them and all they have to do is distribute the fixes to everyone as part of an official patch. I don't study legal or any other things which might influence this so perhaps one of those is the culprit to this problem, however that is the only thing I agree with you on, that and that if a TES game isn't buggy that something is wrong.

TES games are so complex and deep with such complicated scripts and stuff that to say you will have a 'bug-free game' is impossible, the engine itself cannot handle all the data that is running through it, so simply 'breaks' at points, I see it as a sign of a truly developed engine and scripting team, rather than a sign of disrespect for gamers. I'll gladly play this amazing one-of-a-kind game with millions of bugs because I know that it is one of a kind in quality, expansiveness, and player freedom, and although this might very really devoted fan-ish, I do not see any level of incompetence in Beth just because of a few bugs, when some other companies make a game with the same qualities of Beth games and are 'bug-free' then I'll start looking more critically, but until then, I'm sure that Beth is doing the best that they can.

EDIT:

After re-reading my post, I realize it may have come off at a sort of 'flaming' tone. If I gave that impression I sincerely apologize and know that I hope we have a good debate on the topic at hand.

So the best they can do is use the same engine for 3 games?.

The engine doesn't break because it's complex, it breaks because it is poorly coded.

Oblivion, FO3 and FNV all use the same engine.

Granted, using a new engine introduces more bugs, but when this old engine they are using has the same bugs in each new game they make, it's about time to get a new engine.

Not just that, but the graphics quality would be much better if Bethesda didn't recycle the same engine for 3 games.

I hope TES V will be epic, but I can't see Bethesda changing their engine, and it will severely hurt the potential of TES V. But if they do, it will be the best elder scrolls game yet.

» Sun Sep 12, 2010 2:07 am

So the best they can do is use the same engine for 3 games?.

The engine doesn't break because it's complex, it breaks because it is poorly coded.

Oblivion, FO3 and FNV all use the same engine.

Granted, using a new engine introduces more bugs, but when this old engine they are using has the same bugs in each new game they make, it's about time to get a new engine.

Not just that, but the graphics quality would be much better if Bethesda didn't recycle the same engine for 3 games.

I hope TES V will be epic, but I can't see Bethesda changing their engine, and it will severely hurt the potential of TES V. But if they do, it will be the best elder scrolls game yet.

What do you mean by new engine? Do you want them to abandon Gamebryo all together? I'm not quite sure, but I'll pretend as if that's what you mean.

If you are going to compare Oblivion with NV you might as well throw in Morrowind since that is along the same lines of what you're doing. The only major engine change since Morrowind was the graphical and some of the physics changes between TES: III and TES: IV. Ever since then the engine has slowly been upgraded with newer modifications, code changes, optimizations etc. You don't suddenly change everything about your game in between one game, it takes a number of games, though I do predict that TES: V will see some significant changes in engine coding and optimization from Oblivion.

And please don't drag NV into this discussion, NV is a spin-off of the Fallout series, meaning it's engine is basically Fallout 3 plus some extra stuff, plus NV doesn't even count among the games that Beth develops so it's really a similar engine for 2 games. Oblivion's engine is not identical to Fallout 3's, it is in fact much less optimized I can personally see the difference in the two when running F3 and Oblivion on my computer, F3 definitely lags less.

(I'm not sure, but I do recall hearing somewhere that Fallout 3's source code was much larger than Oblivion's, meaning more commands and such, this is in brackets because I'm not quite sure whether this is true or not)

Fallout 3's engine was not expected to have a major jump from Oblivion because it was already a major jump from Fallout 2. Plus the team likely did not have to make any major engine re-vamps while making the game in the first place.

EDIT: I'd also like to re-iterate the words of these two wise forumers who answered this question before:

They didn't use it for New Vegas because they didn't have time and resources for that. A LOT of stuff was built on top of Gamebryo to end up with Oblivion. After that they modified that engine to make the Fallout 3 engine. That was a lot of work. When they brought on Obsidian to make New Vegas they weren't in a position to do another 4-year development cycle for it...they're probably working on TESV. So, they gave Obsidian their dev tools, assigned some of their own staff to help out and manage QA, and said, "here's this...be done before the holiday season in 2010...go." There's no way they had time to overhaul the engine based on the new version of Gamebryo. They'll probably do something like that for TESV and Fallout 4, though.

To add to Softnerd's post, Gamebryo is specifically designed to be augmented and changed by the developer using it. It's primarily a graphics engine, the other aspects are rudimentary or nonexistant, so developers can easily mold it to fit their needs. This is great for Bethesda since it allows them to create an engine that supports huge open-ended worlds with lots of NPCs and clutter, requirements most engines don't need to meet. With a fully developed engine Bethesda would need to strip out more components in order to rebuild it to their specifications which is time-consuming and easily introduces problems.

» Sat Sep 11, 2010 5:55 pm

Dear Todd,

Yes, we understand. Taking Morrowind into the next generation with Gamebryo was a very awesome thing... and Morrowind was one of the best games ever, but give it a rest already... we need to move on to bigger and better things, just patch-working your baby again and again and again to "bring it up to date" is not going to cut it. It's time you did what you did with Morrowind, scrap the aging tech and bring TES V into the next generation.

Signed,
Fan-base

» Sun Sep 12, 2010 1:57 am

Dear Todd,

Yes, we understand. Taking Morrowind into the next generation with Gamebryo was a very awesome thing... and Morrowind was one of the best games ever, but give it a rest already... we need to move on to bigger and better things, just patch-working your baby again and again and again to "bring it up to date" is not going to cut it. It's time you did what you did with Morrowind, scrap the aging tech and bring TES V into the next generation.

Signed,
Fan-base

Sorry, but I have to disagree with your statement completely, if I look at all the games which I love, none of their engines meets my needs as a TES gamer, name me any game that fulfills both 1st and 3rd person perspectives, an array of visual and scripted effects, scheduled AI that can be made to mimic the life of a normal person, and the hundreds of other things that only the Gamebryo engine specially tailored by Beth can achieve. Beth's engine is number one IMHO, at least unless I find another engine that can do all these things.

Gamebryo is not aging tech, it is quite alive IMO.

» Sat Sep 11, 2010 6:28 pm

If they were rushing it, we'd have a street release date.

» Sat Sep 11, 2010 10:01 pm

I can't believe 3 people voted no bugs whatsoever. Seriously?

» Sat Sep 11, 2010 9:31 pm

Lately we’ve been more lenient about TES V topics here but they have unfortunately begun to overrun this forum so we will be cracking down on them again.

If you want to discuss features that you would like to see in an upcoming Elder Scrolls game, or expect to see, please use the http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1147719-tes-v-ideas-and-suggestions-188/
Speculation on when or if such a game will be announced belongs in the http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1147858-official-tes-v-speculation-thread-89/.
Finally any discussion of future Elder Scrolls games that involve multiplayer of any sort belongs in the http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1119156-official-tes-multiplayer-thread/.