I used to be a paid tester for Activision, so I know how builds go, and how to report bugs and all that good stuff. I'm sorry but this game doesn't seem like it was tested very well at all. I mean obviously if we are just about a month after release and they are on their 3rd patch already!
In all seriousness I do love this game at times, but sometimes I absolutely laugh at it, and hate it as well. And the hate seems to stem from very serious encounters or key points that transpire within the game.
This is a ROLE PLAYING GAME, but one that has some very amnesiac type NPC's. You achieve some incredible feats in the world, and have the ability to join one side or another that is supposedfly going to change the face of Skyrim. Yet after it's all said and done Nazeem still assumes you are some low life who never gets to the Cloud district. Then the ONE thing the entire planet purchased this game for (dragons) is broken. Seriously, how can I 'immerse' myself into a gorgeous world when dragons fly backwards and get stuck in the sky.
All I'm saying, is in the future Beth, maybe offer Open public Beta testing, get the major bugs sorted out and do it right, please!
And all the 9.5's and 10's this game garnished, I bet were given only after the first dragon is killed in WhiteRun. I guarantee you (unless paid off) no reviewer worth his salt would have scored it so high after trudging through a malfunctioning Skyrim for 40+ hours (especially on a PS3).

... Right. Give a game of Skyrim caliber to open channels for no cost to "test" it? You do realize that people would instantly abuse that system to just plain get a free copy without any input on their part? You were a paid tester, so you had responsibility, obligation and a financial contract legally binding you to test their product. I bet you also had an NDA as well. Open Beta doesn't adhere to any of those criteria, and is an utter nightmare for developers to even hear - you could have just as well said "hey guyz, y u no release dis for free? It haz bugz so i deserve to not pay 4 it yo".

Edit.. as for review scores and reviewers not playing deep enough into the game... Well, that's really an issue with gaming journalism scene of current day, much broader than Skyrim or even any genre (or review outlet). Some journos are crying that 'geaming industry is not appreciated' whilst producing utter rubbish in forms of paid articles / reviews. But, that's more an issue that merits it's own discussion on its own terms.

What the above post said

Solution:

Simply offer a downloadable beta containing maybe 10 hours of gameplay. Ten hours is not much for a game with hundreds of hours of content and could help Beth fix a ton of problems. Yesterday I experienced a glitch where everytime I fast traveled to a different province, the guards would arrest me and make me pay a 2000 gold fine. I had zero bounty in every province previous to arrest. I restarted the xbox and the problem was fixed.

This game is great despite the glitches, it could be even better without them.

Yea open beta can't really work for various reasons.

But closed beta could have prevented so many of these problems and flaws....
I gather there was no testing at all right? Can't explain it otherwise.

totally agree. as a paying beta testa, i give it a 6 / 10

Don't think they need an open beta. The only problems I have is the bookshelf issue and that I don't have a mask in the Dark Brotherhood outfit. As far as I'm concerned, they did an A+ job.

Uhm you know you could play Open Beta for Star Wars Knights of The Republic right? I believe WOW had open Betas as well, so it's not unheard of at all. A lot of it may have to do with server stability like the BF3 Open Beta, but with KOTR I know for a fact that had a Beta forum to report bugs.

But I do agree on your thoughts on gaming journalism in general. I think IGN.com and G4TV are pure crap.

Experience the whole game, and have no more surprises when it's released.

Skyrim is not a RPG.

It's action-adventure =]


Anyone who's bought Bethesda games before should have expected this kind of garbage.
Morrowind, Fallout, Oblivion
All of them were full of bugs on launch. And I had to replace the disks for all of them before of eventual errors and glitches.

I think it might just be their marketing strategy. Be prepared to buy a new copy of Skyrim when your current one gives you DDE's lol

Most would argue that even with beta testing you get loads of "issues" anyways, like every Cod game that has ever come out. Beta testing does not mean all bugs will be fixed, specially for a game as big as skyrim where it would easily take more then 10h to find bugs.

DDE?

The size of the game is no excuse. Get your effin dragons to fly straight, always. There's a damn dragon in the one live action commercial for the game! And comparing a linear FPS with minimal dialog to an open world sand box RPG is ludicrous.

Beth just wanted the over hyped 11.11.11 date like every other greedy consumer based company in the world, and so we got an incomplete product.

I thought this was an open beta?

Dragons weren't like this on release. The patch bugged it.

People like to act like a lot of other games are good but honestly, I have played tiny FPS games with more bugs than this. Stop acting like Skyrim is the worst game of all time with bugs.

Do I support bugs? Of course not.
Do I think that they happen and Skyrim isn't the only game where it happens? Yes.

Good luck if you get the job of bug-discoverer. You are gonna svck at the job.

Open Beta, not a good idea, nor will it ever happen. However, next time they are about to release a Fallout or TES game, they should have a contest to randomly choose at least 500 hundred people to play test a final beta build. Make it so that the testers MUST agree to specific terms and conditions to prevent them from trying things like make a profit or release spoilers.

P.S. next time, Bethesda should NOT set a date when they announce the game. That is [censored], and no game developer should ever do that.
P.S.S. you don't always have to release Fallout and TES at the holidays Bethesda. You are always going to sell big with these two franchises. Work on the games as long as possible to ensure quality. Let me break it down:

Release a buggy Fallout or TES game=$$
Release a buggy Fallout or TES game at the Holidays=$$$
Release a working Fallout or TES game at anytime during the year=$$$$

4 $ are better than 3.

I like your math :thumbsup:

thank you. i gave myself a nose bleed doing the calculations.

YH which is why i said that even beta won't fix all issues, you need many people to put in many hours which testers or developers don't have time for.

I just find it amusing that working as a paid tester for Activision was suppose to mean anything as they have a history of getting things really bad and months after their games has come out is still the same.

It's a business and out in the real world people actually have to make a living so get of the high horse as they are patching or just a idea, why not buy the game later?

I don't know why everyone is acting like this is the glitchest game ever. Bethesdas previous games were way more glitchy. If it's Bethesda, it's going to be glitchy. Remember that.

Actually, it looks like everybody are surprised that this game has bugs, so i bet that they got $$$$$ for releasing "bugless" game at holidays.

You should probably use a calculator next time.

Beta only works for multiplayer games.

Open Beta could, and does work, at least for the PC crowd. Probably not for console. Here's how:

You release regional builds of the game, i.e. all quests in WhiteRun to X amount of gamers. It's code, that's it. You make every player electronically sign a NDA (Non Disclosure Agreement), and they play that particular build. You can micro manage every aspect of the game and test it. Main Quest, guild quests, every dragon encounter, every shout, civil war quest, etc. etc. It's not hard.
Like I said, KOTR has been holding Open Beta testing ( you simply had to be selected via an email submission) for nearly a year. I could only imagine how Skyrim would be running if they would've thought of that.

And I know Beth has buggy games, played em all, don't need to list them, but it's stll not an excuse, EVER.

It would be like Empire Strikes Back winning an Oscar for Movie of The Year, but at the end when Darth is about to announce to Luke he's his father, Billy Dee Williams voice chimes in and says, "I'm yo daddy you cracka a$$ b!tch!"