An open letter to Bethesda and Obsidian : Fallout: New Vegas

» Sun Oct 03, 2010 5:54 pm

Your a moderator for this game, your expected to support the party line, and your foolish for doing it.

Not at all. We're just members here who joined the same way you did, but after a time were considered to be "helpful" so were asked to assist the community managers (who are staff) in keeping the forums problem-free. We have individual opinions just like any other member. As to Bethesda being expected to support every combination of drivers and software on an individual's PC, I certainly didn't take that attitude when Mass Effect 2 caused all my games to stop working. I just hunted around to make sure my set-up supported the games by downloading this-and-that and eventually got it all working harmoniously, because PCs are just not a plug-and-play system. I honestly don't believe it's possible for them to test every single combination of software. All I know is that I had a brand new-out-of-the-box PC for Fallout 3 and had zero issues, and once I'd fixed the driver problems for ME2 I've had no further issues since with any of the games I've tried - though I do empathise that it was pretty miserable when my drivers were wrong.

So that makes it right? A drug dealer who has always delt drugs is somehow justified? A serial killer is no longer a criminal just because hes done it a lot?

Sorry that dog aint gonna hunt.

I always view it as being like the difference between a short story and an epic novel. I've come across loads of typos in Stephen King's Dark Tower series of books so far, and you could say, "Wow - 18 misspelled words! That's appalling!", or you could think, "Well, if each book is 800 pages and there's 7 of them, then the law of averages is that if one word in each 300 pages is spelled wrong, that's still only a normal average." At the same error rate, a regular novel of 299 pages would have no errors at all - but that doesn't mean it's miraculously better, only that there's less of it to screw up. Similarly, look at the frankly epic http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0167260/goofs. Does that mean that the film is sloppy and nobody bothered to get it right? At only 82 minutes, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0139414/goofs is considerably shorter, but I don't think that's an indicator of superior quality.

Just a "moderator note" here, I've had to edit out a couple of insults from this thread. Please be respectful towards other members. There's no excuse for rudeness.

» Mon Oct 04, 2010 6:39 am

Your a moderator for this game, your expected to support the party line, and your foolish for doing it. The crap that the company is spewing is utter garbage, this release is fine? Maybe for your el cheapo console babies but not for Pc users, the game is garbage and you and your comapny know it. SDK's are released for a reason, failure to use the maximum compability because time is a problem is a crock. You people are saying its the drivers, we say its you lazyness to completely write code for all hardware, even the barest generic crap code to make the damn game even run.

Not that you care in the least, but as i told bethesda, they have until monday to fix this crap title, at that time i get some very nice folks really interested in this problem pro bono. And i really hope they take it, as my name will be at the top as originator.

By the way, your european forums are pretty hostile too, why is that?

Sometimes being happy is never enough, amiright?

» Mon Oct 04, 2010 8:10 am

I feel for those people who are having such difficulties playing, because it is an amazing game. I've played a marathon 16 hour session yesterday and overnight on PC with something like 3 breaks to eat and do other things, and I've not encountered any problems, and not had any crashes or freezes at all. I hope these remaining problems that some people are experiencing get fixed soon.

» Mon Oct 04, 2010 10:28 am

100% Signed.
Its very disheartening to think that this level of blatant disregard to the people that pay their paychecks (People who buy the game) get treated so unfairly by scenarios such as this. It makes me even more sick that there are so many of you who are sympathizing with Beth/Obsidian when, like the OP said, It was 100% impossible that they did not/were not completely aware of such gigantic bugs plaguing this launch. On a personal side note as well, to touch base briefly on the OP remarks, I find it a complete cop-out, poor design, or simply being very cheap that there are SOOOOO many dwellings and what not that are "boarded up" indicating that I, as a wasteland traveler, do not have access to. I mean, seriously there are more in-access-able buildings in most towns than there are access-able ones.
I will say though, that besides the GIGANTIC bugs, nerve wracking stuttering when NPC's are on the screen, very minimal music selection, and the significant amount of boarded up dwellings (making them somehow in-accesable to someone with explosives weapons), and furthermore set in what was supposed to be an all inclusive world that contains many small hills that for some reason won't let me walk over them making me have to walk an in-ordinate distance farther to explore (which I will also admit leads to further exploration but severely disallows reasonable belief), this is truly a great game. -_-

» Mon Oct 04, 2010 12:28 am

I have put maybe 25+ hours in and have crashed maybe 6 times, only once it make me mad. There are a few really lousy textures and some really good. At this point with what they are doing, its pushing the engine to the breaking point so its time to upgrade.

I really like the game though. Despite all its shortcoming, its a really good game. I do not regret buying one bit.

» Mon Oct 04, 2010 6:51 am

seeing as i have to wait until it arrives (Pre-ordered and didn't even ship until the 21st?!) I've spent my time reading (and ducking spoilers). The bugs sound ugly. And the people complaining have a point, it doesn't sound release ready. Even the consoles are having issues (abeit less though it seems like).

BUT
I tend to imagine the massive amount of complaining if they hadn't released on the specified date. "WHAT?!?! You said the 19th! Where MY game? Where's MY money going?"

The patches are coming. And those who hold on will get what they paid for. If the company line had been "You bought it, deal with it" I could see problems but gamesas seems to be aware, before and after, that the program has issues. They're working on it.

or you could just go find copy of Elder Scolls V

» Sun Oct 03, 2010 11:55 pm

I have over 40 hours in new vegas so far. its froze on me ONE time and I fixed that with simply by restarting my xbox. Music svcks, but other than that this game is way better than Fallout 3.

Good job Obsidian.

» Mon Oct 04, 2010 8:19 am

So that makes it right? A drug dealer who has always delt drugs is somehow justified? A serial killer is no longer a criminal just because hes done it a lot?

Sorry that dog aint gonna hunt.

Nobody is justifying it nor claiming it is "right," but a reasonable person knows what to expect from "a drug dealer who has always dealt drugs". If you ignore the proclivity to relapse, that is your failing.

» Mon Oct 04, 2010 2:21 am

I haven't had any major problems yet but I am feeling like I should return the game and wait for patches or the GOTY edition.

» Mon Oct 04, 2010 10:41 am

Oh look, another one of the hundreds of complainers who say New Vegas is the buggiest game ever after experiencing 1 or 2 bugs. I'm so surprised.

» Mon Oct 04, 2010 3:37 am

Once again I must say,

Folks who says nice things about this game without calling out Bethesda and Obsidian on the glitched game they made makes me suspicious and maybe they are just some how involved with the game itself because a very high number of gamers out there are very upset that this game lags and locks and glitches very frequently.

Now it is obvious that Bethesda just wanted to make a fast buck and released a game knowing Fallout gamers would buy it no matter what, so they did not even get QA or testers to check the game before release. We all know that QA did not test play this game, If they did then its a shame because this game had so much potential, now I am starting to think this game was a mistake for me to buy.

On a side note, why is it so hard for Obsidian and Bethesda to own up to their flaws and at least apologize for rushing a broken and glitched game?

» Mon Oct 04, 2010 9:48 am

Once again I must say,

Folks who says nice things about this game without calling out Bethesda and Obsidian on the glitched game they made makes me suspicious and maybe they are just some how involved with the game itself because a very high number of gamers out there are very upset that this game lags and locks and glitches very frequently.

Now it is obvious that Bethesda just wanted to make a fast buck and released a game knowing Fallout gamers would buy it no matter what, so they did not even get QA or testers to check the game before release. We all know that QA did not test play this game, If they did then its a shame because this game had so much potential, now I am starting to think this game was a mistake for me to buy.

On a side note, why is it so hard for Obsidian and Bethesda to own up to their flaws and at least apologize for rushing a broken and glitched game?

They did, or do you not read the stickied threads?

» Sun Oct 03, 2010 11:33 pm

Im not going to lie I have never seen so much complaining about a video game in just 4 days in my entire life. Its week ONE people! We havent even made it past week ONE!

You apparently haven't read forums of freshly released games then? This forum is just like any other. In fact, there's surprising lack of whine threads here, the game must be good.

» Mon Oct 04, 2010 1:30 am

I've only have it freeze on me a couple times about 5 in 40 hours. The bug issues are minor as long as they don't freeze the game or ruin the save file. One thing though if it was this buggy when the game came out Obsidian should have told Bethesda to delay the game a couple weeks to fix the bugs as best as they can.

» Mon Oct 04, 2010 2:39 am

I've played for about ten hours on both the PC version and the PS3 version, and only bug I've experienced is hill-clipping. No crashes, lagging or anything else.

» Sun Oct 03, 2010 10:17 pm

They have not only seen the complaints but have responded to them very quickly.

As you may have seen, we released a patch over Steam for PC users last night. While we didn’t release a full changelist, the patch contains quest and scripting fixes. It’s not a minor hotfix, it contains over 200 fixes in all. We are in the final stages of testing this update on both 360 and PS3 and we hope to have them out to users very soon.

We are also pleased to say that we have just released a second fix for PC users to address the autosave and quicksave issues that some people were encountering. That particular issue was never seen prior to release and it was extremely difficult to reproduce reliably, even after the game had launched. In order to fix this problem we have had to disable Steam Cloud functionality. It has been turned off, and we won't turn it back on until we're absolutely sure it will not cause any more problems. Please restart your Steam client to make sure you get the update.

We are also working directly with hardware manufacturers to improve performance for certain video cards. This is a driver issue, and not directly related to the game.

On consoles, we are aware that a small group of 360 users are seeing a DLC warning which is preventing you from loading save games. We are absolutely looking into this bug now, along with other reports of save game corruption. It is our highest priority right now that we find out what is causing it. In the meantime, we recommend you save often, and revert to an older save if this occurs.

As far as general memory and instability, you should see an improvement once the patch goes live, but we are continuing to work on this based on user feedback.

We want everyone to know that we are monitoring the forums and cataloging every single issue we see reported. We’re reading forum posts, we’re checking Twitter, and we’re reading Facebook comments. We aren’t able to reply to most threads, but we’re listening. If we see an issue, we have people here trying to reproduce it so we can fix it.

While there are definitely legitimate issues out there, we wanted to take a moment to address a couple of things that have been reported as “bugs.”

The now infamous Doc Mitchell video, while very funny (and horrifying) was not a bug. Unfortunately during our launch day, there was a brief window where Steam was pushing out corrupt or incorrect files. In the event that a user wound up with a corrupt meshes.bsa file, they would get that error. It was easily (and instantly) corrected by simply re-validating your files with Steam. At most, a handful of people ever saw that issue, and even then, only for a moment before fixing it.

We have seen forum posts where people are claiming they are not getting all of their perks. Again, this is not a bug. In Fallout: New Vegas, you receive perks every other level, not every level as you do in Fallout 3.

And finally, a quick tip: Be aware of your faction status before assuming the game is broken. Factions will react very strongly to you based on your current armor. If you’re wearing Powder Ganger or Caesar’s Legion armor, you will be shot on sight by the NCR (and vice versa). Also note that there are groups of renegade Powder Gangers (known simply as “Escaped Convicts”) who will shoot you regardless of your faction status.

Please post any issues you are having to our forums and we’ll do our best to fix them as quickly as possible.

Thanks,

The Fallout: New Vegas Teams at Obsidian and Bethesda

As for it not being tested:

If you go through the credits, you'll see that there's well over 70 testers that worked on the game. I'm sure the number is probably higher than that.

» Mon Oct 04, 2010 8:45 am

Once again I must say,

Folks who says nice things about this game without calling out Bethesda and Obsidian on the glitched game they made makes me suspicious and maybe they are just some how involved with the game itself because a very high number of gamers out there are very upset that this game lags and locks and glitches very frequently.

Now it is obvious that Bethesda just wanted to make a fast buck and released a game knowing Fallout gamers would buy it no matter what, so they did not even get QA or testers to check the game before release. We all know that QA did not test play this game, If they did then its a shame because this game had so much potential, now I am starting to think this game was a mistake for me to buy.

On a side note, why is it so hard for Obsidian and Bethesda to own up to their flaws and at least apologize for rushing a broken and glitched game?

Anybody who knows ANYTHING about the fallout series and/or played fallout 3 knew what they were buying, They were buying a game with hundreds of potential hours of exploring, mission etc. AND the bugs that come along with it. From what I've played of NV since release day on 360, I've had 1 freeze, a few enemies under the map and a frame rate drop here or there, that's it. Everyone that followed this game pre-release knew it was gonna be very similar to f3 and use the same engine... therefor most of the same problems/issues were gonna follow over. If you came in thinking a game of this magnitude was gonna run smooth all the way around... :facepalm:. IMO this game has far surpassed my expectations and is a solid 9.5/10.

» Mon Oct 04, 2010 12:39 pm

Im not going to lie I have never seen so much complaining about a video game in just 4 days in my entire life. Its week ONE people! We havent even made it past week ONE!

Go to the Halo: Reach forums. About a thousand threads each day complaining about the game. I wish I were joking too but no, that's what happens when all the 7 year olds of XBox find out theres a place where they can complain because they got outsmarted. It's a shame no one cares what they have to say.

» Mon Oct 04, 2010 1:40 pm

Why pay testers when you can just release it and use the consumers as testers? There's many thousands more of them and they pay you! While I am mildly frustrated with the game, I am more so disappointed with Bethesda. I've come to trust and be loyal to gamesas. This release was a great breach of that loyalty and trust and frankly, I feel a little used. I agree, some people need to be fired. There is absolutely zero possibility that th

It is not Bethesda's fault , blame Obsidian. Bethesda just doesn't make the game. It just helps get it published and get advertisemants and get the game on the shelf.

» Mon Oct 04, 2010 7:05 am

There will be bugs, but they will be fixed! Already, they have fixed pretty noticeable bugs only on the second day! So try to give them some time to fix these bugs before calling it a terrible game.

» Mon Oct 04, 2010 1:14 pm

I have the game for X-Box 360 and it is buggy as hell. I've had it freeze multiple times and I'm constantly having to save just incase the game does freeze. It's always bugging out, i mean constantly. You can't go 30 seconds without the game glitching out while your merely walking. Sometimes the game won't even respond to commands from the controller like if i try to bring up my pipboy during a gun fight. It's really pathetic and they should be embarrased for releasing the game in this sad condition.

» Mon Oct 04, 2010 10:46 am

Has there ever been a major PC game that never needed to be patched? That was bug-free from Day One? If there is, I've yet to see it. Maybe that's why Duke Nukem Forever is taking so long, they wanna strive for a bug-free release. :rolleyes:

» Mon Oct 04, 2010 3:15 am

*flame removed*
i do agree they released it too soon they should have spent another month on it, ive played it about 23 hours, its crashed on me about 10 time ive seen lots of glitches, but i dont care this game is great, i love it, just save alot and when a problem comes up just load your last save

» Mon Oct 04, 2010 2:44 am

To be honest if there's anyone to blame it's Activision. Bethesda clearly wanted to get the game out before the yearly slapped together rehash shooter so that there would be a chance for profit, so Obsidian were rushed in regards of quality control for the game so that there was some profit to be made before this year's shooter rehash.

Obsidian are fixing the game, but we lot have to be patient, whining and complaining doesn't get anything done. Just calmly mentioning what glitches and problems have been found and letting Obsidian work on fixing all of that.
All whining and complaining does is make you look like spoilt brats.

Blame Activision for their yearly greed of rehashed shooters that are madly hyped and sell to those who are too impatient for anything more than 'Man have gun, man go boom boom, man hero! Me da greatest at being led by hand!'
Stop whining and complaining, just be patient and enjoy New Vegas.

» Mon Oct 04, 2010 12:52 pm

Only problem I had was the flashing black and white squares but once I turned off the bloom that went away.
I saw acouple of ants and scorpions moving across flat ground at a 45 degree angle but once I fired at them they went back to normal.

I am running on

Windows 7 64 bit Home Pro
Intel i5 760 quad 2.8ghz
8 gig 1333 patriot ram
GT460 1 gig latest drivers
onboard sound, yeh I know I need to do something about that but it still sounds OK

I dont have any frame rate or monitoring software running, nor do I have any other apps running in the background.
I also never let third party software, flashplayer etc install any other crap toolbars when they install. In a nutshell I only install the stuff I need to on my system keeping it lean and mean.