Recently the game industry has found it acceptable to release beta versions of software as Release Candidates. Crysis 2 PC especially has had horrible technical faults on launch, I still can't even play multiplayer. Then there is Shogun 2, CoD:BO,

Now I have a lot more faith in ZeniMax and Bethusda than other game developers currently. My top 3 favourites are Bungie, Bethusda and Bioware. I'd really appreciate it if you guys stayed up among the top development / publishing studios. I'm even hoping ZeniMax's recent expansions will rub off there good quality on others.

Please don't break my heart. I love you guys so much and have been wounded too many times this year by studios betraying their fans.

If necessary, delaying the game makes me feel appreciative you are taking the time to polish things off.
Even if it was a whole extra year I would smile... I'd even buy two copies and give one away to a friend.

So please, please, please make Quality Assurance a bigger priority than normal. I love you... <3

Your loving fan,
Greg

I agree with you that I'd rather play a finished product than one forced to be put out because of such a cool release date. But at this point I highly doubt it will be pushed back. I'm so anxious at the moment I almost don't care I just want to play!

Oblivion really didn't have many game-breaking bugs until Shivering Isles expansion, and after that GOTY edition. The PS3 vampire glitch for GOTY edition was totally unnacceptable in my opinion.... and I play on the PC.

Do you know how many people will be dead in the street if they delayed skyrim...

I concur ^

I agree.

While I'll agree that developers should spend more time polishing their products, five years is a lot of development time. It's not like they just got up and decided to do Skyrim in the past two years, they were already making some plans as early as when Oblivion ended, though to be fair, they had many of the team focus on FO3 for quite some time.

I think you shouldn't worry too much. At the worst we'll get some bugs (as is quite standard with most modern game releases, can't test every single variable in a huge game like Skyrim), which will be patched by both Bethesda and the community. :thumbsup:

If they delay Skyim, my life is over.

Agreed. I'm disgusted at the carelessness of developers these days. Please do good Bethesda.

The date is too cool to miss. Anyway, they've been working on it for years now with a much larger team than before. Especially since they don't have multiplayer testing, I'm sure they'll get it out on time.

Yes, but if its only something minor that still would take months to do rather put it in along the patches

Frankly, I'm sick of needing unofficial patches that receive updates years after the game's release. I can wait. This is coming from someone experiencing Morrowind for the first time as of last month, and is eager to try out Daggerfall. I suppose true veterans of the series have waited long enough. Still, I want a game that works and works well.

They can sell me a buggy release. I'll still buy it. Pre-sale Special Edition if they got it. As long as follow through on the support I'll give them money. And much like New Vegas I'll start looking for the patch as soon as it's installed.
Then after a while, when the bugs a squished and the exclusive DLC deals are expired I'll pick up a GOTY version. And probably a seprate platform copy as well (PS3/Xbox360/PC).

Aaaaaaaaaaaaand it's statements like these that give the developers little incentive to release a finished product.

Anyway, yes, I do hope they delay the game and abandon the idea of releasing on such a gimmicky date if they don't feel the game is quite yet ready. Stop releasing unfinished games and hoping fans will put up with your scrambling to fix everything with patches and excuses.

Working on a Game for 5 Years and have it Delayed is Stupid, isent it Torture enough to wait till November :toughninja: :brokencomputer:

I'd love to keep the release date too, but not if it's at the cost of a major bug.
OT: Coincidently, the date reminds me when I got engaged 11-1-11. (I chose something easy to remember.) I now have to shuffle wedding plans to make sure they don't conflict with Skyrim... :tongue:

Yes they've been working on it for some time, but the quality of the game is much higher and more time consuming to make. I do expect them to do well as Bethusda has done well in the past, I just thought I'd reiterate my thoughts here to make sure they know what's important to at least one of their fans (and hopefully more).

Skyrim does look absolutely mind-blowing-ly epic.

I am totally the guy from this flick:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9eGtyqz4gY

Dude the games been in development for a fair while now

I do understand where the OP is coming from about feeling betrayed due to games released hastily out. We all have faith and hope in both Bethesda Game Studios and Bethesda of ensuring being able to play with minimal errors. I've seen two games released already from other companies which hardly did any testing which resulted in bugs and glitches, leaving the customer feeling down and betrayed. You would think companies would take a more careful approach and necessary precautions of the errors. Companies need fans/customers as fans/customers need companies, do wish more companies had that customer first and money second. I say give them a chance and rely they know what they're doing, I don't see them pushing out the game abruptly for the money or some suit giving the green light and skipping the testing process.

I could see them jumping the gun iff they got wind of someone else going to announce that date and they did not want anyone to steal their thunder.

More likely is they officially announced the release date once the major portions of the game were done and they are only working on the wish list and maybe qc items. Heck, they could have waited months and still announced 11/11/11 with months to spare if they were not absolutely sure they could make it.

Even more likely imo is the game itself is done they are tinkering on minor wish list items and their primary focus now is expansions.

I sincerely wish that scenario to be true. <3

Delaying a game isn't something you plan for, obviously, why give out a release date if you don't intend to meet it? Delaying is something you do if circumstances make it necessary. If it comes to a point where the game simply needs longer than Bethesda originally believed to ensure that the finished product is good, though, I'd rather have that then have the game released on time at the expense of quality. It seems to me that it would be in the company's interests to do this in the long run too, rushing to get the game released on time even if it's not really ready for release might allow the game to be sold sooner, and possibly at the most profitable time possible if a strategic release date was chosen, but the quality of the end product may be diminished as a result, which may cause reviews to criticize that aspect of it, in particular, the criticial response to an otherwise good game could suffer due to bugs that could have been fixed if the game had spent more time in the testing and bug fixing stage, causing sales to potentially be reduced by the lowered reviews, even if it doesn't happen and by the time people complain about the bugs, they've already paid for the game, it might make them have less respect for the developers, which may not immediately damage the game's success but could negatively effect the company's potential sales in the future.

I'd say that once a release date has been announced, trying to meet it is the best approach, but they should not be afraid to delay it if it turns out that it just can't be polished enough for release in time for said date, I'd rather wait to play a game that's up to the standards I hope for than get one sooner that leaves me dissappointed.

You got engaged in the future?

WIN

The release date of 11.11.11 is more than enough time for the game to finish, or else they wouldn't announce it this early. Bethesda never does. They are likely done with the entire game in the summer or early fall, and then they just wait and touch up on their stuff.

There's a chance that, as a result, Skyrim will be one of the most bug-free games released this year. But I can assure you that it will NOT be completely bug-free, because that's impossible to do. Sometimes, it's your computer's fault and not the game developer.

Bethesda Game Studios needs a steady income of cash. They can't afford 10-year development cycles.

Some countries use day-month-year format which makes more sense imo.