Also, optimized UI for the PC...

Piss poor idea, not sure about anyone else but after 1st 25GB was installed from the disk it took over 3 hours to install the rest of game

After emailing them, being advised to post in the forum, having my thread locked in said forum and then sent here I'm getting pretty sick of this customer service.

Nowhere on the box does it say the game needs to be downloaded. I bought the disc to avoid this, and after seeing "activated on steam" I logically assumed that meant the game was on the disc, and it was activated on steam. There was no way of knowing otherwise without looking up online whether or not the game was on the disc, which is such a strange thought that I take no blame in not doing it. Again it should have been written on the box to Google "Does boxed fallout 4 contain fallout 4?", which it wasn't.

I'm looking at 3 more days downloading this because of Internet speeds where I live. It's like paying to see a movie only to then be turned away and told to come back in 4 days after you've downloaded it. I paid an additional $30 compared to buying it digitally on steam for the convenience of not having to download it, which was wasted due to no fault of my own. That's not fair.

And here I was being labeled a cynic for believing there would be "little more than a setup.exe" on the DVD and for not believing the corporate speak of "there will be game files" on the DVD.

Glad I chose the path of "expect to download the entire game" and bought the game directly from Steam. I was not disappointed...

19 Hours in so far, and i am at 14gb total. Including the 5 on the disc.

I dont blame Bethesda or any other company for my poor internet. It is slightly annoying that everything is moving over to digital before many areas have caught up on internet speeds. I live less than a mile outside the nearest town with decent speeds, only about 4 miles in a straight line from Glasgow Airport, yet my connection svcks so bad it was 50/50 whether id even get broadband. But again, thats not Bethesdas problem.

Even if there was no disc version, i would still have downloaded the game anyway, As Bethesda games are some of the few i trust to be worth it. Unfortuantly for me i only discovered that the disc would contain so little data on the same day my order was to dispatch.

And even then, it wasnt clear whether it was 4.7gb or dual layered/compressed to about 9-10 gb on disc. If i knew for certain it was 5, i would have canceled the preorder and started downloading earlier.

But,its done now and is only going to cost me a few extra days less of play, so no big deal truly. But it would be much nicer to know in advance just what is on the physical copys of games. Or in steams case, what the download size is when your buying a game. (maybe they show that now)

I don't think we are blaming Beth for the fact we have poor internet. We are more blaming them for their bad customer service. For being inconsiderate while most big AAA companies including that greedy, paranoid, and aggressive Ubisoft, aren't doing what Beth is doing. Naturally, Beth don't care if you have poor internet. Heck, they are probably saying to us insufferable "whinners", "Go to college and get a better job to afford better Internet instead of wasting time complaining about a game."

I didnt mean to say anyone was.Thats more to quiet the hordes who would no doubt say I was.

And i agree about the Customer service. If digital is the route they want to go down, fine, but at least make it clear in advance just what is on the physical version. Nowhere on the box does it tell you what you need to download. So it would be doubly annoying for someone who buys it in a shop without knowing anything about it.

Apparently Beth logic is that the whole planet is bathe with fiber optic internet. They knew exactly what they were doing. They knew exactly that some people were going to be affected and didn't advertised it appropriately because of the backlash they were going to have, the backlash they are experiencing right now. It was a underhanded move that even Ubisoft is smiling that they aren't the only ones with balls.

You can use the Steam Back Up feature to do this. If you apply no compression and pick one volume, it goes really fast.

You can use the Steam Back Up feature to do this. If you apply no compression and pick one volume, it goes really fast.

Perhaps, I still prefer to do it manually though. I have a 2TB external specifically to store games I am not playing including non steam games with a regedit file to put the proper values into the registry (and another to remove them when I stop playing the game) negating a need to reinstall from a disk.

That's right where I've found myself. I was certain it would be a disc install with an unavoidable day 1 patch to download, I had no reason to assume anything else. I now know they warned about it on certain websites but that's all come a bit late.

It's triggered a real sense of being cheated, which may seem silly over just a game. I read the fine print, payed for the product and got something entirely unexpected. It's not right.

Yeah, it was a smooth move from Beth. ^^

But seriously this, I'm afraid, is just the beginning. I've been very harsh with Beth in my last two comments but by no means I'm hating Beth as a whole, just this business underhanded tactic. I'm one of the first who not only liked but also defended the visuals of FO4 while many were burning it to the ground. The artists/designers have for the most part done a good job. The performance/technical issues is something that I hope Beth can fix. I mean the game doesn't even have a brightness setting for crying out loud.

Yeah it was pretty [censored] of them, should have just said "nah we're cheap, didn't want to spend 10 cents on six dvds". Also if reddit is to be believed there was a torrent for the cracked game on sunday before the game was even released..so yeah, way to stop those damn dirty pirates :/.

I can't buy it on pc, the download at .7mbps (at peak times) would just take too long, and no one else would get to use the internet in the mean time. Hopefully they see all the complaints about it and release their next game on multiple dvds (or one blue ray)

Just want to add another voice to the choir...

When I buy a physical copy, with NO CLUE on the box that 80% of the files are not even ON the physical medium, I just feel... fooled. To put it mildly.

Dear folks at Bethesda, that might strike you as odd, but there are LOTS of neighborhoods on this planet that STILL have crappy Internet. And bandwidth limits to boot!

Even with my improved connection these days I'm looking at a 3 hour download. Folks I know look at 2 ****ing DAYS! After they drove a few miles to pick up a physical copy from the local store...

That's just showing your utter contempt to your paying customers and unacceptable business practice, IMHO.

Wanted to add my voice or rather text to this topic as well. I'm stuck with a 1.5Mbps connection, other than moving there is really nothing I can do about this. Do I use steam regularly, yes. Do I download full games through steam, also yes. However buying digital I usually am playing a reduced price for what I get and usually not day 1 releases, so the download wait is tolerable though it is becoming increasingly frustrating with the increasing sizes of games. However when opting for a Day 1 purchase or even I pre-order as I did with Fallout 4 and having the option to get a physical release then I do so in order to avoid the download time. I'd rather the game ship for a couple days maybe get the game a day late as I did and be able to play than spend the better part of a week downloading it, even with preloading I would still be downloading now anyway but it would be further along than what this tiny disc just installed. Had the full game or near to it been in the physical package I would be playing now and not on this forum, but that isn't the case instead I still have a week of downloading ahead of me despite having a package in hand.

My two biggest issues with this whole thing is first the before hand knowledge, it was stated that physical copies would have to download a portion of the game. Ok, I get why that is, what they really meant though was physical copies would contain a portion and you would have to download the majority. That is the part I am not ok with, if they had said outright how much the additional download would be it would definitely have affected how I purchased the game. I likely would have bought it digitally possibly at a reduced preorder or sale price, I've seen as much as 20% off prior to release and preloaded with everyone else and I would be looking at a couple days and I would be playing at this point, instead I feel like I paid extra for a plastic box with basically nothing in it, and didn't get the preorder poster either not that it meant much to me but it feels like a got screwed even more beyond all this.

Second issue is the act itself in not including the data on disc, saving money or whatever is hogwash really, I bought a copy of the elder scrolls anthology just a year ago. It included 6 CDs and 3 DVDs all in a nice divided package with style and quality and it cost less than Fallout 4. Was it really too much to ask to get 3 DL DVDs in this package, that would be enough to contain the entire game, 2 would have been enough to get most of it. Anti-piracy or stopping spoiling is crap as well, the game was being preloaded a couple days before release, the physical copy should at least contain what people were able to preload, otherwise I really don't see that point standing that data was still out there before release whether on disc or on a preloaded download either way. Not to mention the review copies that were already out that led to leaks.

Bottom line is, from what I've seen Fallout 4 looks great, I'm sure I am going to enjoy it once I get a chance to after about a week of downloading. I'm likely going to make a steam backup and burn them to DVDs thus doing Bethesda's job for them and store it in my overpriced plastic case but Ultimately I feel I will be satisfied with the game itself, I will not however be satisfied ever with how the physical release was handled, they really had no legitimate excuses and hid details prior to release. If I though it would matter anything or at least wanted to be funny I would record a video of my complaints on DVD but only included 25% of it and send it to them, then tell them to download the rest.

+1 This exactly

Got my copy from the post office and finally started the download, its not as bad as I thought on the home broadband but its still not great. If no one else uses the internet/i don't browse and let it download it will take 6 days of solid download. Looks like its going to take me about 2 weeks to download this svcker maybe less if I use my 15gb dongle, it still svcks but its better than two-three months!

My husband picked up our copies at Gamestop at the midnight release, and my download still has four hours to go. He took two days vacation to celebrate his birthday and play Fallout 4. This morning he commented that his eagerness to play the game had passed. I think Todd's comments about your first experience with a game being exceptionally important were right on target, and at least for us Bethesda really managed to kill the new game specialness. So Pete knew as he posted his cute little doctor's excuse knowing that many of us wouldn't be playing despite having picked up the game at the first possible moment. I'd say that Bethesda (not the devs, but the business) should feel shame.

I'm sure we'll give the game a try, but it's going to have to really deliver to win us back at this point. I also expect that we'll make far fewer purchases from the Bethesda Store in the future. There's nothing like finding out just how little a business values you as a customer to drain the fun from what seemed a mutally beneficial exchange.

i feel butt[censored]ed by bethesda by this. ive been a fan since fallout 1 and have all the games physical box. My connection is [censored] and limited so i need to buy more gb. in the end i will have payed 100euros in all if i want to download the whole game.

This is complete bullcrap i already boycuttet ea and now bethesda too for this cheap trick.

The best way to combat piracy? Quit selling videogames!

I am infuriated that I have to waste 25gb when I'm forced to have Comcast's 300gb tarrif on a 75mbps connection, (Including others with a much worst connection than me) just to install a game specifically purchased via hard copy so I wouldn't have to...

I'd really love to dismantle the home computer of the person/s who came up with this idea, and hide the still functional unassembled parts in various locations around the office in which they work..And then, they will understand the frustration they caused the people that pay for that very computer that they currently enjoy..

Remember, employees of Bethesda, that we, the ever-complaining, ever-loyal consumers since Arena/Daggerfall have already paid for your cars, apartments, and the very cushy lifestyle that you're currently living...So give us a break, and quit inspiring the pirates to pirate..

To those of you wondering if Bethesda will do anything about this or find a solution to the problem, I'm sorry to say that they most likely will not. They will almost certainly do this for their next game as well.

I've been on this forum for years. I've spent so much time and energy making polls and starting petitions trying to get this stuff fixed.

It never works. Bethesda does not care. They have your money.

Remember Skyrim on PS3?

Remember the game-breaking save bugs in Oblivion that corrupted your oldest, most precious saves?

Remember the MASSIVE "unofficial patches" that fix literally thousands of bugs Bethesda never did?

Remember when Bethesda just stopped patching Skyrim even though it was still rife with bugs for hundreds of people?

Bethesda never fixes any of these things. Don't expect them to respond or help you.

If you are truly unsatisfied with your purchase, refund your game. That's the only solution.

It would have to be en-masse as that would surely become a solid wake-up call, otherwise it would be of negligible importance...Also, for me, I'd still take a loss due to shipping/taxes (Rotten state taxes Internet sales) plus, admittedly, I'm having a blast with this game!

Also, the fact of the matter is, while they're no CDPR, they are a muuuch better company than EA/UbiSoft/Blizzard, unfortunately, they are slowly inching towards sharing that distinction, so they need a serious wake-up call towards their pay-checks in order to divert them from that path, I'm sorry I can't be the one to initiate it.

I haven't bought the game so that's a relief. I was going to buy two copies one for a friend of mine who has this peculiar love for post-apocalyptic stuff. It would be nice if next year or after all the dlcs are done with, Bethesda could sell the whole package with the full game inside. Better late than never.

You aren't the only one. I still have Comcast 25mbps and refuse to jump up to their 75mbps offering since they still cap you at 300gb. What? Get to my cap faster for more money? No thank you. I actually went to 400% of my cap last month downloading new game purchases off steam.

Just chiming in here to add my complaint. Only bought the disk because i know i don't have the bandwidth to download games off steam or the download speed even if i did have the bandwidth. Not even sure i can get my money back now that it's already linked to my steam account and they only refund games you buy off the steam store i believe.