The Skyrim Team Has a Better Plan for Squashing Bugs this Time

Kotaku: As much as people love the expansive video games of Bethesda Softworks, they loathe the bugs—and the surprising preponderance of them that appear with the launch of new Elder Scrolls or Fallout games.

This time, as Bethesda prepares to put out the massive Skyrim, they've got a plan to do better.

[Squatch83]

Meaning ''We know the game will have more bugs than ever before, and if u arent connected to the net, you are totally screwed''

[Foxgod]

The bigger the scope, the bigger the risc of having bugs in a game.

[Mr Patriot]

No

[nveenio]

There was a time when games and other software HAD to be bug free because no one had the internet. Now that most people have the internet, devs think they can promise all sorts of thing and "fix it later". As a developer myself, I understand the attraction to this (and have done it with almost every piece of software I've ever released), but the truth behind it is that it's...well...wrong.

[Foxgod]

That time never existed, just look at roms dumps of snes and genesis games, theres so many 1.1, 1.2 rom dumps, that hardly any game was bugfree.

Considering the amount of glitches in old games that people make videos of, i would say that bugfree games never existed, and wont exist any time soon.

[Heartnet]

Dont try and make excuses :)

[whydoyouask]

@inveni0

Yeah, that time was the 90's, where games would barely get to the size of 500 mbs.

[evrfighter]

well I'm planning on another unofficial patch created by the modding community to fix another 1500+ bugs.

The dedication of the elder scroll community imo is unrivaled.

[badz149]

Who are u trying to kid? Just like your last games, Skyrim will be a bug and glitch mess out of the gate

[SilentNegotiator]

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me a few dozen times, SCREW you. lol. I'll wait for the "Self-appointed GOTY" edition, when the DLC is free and the bugs are mostly taken care of.

[Foxgod]

You should also realize that the less bugs a game like this has, the more money it costed to develop it.
Testing is a very tedious and expensive process, too much testing would make a game too expensive, and it would take too long before a game is finally done.

[the_best_player]

How about fixing the bugs before the game is out? lol

[TacoTaru]

With a game this big and complex there is no possible way to test all possible combination and permutations. The player base will do unexpected things. Test Driven Development would go a long way to solving most of the problems but I don't know that the powers that be could be convinced of doing this because it seems (only seems) as if it would take longer.

[Lou-Cipher]

It's called QUALITY CONTROL.

Hey Bethesda:
MAKE SURE YOUR GAME IS RIGHT BEFORE YOU RELEASE IT.

If it has bugs dont ship it. (We do pay $60 for COMPLETE games afterall)

[Human Analog]

You are correct to a point. In the first week of release a game can build up tens of thousands of man hours in game-play. They can only do their best and de-bug as much as possible in the window allotted. Unfortunately it is part of the system, we become the testers in real world situations. Given their reputation for game quality, and their rapid patching (within reason) I can't complain. I'll be buying it day one, and "helping" de-bug one of my favorite franchises. It has never ruined my gaming experience.

[SilentNegotiator]

"It has never ruined my gaming experience"

Tell that to the people who had to start over Fallout: New Vegas because of a game-breaking checkpoint/spawn death glitch.

[Human Analog]

Well like I said. MY gaming experience. It sounds like most of the problems are because people didn't carry enough saves through the game. In a game where you can save at any point, and have more than 25 save files, there is no excuse to have to start over from the beginning. Unless you were relying on the game to auto save, and you go hours between them. I have never had to restart any Bethesda game, and yes I have hit the hard stop bugs in them too. I just went back to a save from 15 minutes prior, and kept going. It is not that hard people. Stop complaining and use the save feature. Then you'll have nothing to come to forums and bitch about, and can spend more time gaming.

[Heartnet]

HUman Analog...

So ur saying u dont mind bugs since u can help debugg them? I didnt realise that was the customers job ... dang...

and now ur saying its peoples fault for not saving enough in fall out new vegas?.... Fail man.. absolute fanboy who is in denial about any article that paints this in a bad light

[t0mmyb0y]

Ya I use multisaves also. not 25 though that's a bit extreme lol

[aGameDeveloper]

Hah, I had 100's of save files for Oblivion and Fallout 3! Took me a while to clean them up when I started running out of space. I used a 10 rolling save scheme for New Vegas, but did not really need it, as I ran into no bug that couldn't be fixed loading a single save (and not many, at that).

[Tony P]

Bugs and glitches are a part of gaming and software at large. I have never seen or played a game without them.

Perfection does not exist. We know that and so does Bethesda. But where some might use that as an excuse, Bethesda takes it as a motivator.

So I would be a little less critical in light of their continued efforts, Lou.

[Omar91]

you are right to a certain degree. There is never a perfect game your right, but de bugging your game as much as possible is key to completing a game before launch. I understand its harder for them because of how huge the scale of there game is which means more bugs, but you have to admit there games are really buggy compared to other games out there.

[Highlife]

That is my greatest fear for this game. Glitches. I had a game killing glitch in Oblivion and didn't want to start all over with that much time already put in. Leaned a huge lesson to have multiple saves and to do them often.

[Tony P]

We should have high expectations. But it seems like no one's even kind of willing to give this new system a shot.

You, me, and the devs know they have to do better. There's no reason I should be sitting at home frustrated by a game-breaker QA missed in my new $60 game. They need to make better efforts.

I just don't see the purpose in giving them shit when they implement that better effort.

[Human Analog]

@ Heartnet I am too old to be bothered by being called a fanboy. But I do work in the quality assurance field as my profession. Engineers can only design, and foresee so much. Some of it does fall to the end user. It's kind of like people who blame a product for causing damage, or injury even though they were using it not for it intended purpose. They give you (for the sake of argument, and not knowing the actual cap amount) unlimited saves to use whenever and wherever you want. So, why is it THIER negligence if you don't use a feature that could have alleviated your initial complaint? This fact does NOT make me a fanboy. It makes me a realist that doesn't let petty issues ruin my enjoyment. Like I have said. I have never had any game ending bugs stop me from rolling back 15 minutes to a previous save, and just continuing on. Realizing along the way that nothing is going to be perfect, and to enjoy things for what they are. I guess I just don't like to get upset over things that don't matter. But hey. If you like to hate, and complain about things that's fine too. It's just not my cup of tea.

[aGameDeveloper]

Well said.

[helghast102]

How about hiring a QA team?
Oh wait, why do that when the public can be your free QA? dohoho

[Takoulya]

Compare a QA team of a hundred or so to a first day launch buyer's group. Bethesda's games aren't corridor shooters with no dialogue, they're open world games with a lot of depth. There's no way a group of 100 people can locate all the bugs in a game in 2 months in a game like Skyrim.

[helghast102]

You say that as if im asking for perfection, they could at LEAST sort out the BIG problems before launch instead of waiting on the community to say "hey, your game is BROKEN".
QA is important, even if they can't comb the entire game, don't downplay the importance of good quality control.

[Takoulya]

I'm not downplaying good QA at all, but in an open world game, a lot of glitches cannot be found because they occur in specific locations when doing a specific thing. I agree with your point, but it's completely impossible for QA to go through all areas doing completely everything just because there's a possibility of something occurring; it's just not practical.

[Jack_DangerousIy]

I agree with your overall point.

[Pro_TactX]

You are not giving the public nearly enough credit. The Elder Scrolls community does not just QA a game. It releases unofficial patches too. So yeah why bother with quality assurance when your customers will fix the problems for you?

For the record I am in favor of quality assurance.

[BeOneWithTheGun]

People dont realize the sheer number of variables in a game the size of morrowwind or fallout. We are talking millions if different scenerios. Player went here, took that, killed them then ran and jumped 5 times, cast fire, hit menu 3 times real fast, went in cave, backed out fast while drawing weapon as npc walked up to say hi. Game froze....how do u test for every scenerio?

[-EvoAnubis-]

I understand that, but how the hell does that explain things like the G.O.A.T. test glitch in Fallout 3? They couldn't figure out a bug in an event every single person who played the game would have to do?

[eak3]

I think it's a good idea. Where's the downside? Bugs will come up and I'd rather have them fixed in a week than have to wait a month or so for a patch. Who knows maybe they plan on making some kind of dynamic questing they can patch an item or something into everyone's game. I think its has interesting possibilities.

[Bolts]

This game will be a bug infested mess. Just like all of Bethesda games.

[Seventh_Blood_Reborn]

Exactly what I was thinking, WE ALL know this story very well, it happens every damn time.

The same story as always with Bethesda, the same story with the same little story inside: YOU CAN CRITICIZE ABYONE for their mistakes BUT NOT BETHESDA.

Every game has it' s bugs, expecially the wide ones, BUT ...

You are not allowed to say that - also if bethesda is a great developer for many reasons - they do every damn time a big mess about bugs!

If you criticize any other game developers arguing about the facts is fine (at least most of the time), but no can do this with Bethesda, otherwise you're treated like you're a believer, even a heretic.
If you call them hypocrites for this treatment -also if it is the truth - it will be even worse ...

I laugh already because I' m thinking of the "disagree toll" I will have for stating a fact.

[whydoyouask]

Holy crap, dude. You have REALLY got to read what you write. It's basic error finding.

[andron]

It's probably best to wait for the GOTY edition. All the DLC and bug fixes will make it the worth the wait...

[Simon_Brezhnev]

I agree im going to wait on a GOTY edition.

[-EvoAnubis-]

That's my Bethesda Rule to the letter. I implemented it after I bought Fallout 3, and TES4 before it.

[MachineGunTalk]

games big as this, of course theres gonna be bugs :S

[Hozi89]

I don't Care!!! just gimme the game already!!!

[mastershredder]

Man, that pic looks like a updated female version of Rygar the legenadry adventure.

[SuperBeast811]

soooooooooooo it will be just as bad as new vegas just fixed faster???LOL

[-EvoAnubis-]

They could try a rare art called 'beta testing.'

[EvilNecessary]

What you guys fail to realize is Fallout:New Vegas was developed by Obsidian Entertainment. When ever those guys make a game it always has a bad case of bugs. Bethesda was the publisher.

[outwar6010]

hope they dont remain in complete oblivion over them :p

[zero_cool]

Good squash'em all!

[EvilNecessary]

How in the world could I get a disagree when all I stated was facts?

[zero_cool]

because their acting like tools!