Honestly, considering how old gamebryo is, bethesda has done a lot with the current engine. Shit textures and wonky animations aside, Skyrim is their best looking game yet. The weather effects, faces, magic, third person perspective, and dragons/enemies all look pretty fantastic compared to both Obliv. and Fallout 3.

and anyway, who really cares about ladders and footprints in the snow? I don't.

This should help address a few small problems.

I'm not going to pretend I'm an expert on making video games, especially compared to Cranberry who works in the industry, but the way I see it there are two possibilities:

either Gamebryo is a shit engine that they should stop using or bethesda is terrible at programming. Every game they ever release is full of an absurd amount of bugs and glitches, no ladders, clipping everywhere, bad animations, unrealistic physics, bad AI, pathing issues, and stupid restrictions like requiring every city to be enclosed in a wall.


About duke nukem, people dont hate that game because the engine is bad. They hate it because everything about it is bad.

they still don't have ladders in Skyrim?

Im head of like all the guilds and i beat alduin and helped the stromcloaks my destruction is at like 95 skyrim is my bitch

Quote from: Thor;1876725I'm not going to pretend I'm an expert on making video games, especially compared to Cranberry who works in the industry, but the way I see it there are two possibilities:

either Gamebryo is a shit engine that they should stop using or bethesda is terrible at programming. Every game they ever release is full of an absurd amount of bugs and glitches, no ladders, clipping everywhere, bad animations, unrealistic physics, bad AI, pathing issues, and stupid restrictions like requiring every city to be enclosed in a wall.


About duke nukem, people dont hate that game because the engine is bad. They hate it because everything about it is bad.

Most of that stuff falls under the should have been beta tested theory of players. Its a funny concept when you have people that say "They should have beta tested this crap" and "They obviously didn't beta test this."

Most companies have a controlled group of beta testers for 2 reasons.

1. they know what they are looking for, are experianced with games, and beat the game fast so they can ensure that it hits the mark.
2. they are most of the time trusted so they don't leak plots/tips/games etc, ala GoW3.

When a paid beta tester plays the game, they usually have some sort of orientation and back fill as to whats going on with the controlled testing group. That being said they are expected to think like the developers that made the game and test that certain mechanic, not the entire game. A dry run of a level, a boss fight, fine tuning of spells and controls and mechanics.

Most if not always the game ships with bugs on purpose, some bugs just don't fix themselves, or the last build you had before it went gold was perfect and you changed a minute item which then some how gave you god powers in the game even though all you did was add a period at the end of sentance. The compiler was set up straight, the installer added some overhead when it installed, the compression format changed that value of 0 to a 1... simple dumb little tiny things that wont be caught. It happens. What alot of companies have started doing now is selective beta tests that are free and you are doing an NDA.

This takes me back to the controlled testing of Burning Crusade for WoW. During the development time frame of that while I was an MVP the Alpha of the game shifted enormously when it was in pre-beta. Everything you saw in the Beta of WoWBC was generated so late into the game that the F&F alpha we all had was no where near the beta. They decided because of this to have a controlled beta test group of 30,000 players. The idea which turned out to be correct is that not everyone plays the same. Not everyone gets it. Not everyone is going to follow the rules. Not everyone is going to obey the laws, and some people are just complete idiots and come up with some of the most idiotic ideas ever which become huge ground breaking things.

Heres a couple of my favorites *These are pulled from the Blizzard MVP boards under the Beta testing of Burning Crusade*

Quote-Critical
*Players can drink a mana potion of any type while facing the camera straight up and jump off a cliff creating the ability to walk on a clipped plane. (EXPLOITIVE) = FIXED 4/3/2005

-Critical
*Players are able to repair items log out and log back in with money being restored due to 5 minute rule. (EXPLOITIVE) = FIXED 4/19/2005

-Minor
*Players are able to wall walk still. (TERRAIN) = FIXED FUTURE PATCH 2.1

-IMMEDIATE
*Players are able to mind control other players and use the macro /debug pickupSpellByID(8291); allowing the creation of gold.

The reason I bring this up is that these were all controlled, by the controlled group. People figuring out simple errors. When they decided to have the OPEN beta test for WoTLK some of the most random set of bugs that players came up with happened. Some of the large ones:

Quote[DK]
Apparently players have gotten smart and figured out something we did not. It appears that players are going to graveyards to summon the ghoul as the spell takes a dead body and reanimates it. Something we did not think of was that when a player dies the body is auto transported to the graveyard. Players are spawning up to 255 ghouls (max units) on screen due to dead bodies.

[PRIEST]
Players are using Levitate to jump from Dalaran to IceCrown before its open.

As you can see, players think of shit beyond what the game developer inteded. This is why you cannot control test everything. Sometimes bugs are bugs are bugs and will happen no matter what you do.

WHAT THE FUHHHHHHHHK. MORE COUNTRIES IN THE GAME!?

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2011/11/23/skyrim-mystery-why-are-other-countries-built-into-the-game.aspx

I just figured out that every guild questline is the same shit, the guildmaster always dies somehow and then they make you the guildmaster

i became the archmage but then i was sad because his suit is so gay.

Quote from: SpongeClock SquarePants;1876915i became the archmage but then i was sad because his suit is so gay.

How dare you call the archmage poncho gay

Quote from: CranberryClock;1876762words words words

This post is pretty excessively long. I mean, I read it and it was sort of interesting but thats well into "tl;dr" territory. You could have just said "It's impossible to properly beta test a game of this size and scope" and it would have gotten the same point across.


Anyway, to properly reply: the problems with bethesda games go above and beyond normal problems and glitches. Some of them, like dragons flying through mountains or the player getting killed by standing on a bucket, are so apparent and common that there's no way that it could have been missed by even a single beta tester playing through the game once. There's also the missing animations when changing walking directions, and being able to walk up nearly vertical cliff faces by walking sideways. Many quest lines also break seemingly at random. Do you know of any other game company which requires fan made patches on every one of their products in order for them to function properly? How do you explain them using the same engine for 10 years and STILL having basic problems like being able to walk on 90% angle cliffs?

Quote from: SpongeClock SquarePants;1876915i became the archmage but then i was sad because his suit is so gay.

That shit helps you a lot tho.

My destruction is at 100 so i fuckin kill errbody with a lightning storm anyway :-]

so i just found out you are forced to play werewolf in 3rd person

yeah. fuck werewolves

Quote from: MiracleFruitClock;1877213so i just found out you are forced to play werewolf in 3rd person

yeah. fuck werewolves

yeah I was a bit disappointed by this as well. I don't really mind it though.

Quote from: NintendoClock;1877226yeah I was a bit disappointed by this as well. I don't really mind it though.

yeah i dont know. all the animations for the running and the transformation look really nice so i can see why they want to show it off a bit, but to completely restrict the gameplay to only 3rd person? noob move

3rd person attacking in the elder scrolls has always looked like shit/felt like shit and this game is no exception. i cant believe they would completely remove first person in an elder scrolls game. it baffles me

Yeah i hate being a werewolf you cant fucking use potions and i dont have that much health just magicka but its way better than being a vampire thats the worst

just got the

haha i got top comment on this skyrim glitch vid

i deserve a harmony award

Well Skyrim is crashing on me about thirty minutes into gameplay and every time I restart my PS3 I get a scary ass error message that says my hard drive might be corrupted. In response I have decided to not play this game until a year or two when I buy a computer and the bugs can get fixed. If they don't, fuck that shit.

Ok so I have never played any Elder Scrolls game yet and Oblivion is on sale right now. Is it worth getting it? I've read that Skyrim is obviously way way way better, but yeah...