Skyrim Longevity Vs Past TES Games
Posted: May 16th, 2012
This will probably be TL:DR but I don't really care. It's not as detailed as my blog posts about the game, it's virtues and problems, unfinished features (followers and horses among others) and my experience with it, where sometimes I want to forget I ever bought it and other times I love it to death.
Anyway:
I've just been reading through the latest Unofficial patch thread which is very informative regarding the pitfalls and limitations of the game, the CK and using mods. A very enlightening read.
http://forums.bethsoft.com/topic/136686 ... -thread-6/
I use, fully endorse and recommend the Unofficial Patch myself and I believe it has saved me a lot of headaches from previous attempts to play the game compared to the basic patching Bethesda has done for this game. One look at the very long list of fixes should be enough for anyone to wonder why the developers haven't addressed these issues themselves. While some things are edits to wrongly placed statics and other seemingly minor things, a great many of them actually correct issues with quests and bugs that actually break the game in major ways.
This isn't meant to be an rant about Bethesda, or one of those "This game sucks" threads as I realize a game of this size and complexity is bound to have issues, however due to the fixed release date and apparent lack of attention to these issues I believe they've bought a lot of warranted criticism on themselves. Whether this is due to the business side of things which the developers would probably have little control over or not, I don't know. I do wonder if BGS are planning another patch before the DLC comes out which in my view will be pointless since it's already been done for them, so why would they.
A little history from my Skyrim experience. This will be shorter than it could be however, and just outlines the main issues I've had. I'm actually surprised that I'm still playing the game after all the crap I've had with it, although it has been more stable since 1.5, so I suppose this could actually be seen as a complaining thread depending on your point of view.
Currently I'm playing my 5th character due to save corruption on the others, the messed up Navmesh bug BGS tried to fix with the latest patch and failed, which made house and landmass edits or additions a disaster area and post official patch issues. This is with a vanilla game as well as modded. I did have one house mod that I liked, but now I don't use any because of possible future problems if and when there's another official patch where mods constantly have to be updated.
I have not yet managed to complete the main quest once past the first battle with Alduin at The Throat of the World which is mainly because I want to do it at an appropriate level and don't believe it should be done, or be able to be done early in the game. I'm not blaming anyone for that, it's just how I want to do it considering I'm supposed to saving the world at the height of my power, not as a lowly starter hero. I'm hoping to do it soon with my current character if all goes well.
I played for over 200 hours with my first character from release day with virtually no problems at all on a totally vanilla game, (skipped the 1.2 patch disaster), and suddenly my game started freezing and crashing so much I had to start over. It wasn't a save game bloat issue either as my saves never reached over 12MB. Then for some unknown reason the whole area around Riften and the town itself was a no go zone, which has resolved itself since the 1.5 patch, or by some miracle.
It seems to me that the further I get into the game, ie around level 50 or so, the more quests I do, dungeons explored etc the more the game becomes unstable and starts to falter. I'm a bit of a completionist when it comes to rpg's so if the content is there, I want and should be able to do it, except for things I choose not to do like some of the Daedric quests and the DB because I find them not to my taste.
I had thought about modding until I read about the limitations and bugs in the CK which is contrary to what we were told and more limiting than the Oblivion CS. I know of several well known modders from Morrowind and Oblivion who have mods in stasis because of the navmesh and other bugs that are waiting to be solved. There's also a noticeable absence of other well known great modders creating for this game, or they've already come and gone, back to Oblivion or for good.
On the first page of the thread I linked re the Unofficial Patch there's a good explanation about why mods can so easily mess up this game compared to Oblivion and it makes me wonder how long I'll play Skyrim after I've seen and done all there is to see and do. Which won't be that long since I've done most of it several times and even now find myself avoiding quests because I know what's going to happen and it becomes boring to do them again and again.
I used to play Oblivion with over 200 mods, some of them very complex overhauls and I could troubleshoot nearly any problem I came up against as well as mod it myself. I only stopped playing the game early this year in fact and it was my only constant game since it's release. Not so with Skyrim, and along with some of the other irritations and annoyances it's going to be almost impossible to even come close to that number of mods even though the limit is still 255.
All I can say is I have an extreme love/hate relationship with Skyrim and it's taken six months since release to be able to play it with some degree of confidence I can continue with a character without something going wrong. It's with great trepidation that I add mods now and nothing that adds scripts if I can help it since if I need to remove it that info is in my save for good and I'll be starting over again. Maybe.
I know I'm not alone in this and the longer it takes for the DLC to be released the less likely it will be I'll be playing the game, especially if the DLC is digital only and not released on disc. I don't do digital for a couple of reasons...budget and dislike of download only media.
I'm also aware that many people say they've had no problems with their game after many 100's of hours, but because of so many different PC configurations and other considerations I think they are the lucky ones. The fact I could play successfully myself for over 200 hours tells me something went wrong AFTER release with the incremental patches and having to start over after each one gets to be very annoying.
Now I've got that off my chest and just having one of the never ending loading screens where I couldn't bring up the Task Manager to end the process, (first time it's happened) I'm now about to play for awhile. I've got two words of the Storm Call shout and I want to try it out somewhere away from friends because it kills them as well, or maybe I'll wait until I get to the end of the main quest...
Anyway:
I've just been reading through the latest Unofficial patch thread which is very informative regarding the pitfalls and limitations of the game, the CK and using mods. A very enlightening read.
http://forums.bethsoft.com/topic/136686 ... -thread-6/
I use, fully endorse and recommend the Unofficial Patch myself and I believe it has saved me a lot of headaches from previous attempts to play the game compared to the basic patching Bethesda has done for this game. One look at the very long list of fixes should be enough for anyone to wonder why the developers haven't addressed these issues themselves. While some things are edits to wrongly placed statics and other seemingly minor things, a great many of them actually correct issues with quests and bugs that actually break the game in major ways.
This isn't meant to be an rant about Bethesda, or one of those "This game sucks" threads as I realize a game of this size and complexity is bound to have issues, however due to the fixed release date and apparent lack of attention to these issues I believe they've bought a lot of warranted criticism on themselves. Whether this is due to the business side of things which the developers would probably have little control over or not, I don't know. I do wonder if BGS are planning another patch before the DLC comes out which in my view will be pointless since it's already been done for them, so why would they.
A little history from my Skyrim experience. This will be shorter than it could be however, and just outlines the main issues I've had. I'm actually surprised that I'm still playing the game after all the crap I've had with it, although it has been more stable since 1.5, so I suppose this could actually be seen as a complaining thread depending on your point of view.
Currently I'm playing my 5th character due to save corruption on the others, the messed up Navmesh bug BGS tried to fix with the latest patch and failed, which made house and landmass edits or additions a disaster area and post official patch issues. This is with a vanilla game as well as modded. I did have one house mod that I liked, but now I don't use any because of possible future problems if and when there's another official patch where mods constantly have to be updated.
I have not yet managed to complete the main quest once past the first battle with Alduin at The Throat of the World which is mainly because I want to do it at an appropriate level and don't believe it should be done, or be able to be done early in the game. I'm not blaming anyone for that, it's just how I want to do it considering I'm supposed to saving the world at the height of my power, not as a lowly starter hero. I'm hoping to do it soon with my current character if all goes well.
I played for over 200 hours with my first character from release day with virtually no problems at all on a totally vanilla game, (skipped the 1.2 patch disaster), and suddenly my game started freezing and crashing so much I had to start over. It wasn't a save game bloat issue either as my saves never reached over 12MB. Then for some unknown reason the whole area around Riften and the town itself was a no go zone, which has resolved itself since the 1.5 patch, or by some miracle.
It seems to me that the further I get into the game, ie around level 50 or so, the more quests I do, dungeons explored etc the more the game becomes unstable and starts to falter. I'm a bit of a completionist when it comes to rpg's so if the content is there, I want and should be able to do it, except for things I choose not to do like some of the Daedric quests and the DB because I find them not to my taste.
I had thought about modding until I read about the limitations and bugs in the CK which is contrary to what we were told and more limiting than the Oblivion CS. I know of several well known modders from Morrowind and Oblivion who have mods in stasis because of the navmesh and other bugs that are waiting to be solved. There's also a noticeable absence of other well known great modders creating for this game, or they've already come and gone, back to Oblivion or for good.
On the first page of the thread I linked re the Unofficial Patch there's a good explanation about why mods can so easily mess up this game compared to Oblivion and it makes me wonder how long I'll play Skyrim after I've seen and done all there is to see and do. Which won't be that long since I've done most of it several times and even now find myself avoiding quests because I know what's going to happen and it becomes boring to do them again and again.
I used to play Oblivion with over 200 mods, some of them very complex overhauls and I could troubleshoot nearly any problem I came up against as well as mod it myself. I only stopped playing the game early this year in fact and it was my only constant game since it's release. Not so with Skyrim, and along with some of the other irritations and annoyances it's going to be almost impossible to even come close to that number of mods even though the limit is still 255.
All I can say is I have an extreme love/hate relationship with Skyrim and it's taken six months since release to be able to play it with some degree of confidence I can continue with a character without something going wrong. It's with great trepidation that I add mods now and nothing that adds scripts if I can help it since if I need to remove it that info is in my save for good and I'll be starting over again. Maybe.
I know I'm not alone in this and the longer it takes for the DLC to be released the less likely it will be I'll be playing the game, especially if the DLC is digital only and not released on disc. I don't do digital for a couple of reasons...budget and dislike of download only media.
I'm also aware that many people say they've had no problems with their game after many 100's of hours, but because of so many different PC configurations and other considerations I think they are the lucky ones. The fact I could play successfully myself for over 200 hours tells me something went wrong AFTER release with the incremental patches and having to start over after each one gets to be very annoying.
Now I've got that off my chest and just having one of the never ending loading screens where I couldn't bring up the Task Manager to end the process, (first time it's happened) I'm now about to play for awhile. I've got two words of the Storm Call shout and I want to try it out somewhere away from friends because it kills them as well, or maybe I'll wait until I get to the end of the main quest...