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Oblivion Patch Causing Issues

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the hiccups-in-tamriel dept.

The much anticipated patch for Oblivion is here, but it has come at a cost. 1up reports on complaints from users about lockups, lagging, and some curious technical problems. From the article: "Even though the patch cleans up a number of glitches quests, many are still upset because it doesn't solve their existing issues. If you've already run into and experienced a glitch quest, there's a good chance the patch will do nothing to fix it; the patch can't fix contaminated saves. Consequently, Bethesda employees have been recommending fans start new characters if they want to experience these quests."

68 comments

  1. Oh no. . . . by IAmSwiftness · · Score: 5, Funny

    I found another patch that is causing issues with my Oblivion gaming experience. I installed the Topless Females patch, but now I can't play the game without my pants feeling excessively tight :-( Is it wrong to be attracted to a topless, female, Orc barbarian who is trying to kill me? Oh, and those Khajiit women *froths at the mouth*

    1. Re:Oh no. . . . by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I especially like casting stark reality, and then gigantism with the "female bodies enhanced" mod.

      Bigger than a horse, they are. Oh yeah those are "Hilarity" spells from the same mod. I love mods! Really!

  2. Suck it Bethseda... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...suck it hard. What you're basically telling me is that I'm an idiot for buying a game from you before you patched it. Maybe I'll skip the buying all together next time.

    1. Re:Suck it Bethseda... by AuMatar · · Score: 1

      Look at their track record. Their games are always buggy. Daggerfall had more things broken at release than it did working. Why should the new game be any different?

      --
      I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
    2. Re:Suck it Bethseda... by JDevers · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Most highly open-ended games are like this. Think of how difficult it would be to play test a game like Oblivion versus a typical FPS.

    3. Re:Suck it Bethseda... by AuMatar · · Score: 1

      Daggerfalls weren't all quest bugs (mobs and PCs walking through solid objects, lots of crashes, corrupted save files, etc). Those things are avoidable.

      --
      I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
    4. Re:Suck it Bethseda... by grammar+fascist · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Think of how difficult it would be to play test a game like Oblivion versus a typical FPS.

      It can be avoided.

      I'm serious.

      The problem is that game companies are some of the most behind in state-of-the-art testing. I'm not talking about QA process, either. I'm talking about Model Checking. It's the kind of thing military contractors do with their code to make sure missiles never accidentally blow up in the wrong spot.

      (It was the topic of an article on Slashdot a few weeks ago - which, I'm sorry to report, nobody here actually understood, thinking it was about automatic code generation. Talk about not RTFAing.)

      Here's how it works: you model your quests and quest variables as finite state automata. (Remember discrete math?) You use a very expressive language for this, which makes it easy to read. A character, say, killing a certain fish would change a boolean quest variable. Then you define properties that your FSM should have, so that if a quest becomes unsolvable, one or more properties fails. Throw it at a model checking system and in a few minutes, it tells you whether a quest can be made unsolvable and how to get into that state.

      It's extremely simple with quests, most of which are totally independent, leading to a relatively small global quest FSM.

      Someone competent in Model Checking could add a new quest to the system and check it in less than two hours.

      --
      I got my Linux laptop at System76.
    5. Re:Suck it Bethseda... by zoney_ie · · Score: 1

      This kind of approach does not scale well (state space explosion), and in any case, even if you abstract the game states enough that model-checking is tractable, one is checking the model, not the implementation.

      OK, it may still be worthwhile to perform such model checking (errors may and probably will be found as a result), but I do not know that the time/money aspect is worth it.

      However, the good news is that people are continuing to research how to more closely and automatically link specifications and models to software implementation, others are researching better models and languages, still others are investigating debugging and testing tools, model checking or otherwise.

      I haven't figured out yet which of these to concentrate on for my own PhD thesis (I'm not particularly happy with any of them as regards their application to "the real world" - i.e. cost-run fast software development), but its been interesting investigating all of them.

      Haven't got playing Oblivion or any other computer games in two weeks though - argh!

      --
      -- *~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds...
  3. On a More Serious Note by IAmSwiftness · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I have experienced a glitch quest and it actually caused me to stop playing the game, since I had spent an hour on it, then realized the quest was broken because I had done somehting out of order (accidentally) and now I can no longer complete the quest. It distressed me to the point that the game just sort of stopped being fun . . . the same way that it can happen if you play for an hour wihtout saving on TESIII Morrowind and then die, only to have to REDO your hour of play . . . which then becomes more like work than play. It is unfortunate that this patch cannot fix these types of glitches.

    Has anyone else tried to help the Fisherman in Weye by killing enough slaughterfish for him, but accidentally already killed one of the slaughterfish in the lake in the quest area before you took on the quest? That is what happened to me and now when I get to the slaughterfish I already killed in the quest order, a dead fish is there (because I killed it), but I can't move on to the next slaughterfish location! Anyone know how to fix this?

    1. Re:On a More Serious Note by Traiklin · · Score: 3, Insightful

      pretty much do what Bethsadia said.

      restart the entire game over again becuase you are the idiot that did something you weren't supposed to BEFORE you activated the quest you had no clue was going to involve that creature!

      I love how this looks on bethsadias part, they fuck up to rush a game out there instead of properly bug testing it (cause let's face it, some of these bugs are rather serious) and their responce ot everyone who has been enjoying the game only to find out the hours/weeks/months they just spent on the game are all flushed down the toilet because (like you said) you killed something you shouldn't of.

      so basically here's what the F.A.Q.s or Troubleshooting should look like from nowo n with any game they release,

      "Do not kill any creature you encounter when not on a spacific quest that tells you to kill said creature, It may cause the game to error and you will be unable to complete a quest further down the road."
      "We realize this is an RPG and you gain levels by completing quests and fighting creatures, just be warned when you fight creatures it could cause irreversable harm to your game and you will have to restart the game."
      "Be sure to save before you encounter a creature, in fact, Just save every single step you take. Better safe then sorry!"
      "Lastly, don't bother playing this game till we release the next on in the series, by then everything SHOULD be taken care of and all the glitches in it SHOULD be taken care of. We make no promises though. Play at your own risk!"

      I understand it's next to impossable to repair a save file, but to be unable to fix the game which in turn would fix the save file is rather suprising. there's only been a few games I have played where a patch rendered save files useless and they are usually in massive patch files that introduce new things to the game that the save file doesn't have. So I suppose my next question would be, How come the save file can't fix corrupted quests, yet it has absolutly no problem loading in mods that weren't in the game to begin with? all with their own quests aswell.

    2. Re:On a More Serious Note by Traiklin · · Score: -1, Flamebait

      I ment that second like to be as a joke. I realize most people on slashdot (Aka the ones with mod points) don't get jokes and sarcasm like everyone else in the world (aka people without modpoints).

    3. Re:On a More Serious Note by fyrie · · Score: 1

      Has anyone seen the making of DVD that came with the game? The lead QA tester's process worked like this (or at least it appeared to be that way on the DVD): Sit on a couch and play the game kinda randomly, then record the bugs in a notebook.

    4. Re:On a More Serious Note by ewhac · · Score: 1
      Has anyone else tried to help the Fisherman in Weye by killing enough slaughterfish for him, but accidentally already killed one of the slaughterfish in the lake in the quest area before you took on the quest?

      I bumped into exactly the same problem. If you start killing Rumare Slaughterfish before accepting the fisherman's quest (and making it your current quest), you will only be able to find and kill six slaughterfish, well short of the ten (twelve?) you need to complete the quest.

      Luckily, I had a saved game from shortly before I started slaughtering slaughterfish, and was able to do everything in the correct order and complete the quest.

      On another tentacle, I'd rather like to be able to take posession of the houses of people who have been killed. Argamir is a character in a quest you end up killing for graverobbing. Glarthir gets killed by the Imperial Guard for being a nutjob. Both of them own houses in their respective cities but, once they're dead, the game still marks me as a trespasser when entering their houses.

      Schwab

      --
      Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
    5. Re:On a More Serious Note by SeXy_Red · · Score: 1

      have you tried using the resurrect console command to bring the fish back to life and then kill it again?

      --

      This sig was generated by a barrel of trained kittens for SeXy_Red (550409).

    6. Re:On a More Serious Note by Kamineko · · Score: 1
      When I say 'Argh', you all say 'Zork'!

      ARGH! ZORK!
      ARGH! ZORK!

    7. Re:On a More Serious Note by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Both of them own houses in their respective cities but, once they're dead, the game still marks me as a trespasser when entering their houses."

      "Hey, the guy down the street from me died a week ago, why do the cops still get upset when I break in to his house and squat there?"

      Just assume that their property went to the next of kin, or got repossessed by the county.

    8. Re:On a More Serious Note by Ankle · · Score: 3, Informative

      I did the same thing, just keep playing and eventually the fish will respawn.

    9. Re:On a More Serious Note by bloodsuka · · Score: 2, Informative

      I made the same mistake on that quest. I killed one of the slaughter fish before taking the quest. However, i didnt know that was the cause of the glitch, i thought the quest from the start was buggy. I completed the quest by finding the fish without following the nav point (which fails to update). The fish appear one at a time after each kill. Took forever to do. Dispite some of the game's errors, the game is pretty amazing imo. Now u can go through what i went through haha jp

    10. Re:On a More Serious Note by Traiklin · · Score: 2, Interesting

      that's pretty much what a QA tester does.

      only it's not supposed to be randomly. They play through the game like a normal person would, when they encounter something they find strange they will do it multipule times to see if it comes up again or if it's just a completly random thing (some stuff you just can't program out).
      But they usually go through a certain section (since this game is so huge they have multipule people doing different points of the game) and they play it normally just to make sure, then they do weird things to try and break the game and let them know what they find out so the programers will know if it's indeed a bug or just a random occurance of programing.

      but to have a Quest fail because you do Step 2 before Step 1 I would say is a big bug that shouldn't of made it out of QA Testing, programing or any other form. Then the ability to not restart the quest clean if you already saved is pretty damn bad.

      Who knows, maybe this will piss off enough people that the next patch will give you the ability to restart a quest and it resets the world so that quest will be working again (easy fix for the exploit that would fallow even though it's single player and wouldn't matter would be to not reset experiance and items the creatures would give.)

    11. Re:On a More Serious Note by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      Detect Life helps tremendously if you're looking for fish without the help of a map marker.

    12. Re:On a More Serious Note by yaman666 · · Score: 2, Informative

      Actually, if you go away for a while (may be sleep), eventually the new fish will respawn at the marker location. I also had trouble with this quest and gave up on it, but when I came back to it a few days and many other quests later, the new fish was there and I was able to successfully finish the quest.

      This problem has been reported by many oblivion players. So while this quest is somewhat buggy in the way its designed, you can at least finish it.

    13. Re:On a More Serious Note by ewhac · · Score: 1
      Just assume that their property went to the next of kin, or got repossessed by the county.

      Huh. Well then why, when Shameer gets killed for pickpocketing (I witnessed him creep up to a stablehand, who then yelled, "Stop, thief!" and shortly thereafter got killed by a guard -- it was completely AI-driven; I did nothing to trigger it), you can loot the key off his corpse and then wander through his house in town and snarf whatever you like. You can even sleep there. Or is that a bug, too?

      Schwab

      --
      Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
    14. Re:On a More Serious Note by Mac+Degger · · Score: 4, Informative

      TO ANYONE WITH PROBLEMS WITH BROKEN QUESTS:

      http://www.elderscrolls.com/forums/index.php?showt opic=403884&hl=

      This should help 80% of people.

      The easiest one is the "player.placeatme ID#" command; use it in the console with the ID# being found in the location you're in inth e construction set.

      --
      -- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
    15. Re:On a More Serious Note by Flyboy+Connor · · Score: 1
      On another tentacle, I'd rather like to be able to take posession of the houses of people who have been killed. Argamir is a character in a quest you end up killing for graverobbing. Glarthir gets killed by the Imperial Guard for being a nutjob. Both of them own houses in their respective cities but, once they're dead, the game still marks me as a trespasser when entering their houses.

      Perhaps they have family members who inherited the house. Of course, it would be fun if, in that case, the house became "for sale" for a short time, and after a while somebody would move in.

      It seems at least logical to me that if you kill someone, you do not automatically own his house. It would be a pretty strange world if that would be true. In conflict with that, it should be noted that if you kill a guard you can lift his armor off his corpse and wear it without repercussion. It seems everything that is worn by someone and that is not pickpocketed is free game.

    16. Re:On a More Serious Note by CountBrass · · Score: 1
      Bollocks.

      How can they possibly know if a bug has been fixed? That it hasn't introduced or uncovered any existing bugs?

      Professional testers use automated tests, which they can re-run reliably and test its coverage.

      IAmateurs play around a bit until they find something wrong.

      --
      Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
    17. Re:On a More Serious Note by Zediker · · Score: 1

      There IS a workaround to the corrupted saves that I found:

      1. start a new game
      2. when in the character creator, access the load menu, and load your 'corrupted' game
      3. play your game from your 'corrupted' save.

      The saves are not actualy fully corrupted. They just have an issue with their primary load. If you load the save, from an already running game, a full load is not needed, and you skip past the 'corrupted' section of the save.

      --
      I love to slaughter the english language.
    18. Re:On a More Serious Note by Zediker · · Score: 1

      Actualy, all you have to do, if you have already killed a quest mob, is to bring them back to life. There is a command you can use in the console that will resurect a selected creature or npc. I cant remember it off the top of my head, but it should be listed in http://www.gamefaqs.com/

      However, if you are playing the xbox360 version, you're screwed...

      --
      I love to slaughter the english language.
    19. Re:On a More Serious Note by AvitarX · · Score: 1

      Since all the enamies strength is based on your level, leveling up is not really needed.

      I actually stopped playing the game when I realized I could just walk anywhere and do anyhting whenever I fealt like it. I don't like grinding and grinding to level up, but there are enough sidequests that you should be able top level some without it feeling useless.

      I guess I could increase the difficulty and then slowly ease it again and pretend I levelled far enough for the next primary quest, but it seems really contrived. It should be possible to have a godlike character if you put the time into it.

      In fact the guides for playing on the hardest setting tell you NOT to level any more than needed because it will become too difficult.

      The whole trend of completly scalable difficulty in games is very frustrating. I was reading in Wired about a game that adapts to easier and harder depending on how you do without your input, and it seems stupid to me. I want to get better at a game and beat the hard part, or I will skip it; I don't want it to just make less and less people come at me until map 10 is as easy as map 1.

      --
      Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
    20. Re:On a More Serious Note by yashinka · · Score: 1

      Wrong. Professional testers do BOTH. No amount of automated testing can compare to a group of intellegent manual testers thinking outside the box. Doing things out of order, such as this fish bug, should have been very high on the list of things to test. It is sad that things this simple got through QA.

      --
      "Haven't you ever heard of the Emancipation Proclaimation?"
      "I don't listen to Hip-Hop!"
    21. Re:On a More Serious Note by CountBrass · · Score: 1
      You're talking out of your arse. Random playing around "testing" isn't worth the oxygen consumed whilst peforming them.

      If you can't reliably reproduce the tests you can't reliably reproduce the bugs. If you can't do that then you can't know you've fixed them.

      Professional testers have automated, repeatable tests. Incompetents pretend that "playing around" is testing.

      --
      Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
    22. Re:On a More Serious Note by fyrie · · Score: 1

      Kudos for this. This is what I was getting at. I thought it was so obvious that I didn't need to go into details, but apparently it was needed. I'm of the belief that random testing via non-technical users fitting certain audience types can be valuable, however my main point was was the LEAD TESTER.

  4. Ooops by DarkNemesis618 · · Score: 1, Troll

    "We apologize for the inconvenience, but we enjoy trying to get those of you who have been playing every waking moment a life. So go ahead and start anew getting bored with the quests you completed 2 weeks ago"
    -Bethesda

    --
    What's the matter, James? No glib remark? No pithy comeback?
  5. Tolerate their Intolerance by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    Is it wrong to be attracted to a topless, female, Orc barbarian who is trying to kill me?
    No, the height of Western Civilization (as shown by Europe) is to make things as nice as possible for those trying to kill you.
    Maybe you should ask the root causes that force the Orc to hate you.
    Maybe more social welfare would help?
    While we can not blame the rape victim, we can certainly blame the murder victim. Especially if the murder victim is non-Orc and male.

    1. Re:Tolerate their Intolerance by IAmSwiftness · · Score: 1

      An interesting, introspective analysis of my conundrum.

      Also, does anyone else think it is unfair that the Redguards are forced to use separate water fountains and bathrooms within the Tamrielic Empire? I wish Emperor Uriel Septim would have done something about this prior to his assaniation!

      The problem extends as for North-East as Morrowind in Vvardenfell . . . I commonly see Redguards forced to the back of the silt strider!

    2. Re:Tolerate their Intolerance by elrous0 · · Score: 1
      Well, Redguards CHOOSE that lifestyle.

      Bosmer discrimination is real though. No one CHOOSES to be born Wood Elf.

      -Eric

      --
      SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
  6. Ok so... by RoadDoggFL · · Score: 1

    Is there a way to uninstall the patch on the 360 version?

    Since I'm sure it's an auto-update (meaning I have no say in whether or not the thing gets downloaded and installed), I'm going to opt to play with my 360 not connected to my network. Anybody know if plugging it back in once my game is loaded will let me avoid the download and register my acheivements to my Xbox Live account?

    --
    "This is considered plagiarism."
    1. Re:Ok so... by nb+caffeine · · Score: 1

      if you unplug before loading the game, leave it unplugged while playing, the next time you connect your achievements will be uploaded. They're cached on the xbox untill it can sync up with xbl

      --

      "Something's wrong with you...and I hope we never do meet again." - Deftones When Girls Telephone Boys
    2. Re:Ok so... by RoadDoggFL · · Score: 1

      That's good to hear, so long as I'm logged into my profile, I'm sure.

      But what about plugging it back in during play, anybody know if that'll let me avoid the download (say, to continue XBLM downloads I've started while I play my game...)?

      --
      "This is considered plagiarism."
    3. Re:Ok so... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The patch isn't forced on you, it tells you that there's an upgrade when you start the game, and asks you if you want to download it (it even defaults to no, not right now).
      The only patches you ever have to download are dashboard updates, and game patches that have online play, before it will let you play online.

    4. Re:Ok so... by MoriaOrc · · Score: 1

      Although I havent played Oblivion on the 360, I would think it woud have to follow the same rules as everything else. The worst that can happen is basically:

      You are playing oblivion, and decide to connect to XBL. (Side note, you might want to save at this point). You connect the ethernet cable to the 360. After connecting, the guide pops up: "There is an update available for this game! You [must/should] download it before you continue playing. Options: Yes/No." Since you don't want the update, you choose "No." Since most 360 games are multiplayer, having everyone on the same version is more important then with a single-player game like Oblivion, so I don't know that it will be absolutely required (even though most updates are if you want to play). Just the same, you should have saved incase it boots you out after you tell it not to (Might even do this before the guid pops up). THe popup usually comes before the game launch, and requires the game to not be running to install. I've personally never tried this, but the worst that can happen is a few minutes inconvenience (unless you somehow manage to hit "yes").

    5. Re:Ok so... by ClamIAm · · Score: 1

      Wait hang on a second. Wasn't there a bunch of squawking about how MS wasn't going to allow updates for the offline portions of games? Is this still true? If not, it's certainly a rather sad precedent for console games.

  7. It's funny... by Scorpion265 · · Score: -1

    I have never had any problems at all with the game in it's release form, or with the patch. I bet the machines that are having problems are the ones with the spyware, and other goodies on their systems. If people kept their windows installs patched and secure I bet they wouldn't have that problem :)

    --
    I am full of goo... black evil goo
    1. Re:It's funny... by AuMatar · · Score: 2, Insightful

      This is a problem with quests being uncompletable if you accidently do step 2 before step 1. Thats pretty much impossible to be caused by spyware.

      --
      I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
    2. Re:It's funny... by Goose42 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Yes, this makes complete and total sense. Spyware makers definitely want to know what quests you're completing in order to direct their marketing to you, and make their software search ut Oblivion save games and files in order to gain the best information about your buying habits. The direct-to-mage advertising market is one of the biggest around, ya know.

      Did I forget the sarcasm tags again?

      Be thankful that you've had no problems with the game. Unfortunately, a lot of people do have problems with it, and the patch meant to fix it. Don't dismiss problems simply because you're not experiencing them.

      This is, unfortunately, the exact reason why I haven't gotten into Oblivion yet. I loved Morrowind, but only got it after they released the extremely-patched super edition with the two expansions built in. That's the version of the game I'm waiting for before I step foot into Oblivion, and this patch-snafu is exactly why. I could see it coming a mile away, and that's sad.

    3. Re:It's funny... by Scorpion265 · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      I suppose thats true. I guess I wasn't thinking about that when I posted the parent :)

      --
      I am full of goo... black evil goo
    4. Re:It's funny... by kalirion · · Score: 1

      You really should do step 3 (Profit!) first. That way the first two steps will be meaningless.

  8. those nifty tradeoffs.... by angrymilkman · · Score: 1

    Costs - keep low to increase profits and attract customers... Time to market - keep low to reach the market before competitors do.. Quality - ....never mind.....

    --
    ...what matters is what you like, not what you are like...
  9. Meh... by Feanturi · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I haven't got sympathy for anyone on Slashdot of all places, that wants to complain about a broken quest. Particularly anyone that runs Linux. One of the great strengths of Oblivion, and Morrowind before it, is how far under the hood you can get. Got a broken quest? Then get in the editor and fix it. That should actually be *fun* for most of the people here. I've spent about a month so far not actually playing the game. I've been immersed in the editor, having just as much fun (while admittedly missing the beautiful scenery - the other reason I bought this game), and Morrowind was the same way for me. Either game would be less fun if I couldn't change it up and mold it to my liking. Your mileage may vary, but if you come in here flashing geek creds you can't stop to complain that you need to fix your game. Have FUN fixing it, and improving on it, that's what we do, isn't it?

    1. Re:Meh... by Gr33nNight · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yeah, I fix shit at work all day and get paid for it. I shouldnt have to shell out $50 and then work some more to fix Bethesdas mistakes. Paying a company to fix their mistakes for them is not my idea of *fun*. Its my idea of getting ripped off.

    2. Re:Meh... by JonyEpsilon · · Score: 2, Informative
      I guess you're not playing on the 360 then.

      If only I could have typed some heiroglyphs into the console to reinstate the now missing dead dude at the bottom of the Mage's Guild well ...

      Haven't downloaded the patch yet - still holding out hope that he'll reappear.

      Jony

    3. Re:Meh... by Feanturi · · Score: 0

      Double-meh, why are you using such a locked-down system? That's why I keep a PC aside for gaming, you can get into the guts that way, problems be damned and cast to the four winds. Hand in your geek badge at the door.

      And to the other respondant with the script-kiddie nick (not going to go posting two separate replies), double-meh to you too, you're not fixing it for Bethsoft, or some idiot customer from work (I do that all day too, and I hate those fucktards), you're fixing it for *you*, and while you're at it, you may learn how to enhance it, still all for you. That's fun where I come from.

      Whatever, nevermind. You people would find something else to complain about instead if it wasn't this, like scratches on your iPod nano, or somebody's spelling, or some shit like that. Build around the world's shit instead of bitching, life is way more fulfilling that way.

      I think I'm about done with Slashdot, it's been a reasonable run of years, but I just can't stand the whining anymore. I'm out.

    4. Re:Meh... by JonyEpsilon · · Score: 1
      Double-meh, why are you using such a locked-down system?

      Beacause, generally, it just works. Except it seems that sometimes it just doesn't, which is what I don't like about Oblivion (and PGR3 for that matter).

      Hand in your geek badge at the door.

      Don't worry, it's made of plastic. It's not dangerous.

      Jony

    5. Re:Meh... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Think about what you're advocating. You want people to pay a company $50 for a game, and then when it fails to work properly, fix it themselves, and be grateful for the opportunity to fix someone else's screw ups?

      Sorry. I've been fixing other people's screw ups for a long time, and I'm sick of it. It's not fun. It never will be fun. And I would not be happy to discover I paid $50 for the privilege of doing so.

    6. Re:Meh... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So eh...What about my 360? I don't think I'll be doing much editing there. Try not to think only of yourself so much.

  10. Indoor issues... by Cyno01 · · Score: 1

    The only issue i've experienced so far... although i've stopped playing because of it after closing the first oblivion gate, is severe lagging in indoor areas and in towns. Outdoors in the wilds the game looks and runs great, but i go into a room (not a cave, no issues in dungeons and caves), and it lags to all hell. This is the opposite of what it should be, right? I've tried turning down all the settings, but nothing fixes it, even though it shouldnt be an issue because it runs great in large areas. Anybody else heard of or experienced anything like this?

    --
    "Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
    1. Re:Indoor issues... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've got a 2.4 GHz P4 Northwood, 1GB DDR333, and an AGP Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB (running in 4x mode unfortunately), and have the same issue. The game runs excellently in wilderness areas (1024x768, all texturing, grass, and trees turned on, most shadowing and glow effects off), but runs awful in towns, especially Cheydinhal and inside most of the town hall buildings.

    2. Re:Indoor issues... by k_187 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I'd imagine its the raidiant Ai or whatever its called. when you're near NPCs the game has to caculate everything they're doing and/or going to do. I'd imagine that there isn't much you can do about it w/o upgrading.

      --
      11 was a racehorse
      12 was 12
      1111 Race
      12112
    3. Re:Indoor issues... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      I'd imagine its the raidiant Ai or whatever its called. when you're near NPCs the game has to caculate everything they're doing and/or going to do.


      Yeah, they're standing behind the door saying things like:
      "Zog, Ug - You calculate pi to 10000 decimal places and I'll hit him over the head when he lags out."

  11. Fool me once, shame on you... by NetDanzr · · Score: 1
    ...fool me twice, shame on me.

    Bethesda has indeed fooled me twice. I purchased both Daggerfall and Morrowind right after their release, and it took several long months to have each game patched enough to be fully enjoyable. Sorry, but unless you are brand new to the Elder Scrolls series, I have no sympathy for you if you purchased Oblivion soon after its release, a few months after it's been truly completed.

  12. People are lazy... by hrrY · · Score: 4, Informative

    If you have a problem with something like killing a creature before you *find out* that the creature is quest related, go into console(~key) then type "help" and it will show you a list of commands. The command to use in this case would be "spawn(creature_id)" Problem solved, resume saving Tamriel, the end.

  13. Damn complainers.... by friedmud · · Score: 2, Insightful

    What a bunch of complainers...

    I have logged around 90 hours so far in this game... and it is unbelievable. I haven't hit anything that I have noticed as a bug... but I'm also an extremely careful player (hence the 90 hours).

    What other game out there gives you _SO MUCH_ with so few problems? In such a huge game like this there are bound to be some issues. Have a couple of minor glitches in a couple of side quest and get castrated even though there are _hundreds_ of quests with no problems.

    Good god people... get over it!

    Man... people just don't appreciate things. You have to take the good with the bad. I'll take an incredible game with a couple of coding flaws in it over another FPS on rails game with no bugs anyday.... but I guess that's just me.

    Damn,
    Friedmud

    1. Re:Damn complainers.... by ClamIAm · · Score: 1

      What in the fuck kind of dumbass argument is this? A single computer/video game costs a lot of money. I fail to see how people expecting a polished product are "not appreciating" the game. The genre and/or content of the game has nothing to do with it.

    2. Re:Damn complainers.... by friedmud · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The genre/game content most definitely has something to do with it.

      I can't see how anyone can argue that Oblivion is _not_ a polished product. Just because a couple of small things slip through Q&A doesn't mean it's not polished. I haven't bought/used a single piece of software that didn't have atleast one bug... it's the nature of large software products. Does that mean that I've never used a "polished" piece of software? I don't think so.

      What I'm trying to say is that $50 buys you a very polished game, with a couple of small flaws (maybe making up 1/1000 of the game's content). For me that's a damn good ratio. The rest of the game content (graphics/scenery/voice acting/quests/music) are so great that it more than outweighs any small flaws.

      As for genre... my point is that in a 15-20 hour shooter... where all you do is run around and blow shit up (not putting these games down I own plenty of them and greatly enjoy them) and you don't have all the intracacies that are present in Oblivion I expect there to be a lot less flaws... I'm looking for a flaw/content ratio that is very low and I think Oblivion definitely delivers that.

      Friedmud

    3. Re:Damn complainers.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      I haven't bought/used a single piece of software that didn't have at least one bug...it's the nature of large software products pushed out the door before they're done by incompetent/greedy bean counters.


      There, fixed it for you.

      It's perfectly possible to create and sell polished software that doesn't exhibit bugs that wreck the product and render it unuseable when they happen. I've done it and I've seen it done by others numerous times (though less and less these days). The problem is that braindead cost cutters outsource everything to the lowest bidder and push ludicrus schedules that don't allow either time or money for proper QA, expecting doormats like you to not only accept it with open arms but outright crucify anyone who has the nerve to be upset.
  14. The curse of the MMORPG by Hairball6494 · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    While i've never played Oblivion myself for the taxing hardware requirements, I am an avid fan of World of Warcraft. I've come to the conclusion that there is a virus in the IDEA of an MMO that propogates itself into the code. Every time Blizzard releases a patch, something else breaks. Stop nurfing my class and fix the bugs is what I say.

    I must say, however, I do feel for these companies. Though they are making upwards of $90 million a month from subscriptions, let alone the cost of the game, the must feel a bit like they became too successful too fast. If your little website went from 100 users to 15,000 users overnight, don't you think you'd be a bit taxed? I can't even comprehend the number of servers Blizzard has to host its realms and instances. I imagine it quite the same for Oblivion. If you have that many users, if %10 percent of them compain, that's a lot of complaints. It's impossible to make everyone happy in these situations.

    I'm almost sure if created something as cultly popular as WoW and Oblivion, I'd sell it right off before the nightmares began.

    --
    I think people use 'Ubuntu' in their posts to sound cool.
    1. Re:The curse of the MMORPG by /ASCII · · Score: 0, Troll

      You know that Oblivion is not an MMO, right?

      --
      Try out fish, the friendly interactive shell.
  15. Monsters Nearby by ClamIAm · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I'm afraid that my save has been screwed over. After triggering a quest, the "monsters nearby" bit was apparently set, so I can no longer sleep, wait, or fast travel. I figured it was because I was in the general area of the quest, so I went to the nearest town. Whoops, looks like there's some monsters in the inn, so no sleepy time for you, Mr. On-the-verge-of-leveling. Hopefully I can find a workaround.

  16. Cause I'm freeeeeeeee-falliiiiiiing by space_jake · · Score: 1

    I fell through the floor so many times in Daggerfall (ha! fall!) that I haven't touched the TES series since.