Ben-DutkaYeah, well, so what else is new?
PlayStation 3 owners are sort of used to being treated like second-class citizens by Bethesda, typically getting inferior versions of multiplatform games and waiting eons for extra downloadable content, while Xbox 360 and PC players are quite well served.
We're still waiting on Dawnguard, the downloadable expansion for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim , but based on what a company representative said in the publisher's forums , it may never show up, even though they are working on it.
"Skyrim is a massive and dynamic game that requires a lot of resources, and things get much more complex when you're talking about sizable content like Dawnguard. We have tried a number of things, but none of them solve the issue enough to make Dawnguard good for everyone. Dawnguard is obviously not the only DLC we’ve been working on either, so the issues of adding content get even more complicated. This is not a problem we’re positive we can solve, but we are working together with Sony to try to bring you this content."
Blah blah blah. This isn't 2007. You've had an entire generation – in fact, an elongated generation when compared to previous eras – to get your act together, Bethesda. I'm not accepting lame excuses, anymore, and I'm usually the first to stand up and defend developers for all their hard work and sacrifices. No other game maker seems to have these ongoing problems with the PS3 at this stage. That should tell you something.
Dawnguard launched back in June for the 360 and was out for the PC in August. PS3 owners…eh, you might see The Elder Scrolls VI before you see any more DLC for Skyrim .
Related Game(s): The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Please…enlighten us than Hynad! Or do just criticize people for not knowing things you, yourself have no answers, too?
I have heard numerous developer interviews suggesting exactly what WorldEnds says about the Cell cores to solve the PS3 memory issues. Naughty Dog being one of them. But I guess you probably know more about game development then Naughty Dog? Am I right?
Last edited by Evil Incarnate on 8/31/2012 8:32:13 PM
Hynad apparently just defends anything PC-related to the death, and that includes developers who should've stuck with PC, too.
Nope, Ben, I don't defend PC to the death.
I do defend reason though. Something that is obviously alien to you, since you blind yourself to anything that isn't your own extremely biased (allegedly) view on any given subject.
You're quick to jump at Bethesda with the only argument being that "other devs managed so they have no excuse… bla bla bla…". But no other devs out there ever tried to achieve what they achieve with the Elder's Scroll and Fallout series. You, and many others here are quick to blind yourself to that fact in favor of your own arrogantly biased agenda.
And don't you fool yourself. Rockstar's open world games don't come close to relying on the kind of data memory that Elder's Scroll requires.
Last edited by Hynad on 8/31/2012 8:53:10 PM
@hynad
Or maybe it's your bias towards Bethesda that's the problem. Considering the fact, that their software hasn't really worked that well on any platform at launch. Not even PC which is their bread and butter. Say what you will, but Bethesda's track record speaks for it's self! You can't disprove facts, dude!
Last edited by Evil Incarnate on 8/31/2012 11:09:15 PM
Hynad, if you can't understand logic, that's not my problem.
Blaming Sony for any issues Bethesda has in terms of completing solid, reliable products is both inaccurate and idiotic. That's like blaming the stove because I can't cook.
The sooner you figure that out, and the sooner you quit with your little jabs, the sooner I'll have more respect for you.
And I'd just love to know how you think you know everything about what GTAV offers. I guess you can see the future, too.
Little jabs? Well, if you hadn't started yours against me, I wouldn't have responded with mine.
Now, what logic are you referring to? The one where I mention the difference in architecture between the PS3 and the 360? Which I mention is mostly due to Sony's choice no to have shared RAM…
Or do I have to go out of topic and mention the many bugs, inherent to most every Bethesda games ever conceived, that also happen to be completely unrelated to the issues at hand here (the memory problems of the PS3 that have been proven to be problematic with many game types this gen…).
Sure, I can play your game, and you can decide to play semantics and ignore any valid point I bring. The truth is, the PS3 is an incredible system for some types of games, with Sony's first party being exceptionally good at showcasing the potential. But it is also not so good for other types of games, where the 360 is just better suited for. You can go on and mention every clichés like "the devs are lazy" and whatnot. But at this point in the gen, I think you've been fooling yourself more than long enough. 🙁
It's really sad to be labelled as a PC nuts, when I'm just as crazy about Sony and most of their products as the next guy here. Yeah, I do play on the PC on occasion, but it has never succeeded in replacing a console for me. Much less the PS3.
Last edited by Hynad on 9/2/2012 9:08:28 AM
Don't mind Ben, Hynad. His vision turns completely red whenever he spot the letters "P" and "C" beside each other. It's of course a bit rich of him to blame others of any sort of bias when it comes to PC gaming, but oh well.
Just ignore those parts. Take it from someone that's been around here for a while. He'll never change.
Sorry Ben, but you know this is true. 🙂
Last edited by Beamboom on 9/2/2012 12:46:42 PM
Hey Hynad, the PS3 is as limited as the 360, so perhaps you would care to explain why Bethesda can make it work there? It's not a case of one platform being more difficult or different. Neither of those excuses can take the blame for poor coding and bugs. It's simply that they put more effort into that platform.
I have heard more console gamers saying something along the lines of "If Sony had made its memory shared between the CPU and the GPU like Microsoft did, we wouldn't have as much problems with third party games looking and faring worse on the PS3." than I have had hot dinners in the last 6 years. 1) Shared memory architecture has it's own difficulties. 2) the PS3 memory is shared by the CPU and GPU, it's simply not a single pool of memory. 3) having a hard partition between system memory and GPU memory should be pretty familiar to any PC coder since that's how the memory architecute in PCs has been since forever (except of course for low end systems that use highly inferior integrated GPUs). 4) the system architecture of the PS3 was built around the Cell doing a lot of graphics work. That's why both CPU and GPU have high bandwidth access to system memory. The original PS3 design did not have a GPU, the Cell was to have done all of the work. The GPU was added later to lighten the load on the Cell and add GPU specific hardware.
The fact that certain developers have yet to figure out that you use both CPU and GPU in cert with each other in the PS3 is not the architecture's fault, it's the fault of developers too stuck in the paradigm of past system architecture.
Everyone defending Bethesda is seriously missing the point.
Nobody is saying the points about the PS3 limitations aren't valid. What we're saying is simple- You make a product. You deliver it to certain consumers. You can't deliver the same experience to some of those consumers. Hence, it's YOUR DAMN FAULT.
Bethesda does NOT get a free pass in any way. To do so would be to admit it's flat-out okay to be lazy.
And by the way, GTAV will be just as big if not bigger than Skyrim, from what we're hearing. Let's just wait and see if Rockstar has the same ridiculous issues with the PS3 in producing that game. Place your bets now.
Last edited by Ben Dutka PSXE on 8/31/2012 8:32:25 PM
GTA V will, perhaps, be just as big, but there really won't be the same level of interaction. You won't be able to enter every building, get random items from lockboxes and carry around an inventory consisting of thousands of items, dropping them where you will. You won't be able to talk to just about any NPC and engage in dozens, if not hundreds, of quests extraneous to the main storyline.
I'm really not defending Bethesda anymore, but comparing Skyrim to GTA V simply because the map could very well be of a similar size is ridiculous. The two games are VERY different in their core goals. A better comparison would be Dragon's Dogma, or another RPG of similar archetype, no?
And based on what I've seen, GTAV will be leaps and bounds better in terms of visuals. There's also no knowing what we can carry or what we can go in; there could be a gigantic amount of inventory and a lot going on. There's also not much going on in the world of Skyrim; it's VERY empty all in all.
I don't think the comparison is ridiculous at all.
It just seems that it is wise to base our assumptions, for that is all they are, of GTA V on previous iterations of the series. It may be open for more world interaction, but I can't believe for a second that it'll be on the same scale as Skyrim. GTA V will have pedestrians walking the streets and cars driving about. It'll have planes and so on and so forth, but how much of it will actually feel dynamic rather than simply being dropped in there? It's a far cry from Skyrim where you can happen upon animals attacking each other in the wild and cause a war between orcs and bandits by leading one group to the other. Add in the dragon battles.
Yes, Skyrim is a, largely, empty land but it has a spark of life that no GTA to date has managed to capture. Perhaps ridiculous was the wrong word, but I don't see the two as being on an even footing on the grounds of world interaction which is the area that seems to be causing Bethesda grief.
Im siding with Lawless here but I don't know how either of you can say Skyrim is empty. It's anything but. I'm 100 hours in and still finding locations. The map is crazy big and it don't take long before you stumble upon something if you decide to take off on a trek across the map. I agree that GTA might have more going on being in a city, having streets and cars and all. But Skyrim is anything but empty.
The Skyrim environment is much, *much* more complex than the GTA worlds we've seen so far and what is reasonable to expect from GTA5.
The GTA world is more comparable with the Saints Row, Infamous and Assassins Creed type worlds.
Last edited by Beamboom on 9/1/2012 2:31:30 AM
I have to side with Ben here! (Perhaps Ben`s empty differs from mine but..) Skyrim is kinda empty. Just because you encounter dragons/bandits/creatures on your travel doesnt mean its a living breathing world. RDR is a near perfect example of a living breathing world. You encounter wild animals, bandits and fellow travellers. Granted both are of a different genre but deep inside it, both games offer something similar. Not to mention that I think there is little character development in Skyrim. Hence, you are not anchored in the world. Basically, I`m more in-tune with Marston than I`m with the Dragonborn. I care for Marston (The ending pisses me of to the point I stopped playing only to find out that its not over).
Zeronoz,
I'm not sure how you can detract from Skyrim in one sentence, then praise RDR in the next when very similar features are present in both. You meet bandits, wild animals and travellers in Skyrim in much the same way as you do RDR. Besides that RDR is smaller in scope, telling a directed story whereas Skyrim is about offering what can be referred to as a life substitute.
We're not arguing about character connection or any such thing, but world complexity and, to that end, Beamboom is right.
Also, bigrailer, yes, there are plenty of areas to explore and things to happen across, that's what I meant by a spark of life. You can't deny however, that there are vast swathes of emptiness in this miraculous creation.
In Skyrim, if you drop something, if you stumble upon something and it moves, the game keeps its location in memory. It also keeps track of countless choices you make that dynamically alter the events in the game's world. Among many other things.
GTA? Yeah, sure, it's a crowded city. But all of it is randomly generated every time you get in and out of a "zone". Unless it's part of a scripted event.
No, the 2 are not similar.
Last edited by Hynad on 9/1/2012 12:13:03 PM
Skyrim's keeping track of damn near everything is why the PS3 version suffers from so many problems, the PS3 simply does not have the RAM to properly handle it. No Rockstar game comes close to do that, hell most of the time things reset once they're out of view, including cars appearing and disappearing with a turn of the camera which has been an issue that's plagued the series (and a number of other similar games) since GTAIII. Sony's biggest mistake was the PS3's wonky architecture and once again not offering the amount of RAM they should have with going that route. At least with Krazy Ken no longer in the picture the PS4 won't suffer the same issue.
That said, Bethesda annoys the shit out of me.
Last edited by PHOENIXZERO on 9/2/2012 4:54:57 PM
These guys might just be the next Valve.
Except Valve managed to listen to their fans, shut up, and fix their s**t, and now they make awesome PS3 games.
Then again….I don't see Bethesda ever doing that, so maybe they are worse then valve.
They should pay Naughty Dog to show them a thing or two about programming for the PS3.
People, please.
It's not to give Bethesda a free pass to accept that the scope of their games, in particular with Skyrim, is unparalleled.
To create a persistent world that remember the exact location of where you happened to throw, push or kick every single little object in the game, well this is ambitious to the extreme. This is not seen in any other game on the Playstation. Not one. Think about that.
Yes, they release some of the most buggy games out there. True. BUT! They also release some of the most *complicated* games out there. And those two factors come hand in hand.
I don't say that you all should forgive everything "just because". But I do ask that you please, please also acknowledge the challenge of creating something with the complexity of Skyrim.
They *could* narrow the scope of the game and make it more like other games out there. It would be easier, safer and would lead to less bugs. They could be more "like the rest" and focus more on frame-rate and responsive controls.
Instead they go all out to create something that simply is not seen anywhere else!
Now, I don't say we should just accept bugs and errors. Neither do I say that you all should just suck up and shut up.
But just like I try to avoid calling every footballer who ever missed the goal in the pro leagues an "amateur" or "idiot" just because I don't understand football, I ask you to please stop being so judgmental just because you don't understand programming.
The Bethesda developers are not lazy, they are just crazy. They should probably have said "that can't be done" to the project managers, but unlike others they instead say "hmm – it's madness, but we might be able to pull that off!".
And voila, we get one completely unique game after another. That's not too shabby, is it?
Last edited by Beamboom on 9/1/2012 1:47:04 AM
They have consistently overreached their abilities, and I will never give forgive them for that. If they had any common sense what-so-ever then they would simply try to build the same game in a smaller world so they could actually find the breaking line in which the game goes from buggy to a disaster. Not only that but they have also screwed PS3 owners over this entire generation. That is another reason they get no pass from me, they show no care for customers, just the checks that a company will write them.
There are always developers that go beyond what most do, but most still understand the limitations of the systems they are programming for, or at the very least the limitations of their employees, Bethesda does not. It's tough enough to get their games to run smooth and bug free on a PC let alone a PS3 and that to me is because of their own incompetence, and the fact that they want to go bigger every time even though they still haven't ironed out the wrinkles of their coding.
Last edited by Rogueagent01 on 9/1/2012 3:48:36 AM
Good post, Rogue. I do agree with most of what you say there, and at least you set things in a rational perspective.
Yeah, I agree it looks like they seem to bite over too much. Their projects could probably earn from being held back a bit more to find that sweet spot you mention, the balance between complexity and execution.
But at the same time… Wouldn't that mean that we risk Skyrim ending up like just another Kingdoms Of Amalur or Dragons Dogma? Would we really want that?
With Skyrim they tried to shoe-horn a friggin' BUS into a shoe box. At least they deserve some cred for *trying*!
Last edited by Beamboom on 9/1/2012 4:56:34 AM
Credit where credit is due. They deserve that much for their worlds. And at least they openly admit to not being able to do it this time around rather than simply releasing a subpar product. I'm still not 'happy' about it, but you take your small victories where you can.
I don't care, Beamboom. I really, really don't. I know what they create better than most. If you can't do it correctly, you CAN'T DO IT. All designers have absolutely out-of-bounds ideas that just don't work because we don't quite have the technology to properly bring those ideas to fruition. They understand how to both shoot for the stars and accept reality.
If Bethesda can't do both, we don't blame the hardware. We blame them for poor preparation and overstepping the bounds.
It doesn't get any simpler than that.
Last edited by Ben Dutka PSXE on 9/1/2012 3:43:11 PM
I think if they were to take an approach on a upcoming game and instead of releasing this huge open world, release small fairly priced DLCs that interact within eachother they would probably do a much better job. They just need to find another approach to the games as they are making great games that ultimately have even greater issues. I know that my idea above is probably not the right one, but at least I am trying to think of a better way to bring the games to the console, where unfortunately I don't think they care.
And I gave them credit in a post earlier that stated thier games are always grand in design. And as much as I hate them I own a boatload of Bethesda titles, which to me, gives me the right to call them out on the crap they've done, be it bugs/glitches or their poor customer ethics.
Hopefully the next generation of systems will be more accepting of their games but seeing as they still have issues even on high end PCs I don't think it is going to make that much of a difference.
And Ben I really like that line "They understand how to both shoot for the stars and accept reality." That is what it is all about, and anyone here who builds or creates anything should know that as a law. We must always understand our limits, strengths, & weaknesses and play to them.
Beamboom.
I AM a developer, and I DO understand programming.
I can tell you that the way Bethesda handles the PS3 is lazy at best.
If you make a commitment to bring a product to a target audience, then it is your ethical responsibility as the developer of said product to support it and make sure it runs the way it was intended to.
Ben's argument is in regards to the clear incompetence Bethesda shows towards the PS3. They can't get their heads around the PS3's programming and then when it starts getting hard and the community starts getting angry, they simply point the finger at the hardware. This generation is nearly over, they have had plenty of time to get their heads around it, if they can't hire PS3 experts, then their devs should have BECAME PS3 experts.
I don't blame the developers and designers at bethesda, I am sure they are doing the best they can, I blame the management and people in charge of the direction.
There is an architectural flaw in their 'persistent' world, which also causes several game breaking bugs. Their system of persistence is sloppy, and could do with optimising.
They should have experts of all platforms they want to release on, that is just common sense. But they are choosing to disregard the PS3.
Unfortunately in this world, business ethics is almost completely meaningless. To be honest, Bethesda could have released this game on all 3 platforms, and then never fixed a thing, and it still would have sold as well as it did. People are blind, and that is why companies get away with this.
Last edited by Akuma_ on 9/2/2012 6:49:29 PM
@Akuma:
I simply refuse to call any fellow programmer who creates something that is *unseen* in any other game in existence for "lazy". It's too derogative a term for such a developer.
Had they been lazy they'd go create some oldschool shooter or platformer, or recreate a "HD version" of an old game. That's lazy. That's easy money.
The way I see it the core of the problem here could rather be that they tried fitting into a machine a game that was too big.
I can only imagine how they at one early stage *thought* they would be able to do it, and then as development progressed they started hitting a brick wall they were unable – for *whatever* reason but "laziness" – to work around.
Maybe they should have just ditched the PS3 version altogether. But do keep in mind now, that for the vast majority of gamers out there, Skyrim works just fine. For many of them, this is one of the finest gaming experiences they've had this generation.
Should Bethesda just have skipped the PS3 version of Skyrim? When all taken into account, I don't think they should. Even with the flaws it contains.
Last edited by Beamboom on 9/3/2012 1:09:01 AM
simple fact of the matter is if you dont have the ingredients you dont bake a cake!
if bugthesda cant release a ps3 game on the same quality of its counter platforms then it should not make the game on ps3 AT ALL!
simple as that!
ok they dont have enough cash, or dont want to spend it on hiring new guys i could not care less what their problems are!
simple fact of the matter is if your going to make a product you need to make sure it works the same EVERYWHERE!
if you cant afford to spend x on bringing the ps3 version up to speed than cancel the ps3 version and put those saved resources into making the other versions better than what they already are!
This is a disappointment though I'm at the stage of not wanting to play it on my PS3 anyway. The main issue I have is when I go to the map, my fan goes into overdrive and I'm worried my PS3 might overheat again. I've already had to have it repaired once.
Isn't there a lawsuit or something the ps3 fan's can slap them with?
…
Last edited by Bariikade on 9/2/2012 1:14:04 PM
wow…loved the whole discussion and enjoyed the article immensely…haven't seen PSX this alive in recent times…everyone seems to have a few valid points for or against Bethesda.Man, folks here are actually knowledgeable! I don't play skyrim and didn't play any of Beth's previous games but I sure hope the problems get solved for all you fans/players out there 🙂
PS: also I like how the fellow folks here often concur on some things and radically differ on others…seems like they're being honest instead of siding with what one guy or a mate of theirs' says…a sign of a healthy forum.
Wel, in fairness we do find both categories of people, both the "one siders" and the "independents". But the mix is good. And above all, most people seem to respect other opinions than their own – even if they may never agree. And *that* is a quality not found everywhere.
Pff, ive played all elders scroll game on PC as they should be played and the way they developed Skyrim with a 50/50 console/PC approach was terrible and disappointing.
And the half arsed PS3 version is not helping. Multiplat is really a plague in the gaming industries since too many are lame copy/paste on different systems with different architectures which gives horrible result more often then not.
Hopefully multiplat goes out the window next gen or dev should be whiped into shape to make a proper version for the console they are working on or just not release it in the form of subpar copies like we saw way too much this gen . . .