Remember to blink when typing.

Skyrim is not "broken". Sword of the Stars 2 at launch is an example of a broken game.

I have Skyrim on PS3. And its really hard to play. On the Wikipedia page there is a list of bugs on everything in the game. And I have had the misfortune to experience most of the game breaking bugs. With many other players saying the same thing, that most of there rescent products are unusually buggy. With that being my first Bethesda game I'm not willing to play, until whatever it is has been out on the market for awhile and has been patched properly or maybe not buy at all.

but this is more about my paranoia that developed after playing Skyrim than Stardock not taking a lunch break. Maybe errors are mostly from not focusing. It happens to me when I write. The bugs that happen here aren't nearly as bad as Skyrim. The worst might gave been the miniaturization scandal or OP civs. Not data leaks or display cases that dont work. Which is good.

there are about fifty Stardock employees which is close to 47. Like the movie 47 ronin. See now they have a cool name besides "the devs" in return I ask you to just...blink. And never sell to Walt Disney! (stms)

DARCA

I seriously hope you take medication Darca

What did I say? I already know this is weird. DARCA is all caps. And I just felt like I should say this although telling telling someone to relax and do their best at their job sounds stupid in context. But... I really don't know how to properly express my word properly right now. What did I say?

DARCA

Well, a lot of games for PS3 are buggy. Something 'bout the translating from one code to the next, etc. Skyrim for the 360 and PC was flawless in comparison. Since (as far as I know) GalCiv 3 will be a PC and Mac product I don't think there'll be too many worries.

*cough* WoM *cough cough*

It's a shame I would have got a Xbox if I knew. The controllers on the ps3 are more stylish and black is a good color along with stunning graphics. But your right Microsoft rules the industry and compatibility us king. The same thing happened with mass effect 1. But just think that focused programmers are a more important factor than the translation of code. Most of the bugs were fixed by a few fans in a few month after release. Gaunathor did the same here, the difference here being after two years and expansions no more time could be spent on galciv2. With Skyrim there wasn't nearly as much care from gigantic game studio like Bethesda IMHO.

if something doesn't compile it won't work. But if there's a 1 where there should be a 0 that's how the miniaturization error happened. And now that I think about it a bit more. Reminding the Ronin the blink at the desktop sounds like great simple advice.

DARCA

My brain kersploded lol

I do sound a bit crazy and incoherent. Should have separated the paragraph, and mentioned how I love/hate Disney as I'm a big star wars fan. And am curious if they are going skew it up. Lone ranger comes to mind as a stereotypical Disney movie as an example. And ParagonRenagade you should choose Garius Vakarian as your screen name as he has your senses of humor.

DARCA

Skyrim runs fine on my PC, right out of the box.  I also mod it heavily  after its first / second playthru.  Yes, all beth games are buggy on release, just not game breaking buggy.  Official patches, and the unofficial patches fix almost everything.  The community is really part of perfecting these games.  Skyrim runs fine:  script extender, graphics extender, yada, yada.  I don't understand those few people who keep putting down TES franchise.  Sure, it devolved from Morrowind, IMHO.  Sure its been dumbed down.  What franchise hasn't done that? Wish they would not, but they do.  

There are two main issues with Skyrim on the PS3:

1. The PS3 is "weird" and doesn't port easily compared to other platforms. That's the reason why the PC and 360 versions are so much more alike in terms of how they behave, performance, bugs, etc. This is for hardware reasons, the PS3 is a very odd hardware platform and is very different (and more difficult) to work with than the others. I'm happy to say that this has been solved with the PS4, which if you're into consoles is a great machine and MUCH easier for developers to work with. (Internally the PS4, Xbox One, and an x64 PC are very similar. Cross platform games are going to benefit tremendously from that.)

2. Both the PS3 and the 360 have 512MB of RAM. Both split it into video and system memory. The PS3 has a hard split, but the 360 lets you borrow video memory if you need more system memory. Skyrim needs it, and the fact that it can't get to it on the PS3 causes major issues. That's the reason why DLC was delayed for so long on PS3 - they were flat out running out of memory.

In addition, the PS3 hardware is actually pretty weak in main processing power, and uses several secondary units for certain tasks to get more performance (that's part of the Cell design). If you can use those properly, the system flies. If you can't, it chokes. Those units can only access small amounts of RAM at a time, and they're ill-suited to a game like Skyrim with a massive amount of persistent world state. The 360 has less raw CPU power, but it's CPUs are symmetrical (they're all equal) and thus Skyrim can distribute work more easily.

Believe me, Bethesda didn't sit around ignoring PS3 issues. They put a ton of money into trying to fix it, and Sony itself was involved at one point. The way the game was designed simply pushed the PS3 in a way it wasn't designed to excel at, and there were consequences. There will not be a repeat of that when they release a next-gen game because the next-gen systems are similar and developer friendly.

But yes, if your general point is that Stardock should take breaks to maintain focus and code quality, I agree totally. Crunch time in game development sucks for everyone. I'd rather wait longer for the game so that the team can see their families once in a while.

The year past in particular has been a very good example for why breaks in development are extremely important for game development teams, look at the state Rome II and Battlefield 4 were in when they were released, both shoved out the door before they were truly ready and they suffered from it, hell it took me 4 months just to have the nerve to go back and attempt Rome after the state it was in at launch. -,-

But yeah, i have high hopes that this game wont be like that and i'm sure the devs will take there time to make it as good as can be before launch

I agree with it all. But for my PS3 it wouldn't be exaggerating to say I was playing a different game. It REALLY sucked at the beginning. The save files bloated infinitely, at 20 hours the size was 10MB. Caused by a, and I quote "data leak" and the fps lag was increasing to the point of unplayable. And after I got all the patchs and dlc in one of the dlc there was a un-textured hole in the ground where I fell through. Lucky it was over water. And the display cases don't work in the hearthfire homes on any system IIRC.

Again, Stardock has a founders program for the alpha and beta. Along with regular testing. So errors and glitchs should be minor.* (DARCA can't see into the future. The opinion given has as much worth as a chocolate confederate dollar. Lol.)

tridus I think the only thing good was the controller design was easier to hold. And the compatibility issues should be gone in the this generation if you are right.

I really need to stop waking up worrying about everything. ltm

DARCA

@Tridus You explained the cross platform issues so well. Now I understand. Many PS3 players end up with games that perform well on other machines, but not on their machines. Ouch! They have valid grievances...

Yeah, sure, regularly broken quests, dying NPCs (what's next in TESVI, almost everyone will be essential?), disappearing NPCs, sudden changes in reputation, problems with official DLCs (yes, Dawnguard, Hearthfire and Dragonborn, just between them). Perfectly flawless game, right from day one, as we all know Bethesda games were. Like (in)famous... Buggerfall?

GLORIOUS PC MASTER RACE!