Escapist Editorials: A Bug By Any Other Name

[Susan Arendt]

A Bug By Any Other Name

We forgive some buggy games while shunning others. Why?

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[Jumwa]

I wont deny there's undoubtedly some subjectiveness to the issue, though I think there's some shreds of objectivity to be considered too.

As was pointed out, Skyrim is a sprawling, massive game that's not only huge in size, but in the scope of its ambition. Certainly, Bethesda could've done better with its bug testing, but any reasonable person knows too that even linear corridor shooters made by top-notch development studios will have inevitable issues (even Valve does the occasional patching of problems with Half-Life 2, years after its launch).

And of course, if we're being reasonable, we realize: Bethesda could make their game more polished. (Heck, apparently even Obsidian managed a game that's relatively smooth running with Dungeon Siege 3). But there'd be a sacrifice for that. The game would have to be smaller, less ambitious and more focused.

Some people would jump at that and say "Yes! Do that!" Then others would shake our heads and go, "No. Dream big, we'll deal with it. It's worth the price."

 

[Nachtmahr]

I will forgive Skyrim for everything the day someone makes a mod where I can marry dragons. I want to see Odavhiing in a top-hat, in front of an altar, and have a priest marry us. I don't even care about how the mechanics of the relationship would work. All I know is that I would rather wake up to him chewing on my housecarl, than waking up to one of my many housecarls watching me and chewing my bread. And they have the deepest voices <3

Also, a dragon spouse would give me home-roasted cows, instead of those crappy home-cooked meals.

But I digress.

I am very forgiving of any bug, so long as there is no lag or freezing.

 

[Something Amyss]

It seems unrealistic to expect something with as many moving parts as the fifth Elder Scrolls, with thousands of NPCs, monsters, locations, and bits of environmental detritus to be absolutely perfect out of the gate.

It doesn't seem unrealistic to expect them to fix bugs that have existed for multiple iterations and been known as long, however.

 

[Fiz_The_Toaster]

It depends on the bug I suppose.

If the bug is just something like an NPC walking through a wall or a chair just hangs out in mid air for forever, then I'm not to bothered by it, if anything I'm amused. If it's a small bug that I know will not wreck the experience for me, then I won't mind. I was finishing up some side missions in AC: Revelations and I misjudged a jump and went straight towards a palm tree and over the ledge I was aiming for, and Ezio was stuck in between the tree and the ledge for like 15 seconds slowly falling. Eventually he landed, but I was more relieved my game didn't break and/or froze after that.

I think the only time I will ever not forgive a game is if there's a big bug that will break the game and constantly kill my immersion in it. I don't care if I love the story or the character, that game will be gone, and I don't care if they fix it in a patch because all I will be doing is doing everything all over again and complain the entire time. However, I will be slightly more forgiving if I know the developer will release a patch and fix it quickly.

If the game is bug filled then most likely I will still play it and finish it, but I guess it all just depends if it's still fun to play.

 

[Machocruz]

Because some review sites have incentive to give certain games or publishers/developers a pass. Post Morrowind ES games are not held to the same scrutiny as Divinity 2 or Risen, two buggy games that were said to be largely inferior to Oblivion and Fable 2, but no review made a convincing case for why that was.

I believe a lot of sites had their 9s and 10s ready for Skyrim, before it even hit their desks.

 

[2fish]

I forgave Skyrim and Vampire the Masqurade Bloodlines of any bugs/issues I found but Alpha Protocol only got forgiveness to a point. I got it in a steam sale and it is fun, but the issues I found tend to break the game flow.

I think it comes down to what bugs annoy you most. Camera and broken missions piss me off the most. Don't even think of screwing up controls or your game is dead to me. Otherwise the chickens preventing my fast travel or stairs making a wall see through (VTMB) was just odd.

 

[Susan Arendt]

Because some review sites have incentive to give certain games or publishers/developers a pass. Post Morrowind ES games are not held to the same scrutiny as Divinity 2 or Risen, two buggy games that were said to be largely inferior to Oblivion and Fable 2, but no review made a convincing case for why that was.

I believe a lot of sites had their 9s and 10s ready for Skyrim, before it even hit their desks.

This isn't about reviews. This is about personal experiences. Do you give bugs a pass because some site gave a game a certain score? I'm guessing not.

 

[The Madman]

You know, having just replayed Alpha Protocol only a week or two ago I didn't find it buggy at all. Horribly broken in several fundamental ways and with some terrible design decisions and atrocious balancing issues, but not actually buggy. In fact I don't think I experienced a single genuine bug my entire playthrough. The game crashed on me once, but that was it.

There's a difference between frustrating and stupid but nevertheless deliberate choices on the developers part and bugs.

Fortunately I have a high tolerance for these things. Games like Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines (Which was genuinely and truly bugged to hell and back on release!) and the Neverwinter Nights series (Which even under Biowares care was pretty damned bad in terms of bugs.) counted among my favourites.

Haven't picked up Skyrim yet since if it's anything like Oblivion there's a good chance I'll end up bored with it pretty quickly and I haven't the money to be spending on full priced games I might or might not enjoy.

 

[Trishbot]

Considering the PS3 version of Skyrim becomes damn near unplayable, no, I won't give a game, even one I love, a pass.

All games have glitches, all games, to varying degrees of harm or amusement.

Sometimes they get adopted as "features" (Red Dead Redemption's "Donkey Woman"), but then other games get 9s and 10s and they're barely functioning.

I mean, have you SEEN how long the list of known bugs and glitches is for New Vegas?
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout:_New_Vegas_bugs

Such is the case with Skyrim. Granted, Skyrim SHOULD be a game I love. I want to love it more than I do. I love many parts of it. But the damn game does not WORK after a certain point.

An unplayable game is a worthless game and it hurts to say that Skyrim, for me, is a worthless game I cannot play.

My opinion is no game, no matter the size, no matter the hype, no matter the budget, should get a "pass" from critics because they're okay with the glitches. No game that crashes so frequently and is so poor technically should receive universal acclaim, perfect 10s, and recommendations that everyone should buy it and support these business practices.

I can't ethically go through it... and as a game developer myself, I'm going to dedicate as long as I possibly can on testing the game to ensure I don't release a product as broken as Skyrim to my paying customers.

 

[s_h_a_d_o]

Also, Skyrim affords an opportunity to address [quest] bugs via console commands on the PC, so a reason at least to give it a pass on that platform.

 

[Gatx]

I realize that the devs said that they would leave in some of the more hilarious, less game breaking bugs. I assume the whole dying by giants thing is one such bug. Here's the thing though, a lot of the more complained about problems are obviously ones that are easily encountered so if they can be found on a normal playthrough, there's no way they could've been missed in testing, so those types of bugs should've been fixed at least, and yet the game is littered with them.

 

[Spygon]

For once totally agree was shouted at because some random person said that games that are so huge like Skyrim should not have bugs in them.It took 4 years for Bethesda to make Skyrim if you could not release a game with bugs we would still be playing snes games.

So if someone wants to push the boundaries they will run into a few bugs as long as they are not gameplay breaking i would recommend turning a blind eye to it.As complaining about minor bugs are just going to make developers stay in their "safe zone".

 

[Machocruz]

This isn't about reviews. This is about personal experiences. Do you give bugs a pass because some site gave a game a certain score? I'm guessing not.

It is about reviews. It's the catalyst for this topic. It's a response to the chatter all over the net about Skyrim (and "AAA" games in general) getting a pass for things "lesser" games are docked several points for. Are we supposed to believe recent controversy did not inspirethe creation of this editorial? What exquisite timing then!

 

[putowtin]

I mean, have you SEEN how long the list of known bugs and glitches is for New Vegas?
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout:_New_Vegas_bugs

I never once had a problem with New Vegas till patch 2 came out, then bugs ahoy!

 

[Nuke_em_05]

I think it is simply the balance of gameplay enjoyment against bug annoyance.

If the game is super awesome, it will offset a lot of bugs (so long as they don't get in the way of the awesome). Also, a pretty good game with a few bugs gets a pass, whereas a pretty good game with a ton of bugs won't. A "meh" game with any bugs tends to get the nix.

 

[Irridium]

Heh, I was able to forgive Alpha Protocol. How the dialog would actually alter the story won me over. And I'm not talking about any stupid ME2 email business, I mean things actually change, alter, and people react to it. I haven't seen something like that since The Witcher.

The fact that I'm an Obsidian fanboy also probably helped. The goodwill I have for them thanks to Fallout 2 and Planescape Torment is still pretty strong. Kotor 2's story also pushed that up. Brilliant way to interpret Star Wars and the force in a different and interesting way. Not to mention its deconstruction of general RPG tropes.

Better stop now, getting a bit fanboy-y.

Anyway, what I look for in a game is one that works. I will give a pass for smaller issues, but a game-breaking glitch that halts all progress? Yeah, I don't care who you are, that is just in-excusable. It means you're asking full price for a broken product. And while I fully realize that this sounds INSANELY hypocritical coming from someone who loves Obsidian, I am still able to actually finish their games.

Unlike Oblivion, which is the very reason why I NEVER buy Bethesda games at launch anymore.

Spoiler

I spent about a MONTH trying to get that damn game to work on my PC. Thing crashed every 30 minutes. Needed to install it on a new hard drive and operating system (Vista, funnily enough) so I could play longer than 30 minutes. And even then the game was choppy and buggy as hell. Despite exceeding the requirements, I couldn't get a decent framerate (for me, 20 fps is my bare minimum. Going through Crysis gave me a tolerance. Barely got Oblivion to that) without setting most settings to medium-low. All this and I still had the occasional crash and freeze.

Took 3 user-made mods for the thing to work as it was advertised. And when I actually got to play the game, I was already extremely soured. And when playing it I found a dull, un-interesting world full of boring-ass characters and a crappy main quest. Only thing I really liked was the Dark Brotherhood. Hell, I couldn't even go on in the Mage's/Fighter's guild questlines because the NPC's I had to find in the well (for Mage's Guild, the recruitment quest in Cheydenhall) and cave (fighter's guild. Hurlun's watch I think it was called, also a mission from Cheydenhall) never spawned.

Of course, after some official patches and more user-made fixes, I could actually play everything. At that point I was just doing it to do it. I payed $50 for it, may as well finish the damn thing. Needless to say, I didn't enjoy it much.

And that is why I NEVER buy Bethesda games at launch anymore. Never.

Fallout 3 was actually more stable. Main quest and characters were still pretty crappy, but less buggy. Though the lack of bugs in the main game was made up for in spades by the game's DLC. All of which were screwed in some way. Whether it be from the game itself or Games For Windows Live.

I guess for me, random, small bugs I will forgive. Yeah they're annoying, but ultimately harmless. Main quest(s) hampering bugs that completely halt everything? I will ***** about it forever. These are the bugs that should have been caught and fixed. They're not some small bugs that are harmless. They're game-breaking and should have been caught. I know it's hard, but when I'm paying $60 for the product, it should work. Otherwise you're selling me a broken product for full price. And that's just bullshit.

Of course, I realize all this is based on personal experience. You're mileage may vary and all that. I give Obsidian games a pass because generally they do story in a very interesting way that's barely seen in the industry. And if Dungeon Siege 3 is any indication, they've fixed their bugs problem.

 

[rod_hynes]

I don't hold games up as perfect. I enjoy them until I don't anymore. Bethesda makes games that I enjoy for YEARS... not hours, or months. but YEARS. For that I can forgive a few minor problems with the coding. I havn't had another game give me that in a long time. Not even DA: Origins, but it was really good too, just not as much replay value as ES games. Point is, Yes, I can forgive glitches or bugs or whatever you want to call them. But just because something doesn't work the way you want, or think it should does it mean that your game is broken. I never once saw a problem with red dead like the videos showed, or new vegas. So is it that wided spread or just a few videos going around that make people laugh.

 

[Susan Arendt]

This isn't about reviews. This is about personal experiences. Do you give bugs a pass because some site gave a game a certain score? I'm guessing not.

It is about reviews. It's the catalyst for this topic. It's a response to the chatter all over the net about Skyrim (and "AAA" games in general) getting a pass for things "lesser" games are docked several points for. Are we supposed to believe recent controversy did not inspirethe creation of this editorial? What exquisite timing then!

It's not a response to anything but my own personal gaming experiences. I've been thinking about this since I played Dead Island. Why was I ok laughing off that game's bugs, but not others? It's not like the game is *that* remarkable, so why wasn't I more angry about e fact that it was broken? The release of Skyrim made me revisit the subject and think about it some more. I was wondering if others felt the same, and were more generous toward some bugs than others. So that's why I wrote it.

Honestly? Brand loyalty.

The Elder Scrolls is a long running series, with an established fanbase. It doesn't matter, therefore, that every game since Morrowind has had huge amounts of game-breaking bugs. People want to play the newest TES game, and will happily ignore even the most obnoxious of bugs if it means they get their latest Skyrim fix. You can see it even on this website- unless they're getting negatively affected themselves, many Skyrim players simply don't care about the broken PS3 release.

Compare this to something like Alpha Protocol- being an original game, no-one really knows what to expect when they first play, so they approach it with a far more suspicious mindset. A playthrough of Skyrim can have dragons flying backwards and quest items disappear from the player's inventory, and they won't mind too much, but if the protaganist does so much as move funny while he's crouching, and all of a sudden that same player is willing to call foul bloody murder.

It's simple psychology: the familiar versus the stranger. Game franchises we're familiar with, we're more willing to forgive for their flaws, for the same reason we can easily forgive a close friend for a faux pas they may make. Whereas untried games and franchises are new, unfamiliar territory for us, and any mistake they make is the same as having some stranger walk up and sneeze in your face.

It's part of the reason why the industry is so geared towards sequels and reboots. Gamers simply have different standards for existing games than they do new games, and that includes bugs. No publisher wants to release a new property if there's even the slightest chance gamers will tear it to pieces over some glitch in the final level, not when they can release another installment of Gears Of God Of Battlewarfare 6, and gamers will happily accept any glitches as part of the experience.

Great answer, very well thought out and on point.