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from the stop-shipping-beta-quality-code dept.
combatserver writes:
"The folks over at Dark Side of Gaming are reporting an interesting development in the game modding community--a recently released modification for the blockbuster game from Bethesda, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (PC version). A long-running issue with the game since release has been recurring CTDs (crashes to desktop) and infinite loading screens that often bring the game to a grinding halt after just a few minutes of play, especially when heavily modded. Bethesda has tried to resolve the issue with several patches, to no avail.
Sheson, a member of the Skyrim modding community, fixed Skyrim. According to many user reports--thousands, in fact--Sheson's relatively minor adjustment to memory allocation has solved the vast majority of stability issues. The improvements have increased game performance far beyond what anyone had expected. Players are now merging mods to get around the hard-coded cap of 256 mods that Skyrim can load at any given time, effectively packing more content into the game. The fix also allows for Skyrim to run on lower-end PCs, widening the market for a game that has already sold over 20 million copies.
Since Sheson's patch released, the fix has been repackaged by other community members as a mod for Skyrim to make it even more accessible. Skyrim players who use the script-extender SKSE will be pleased to hear that the patch will be included in the next build."
[ED Note: Bottom line -- Bethesda shouldn't be packaging poorly written and untested code for sale, then requiring gamers to pay to play as beta testers. Kudos to Sheson for his hard work and effort.]
(Score: 3, Informative) by aquacrayfish on Thursday February 20 2014, @05:57PM
This has been a general problem that Bethesda has had with all their PC games. Weird bugs, stability, not necessarily the best UI, dating back to at least Morrowind (when I first started playing their games). I didn't get into Skyrim until about 7 months after launch due to other games in the queue. The modding community has been fantastic for this game for a long time. In short, it's Skyrim's biggest strength and, in a weird way, its biggest weakness.
Bethesda provided a great game where they allowed people to mess with anything. That's been terrific. The game's backbone is pretty darn perfect. It's implementation has shown numerous bugs and needed tweaks, graphics updates, etc., that the community has banded together and repaired/upgraded. I have to wonder if Bethesda was relying on that with this game, not that it was unplayable at launch, but the game has dramatically improved since.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by combatserver on Thursday February 20 2014, @11:06PM
"... but the game has dramatically improved since."
Understatement of the thread.
I am constantly amazed by some of the mods people are creating--hundreds of NPCs in civil-war type battles, fully voiced and scripted followers that bring the game to life with personalities (Vilja, Caele, Cicero to name a few), completely new lands and more objects and armor than you can shake a stick at.
The newer followers are what interested me the most--there is room to create a functioning "society" once people start making enough of these followers (and other NPCs). They interact in unexpected ways, bringing new levels of interaction that simply were not possible before--some of them highly entertaining.
I hope I can change this later...