The Elder Scrolls V - Skyrim... Was it RUSHED?!

[AdamRundolf001]

Like many other games in the gaming universe such as Lands of Lore 3, Might and Magic 9, and many other games that had content taken out due to inexcusable time restraint restrictions. One in particular seems the most rushed and it is still being modded and played.

 

The Elder Scrolls V - Skyrim. With its DLC's and one special edition of the game Legendary Edition.

 

Before skyrim I use to poke around in the game folder of morrowind to see what unused sounds their were. Shockingly I found quite a few. Seems the food eat sound in the game was used for both eating food and drinking a potion or drink. I poked around and found a separate drinking sound that would have fit nicely in the game. I also found better sounds in the weapon and combat sound folders. Sounds that defied logic as to why bethesda would leave them out! It would have made the game so much more complete. Keep in mind that they used the same damn engine for morrowind, oblivion, and skyrim. Oblivion was much less so... though the sounds they had forgot were the sounds for the frost spell as well as sounds for a supposed poison spell effect. They had other spell types as well but the only thing they used was bolt and ball. They had spray and another type.

 

As we can see... the elder scrolls games aren't perfect. This is much true. But this is no excuse for making skyrim an easy broken piece of crap. I have to get mods in order to enjoy the game. That is lazy and pathetic.

 

If you know of anything that wasn't put into the game or notice something please post. It would be good to get a content restoration mod if there aren't any already.

[HeyYou]

Isn't Arthmoor doing a 'cut content' mod for Skyrim? "Cutting Room Floor", or some such?

[JimboUK]

Like Fallout 4 it didn't feel finished but at least Fallout 4 works, Skyrim was released in a shocking state.

[Vagrant0]

It's probably the reverse situation. There is a big difference between Development and Quality Control. Morriwind and to a lesser extent Oblivion were done in a much more rushed development environment due to both trying to fit the game on the console media at the time (xbox and xbox 360) and trying to meet the production deadlines. In the case of Oblivion, there is strong evidence to suggest that they had to dramatically cut down the number of voice actors and probably re-record dialogue lines just to make the game fit on disc (since there would be fewer duplicate sounds for commonly voiced things like rumors, combat taunts, and the like). Surprisingly, voices alone account for roughly 2/3 of the space on the disc due to the file sizes used. This was not a technical limitation of the engine since they clearly had this working for their E3 demo, and modders were able to add unique voices rather easily.

 

The presence of unused assets usually means that development had to be cut short unexpectedly since these assets were originally sent to the art team to create so that the development team could use them. Part of this is also that development didn't have the time to go through cleaning up code of comments, or removing those assets from the game. A lack of unused assets usually means that the development environment was much more tightly controlled and development had enough time to go through removing unused assets before the game was sent off to QC.

 

Quality Control with Bethesda games is a very different situation, and has been missing the mark repeatedly since Shivering Isles was released for Oblivion. For this, a rushed state can contribute to it, but more often stems from the control environment being used and what sort of time frame exists between Alpha tests, Beta tests, and final checks before the game goes to print. One possible explanation for this state of things is that their QC environment is much more focused on the console versions of these games since generally console versions are not as open to patching as PC is. I know it's a different story between 2005 and now in terms of console connectivity. But it does explain a lot about how these games tend to look and perform between the systems. The games on consoles are much less prone to severe gamebreaking bugs, much less prone to stability problems. Not trying to shift this towards a pointless console/PC debate, just pointing out that the QC component is probably more console focused, which makes perfect sense given their sales figures.

http://www.vgchartz.com/gamedb/?name=Fallout+3

http://www.vgchartz.com/gamedb/?name=Fallout%3A+New+Vegas

http://www.vgchartz.com/gamedb/?name=Skyrim&publisher=&platform=&genre=&minSales=0&results=200

http://www.vgchartz.com/gamedb/?name=Fallout+4&publisher=&platform=&genre=&minSales=0&results=200

Admittedly, the PC figures are probably inaccurate and only counting initial sales, but there is still a fairly large split between the two, even when compared against play counts shown on steam charts. It's still ultimately about money at the end of the day.

http://steamcharts.com/app/72850#All

 

Long story short, less rushed development time means fewer unused resources, but more rushed QC time usually means more buggy release. Bethsoft still has not found their Goldilocks zone in terms of production.

[JimboUK]

It's probably the reverse situation. There is a big difference between Development and Quality Control. Morriwind and to a lesser extent Oblivion were done in a much more rushed development environment due to both trying to fit the game on the console media at the time (xbox and xbox 360) and trying to meet the production deadlines. In the case of Oblivion, there is strong evidence to suggest that they had to dramatically cut down the number of voice actors and probably re-record dialogue lines just to make the game fit on disc (since there would be fewer duplicate sounds for commonly voiced things like rumors, combat taunts, and the like). Surprisingly, voices alone account for roughly 2/3 of the space on the disc due to the file sizes used. This was not a technical limitation of the engine since they clearly had this working for their E3 demo, and modders were able to add unique voices rather easily.

 

 

The presence of unused assets usually means that development had to be cut short unexpectedly since these assets were originally sent to the art team to create so that the development team could use them. Part of this is also that development didn't have the time to go through cleaning up code of comments, or removing those assets from the game. A lack of unused assets usually means that the development environment was much more tightly controlled and development had enough time to go through removing unused assets before the game was sent off to QC.

 

Quality Control with Bethesda games is a very different situation, and has been missing the mark repeatedly since Shivering Isles was released for Oblivion. For this, a rushed state can contribute to it, but more often stems from the control environment being used and what sort of time frame exists between Alpha tests, Beta tests, and final checks before the game goes to print. One possible explanation for this state of things is that their QC environment is much more focused on the console versions of these games since generally console versions are not as open to patching as PC is. I know it's a different story between 2005 and now in terms of console connectivity. But it does explain a lot about how these games tend to look and perform between the systems. The games on consoles are much less prone to severe gamebreaking bugs, much less prone to stability problems. Not trying to shift this towards a pointless console/PC debate, just pointing out that the QC component is probably more console focused, which makes perfect sense given their sales figures.

http://www.vgchartz.com/gamedb/?name=Fallout+3

http://www.vgchartz.com/gamedb/?name=Fallout%3A+New+Vegas

http://www.vgchartz.com/gamedb/?name=Skyrim&publisher=&platform=&genre=&minSales=0&results=200

http://www.vgchartz.com/gamedb/?name=Fallout+4&publisher=&platform=&genre=&minSales=0&results=200

Admittedly, the PC figures are probably inaccurate and only counting initial sales, but there is still a fairly large split between the two, even when compared against play counts shown on steam charts. It's still ultimately about money at the end of the day.

http://steamcharts.com/app/72850#All

 

Long story short, less rushed development time means fewer unused resources, but more rushed QC time usually means more buggy release. Bethsoft still has not found their Goldilocks zone in terms of production.

 

I remember them saying that disk space was the reason for the lack of voices, it was something that felt more like an excuse because there was well over 2GB of space left unused (XGD2) by the time they'd finished, also disk space doesn't explain why several voice actors would all say the same thing, a slight variation by a few of them wouldn't have used any more space. I think Oblivion is where they started to move towards making action games and away from RPGs, dialogue became less of a priority as the awful writing in FO3, bland writing in Skyrim and non existent options in FO4 proves.

 

On bugs yeah I think it is a console thing, although it's more Xbox vs PC/Playstation, that latter two getting far less is the way quality control. Maybe Bethesda's problems lay with the size of the team they use? they seem very proud of the fact that they make games with a small team, the problem is that they don't make them very well. Smaller teams can be beneficial but not when things end up being half arsed and broken because of it.

[Signette]

Disk space feels like a silliest excuse I've ever heard... Some Final Fantasy (along with many others) on consoles were released on 4 disks in 1 pack no problem lol.

[Vagrant0]

Disk space feels like a silliest excuse I've ever heard... Some Final Fantasy (along with many others) on consoles were released on 4 disks in 1 pack no problem lol.

It sounds silly now, not that silly in 2006.

 

Multiple discs meant more printing and needing to split up the game to do disc swapping. Possible for some games, not really possible for something like Oblivion where you have an open world that can be experienced in any order you wished. Meanwhile the harddrive space of the original Xbox360 was fairly small and not well suited to act as swap space. At the end of the day it is a financial decision... Either pay extra development time to rebuild the game in a way that can be split into multiple discs making an even tighter production schedule tighter, as well as suffer higher costs for each unit shipped... Or just re-record dialogues with a smaller set of voices which still costs money, but not nearly as much, and has a far smaller impact on the development team. Back in 2005/2006, dual layer DVD technology was still a fairly new thing, so was much more expensive than single layer DVDs, even compared to multiple CDs back in 1997.

 

A member of the team even commented on how voices were a disc space issue.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2006/05/23/oblivions_ken_rolston_speaks/2

 

 

All the dialogue in Oblivion is voiced. How did that affect your approach to writing dialogue? Did it reduce the variety of dialogue you could write? If so, do you prefer fully-voiced dialogue or text dialogue with more branching?

 

Rolston: I prefer Morrowind's partially recorded dialogue, for many reasons. But I'm told that fully-voiced dialogue is what the kids want. Fully-voiced dialogue is less flexible, less apt for user projection of his own tone, more constrained for branching, and more trouble for production and disk real estate. Voice performances can be very powerful expressive tools, however, and certain aspects of the fully-voiced dialogue -- the conversations system, for example -- contribute significantly to the charm and ambience of Oblivion.

 

Even FFVII had disc space issues where the publisher basically told the devs to wrap up the game in 3 discs instead of 4 midway through the production just because they wanted to keep costs down.

[AdamRundolf001]

Fallout 4 Clearly shows the engines age... I mean it took them THIS long JUST to make rain that doesn't fall through roof's

 

We all look at it and go:

 

"yay..." in a monotone boring fasion... and then just fall asleep after... *snore*

 

And all I had to say when I saw Gopher's playthrough was... "Really bethesda..." and they just recycled 25% of the content from skyrim...

 

Skyrim without patches is an eye sore... I couldn't play for 3 hours without the game freezing...

 

I bought installed the Legendary Edition just so I could get the game with all the patches.

[Thessera]

I wonder why did they make the game maps so big?

It's kinda waste , considering it serve no purpose other then make it look big..

also it will limit the actual story content.. bc it takes unnecessarily space.

Skyrim/Oblivion..idk about Morrowind ( never played it) is like a puddle, there is a lot on the top - but no depth whatsoever.

That kind of "style" match better to a MMORPG game, than an RPG.

Since in a MMORPG , you have the sosial aspect of the game that makes up for the loss of deapth.

Just look at world of warcraft: it as no damn depth whatsoever.. and yet people can play it for 5+years..

If only bethesda could:

Stop making unnecessary huge maps and make more depth and more consequences based on actions!.. xD

It would have made the game(s) feel much more finished and not rushed.

Edited March 6, 2016 by Thessera

[Signette]

 

I wonder why did they make the game maps so big?

It's kinda waste , considering it serve no purpose other then make it look big..

also it will limit the actual story content.. bc it takes unnecessarily space.

Skyrim/Oblivion..idk about Morrowind ( never played it) is like a puddle, there is a lot on the top - but no depth whatsoever.

That kind of "style" match better to a MMORPG game, than an RPG.

Since in a MMORPG , you have the sosial aspect of the game that makes up for the loss of deapth.

Just look at world of warcraft: it as no damn depth whatsoever.. and yet people can play it for 5+years..

If only bethesda could:

Stop making unnecessary huge maps and make more depth and more consequences based on actions!.. xD

It would have made the game(s) feel much more finished and not rushed.

 

What?... Are you serious?

Firstly maps are not even half as big as MMO maps, secondly speaking about no depth... well, in Skyrim things got way better than in both Morrowind and Oblivion on that matter, map is slightly smaller, but you won't find SINGLE copy-paste cave, fort or whateva unlike MMOs which completely built on copy-paste content. Immersion in TES games is mindblowing, you won't find another fantasy sandbox which simulates "life" as good as in TES with NPC daily routines, dynamic weather change, day-night cycle and much more. There are lots of stuff to do, giant amount of random events and radiant quests everywhere, this along with feeling that every corner of this world feels unique makes almost perfect sandbox fantasy game. And yes, story is decent, cannot be even remotely compared to any MMORPG out there in quality. The only thing ppl complaing about is that its linear, but I don't see problem here, it's not pure blood RPG and never was. And that's just vanilla content.

 

I also have to mention mods and the fact that you can get pile of new, high quality content in your game absolutely for free, unlike MMOs where they charge you $$$ for each freaking piece like hat or shoe lol. I don't wanna seem rude, but I have little idea how mentally healthy person can spend few years mindlessly grinding same content in MMORPG, the comparison to TES is unacceptable on any level IMO.