Saturday 17 March 2012

Skyrim Official Patch 1.5 Beta Vs Unofficial Patch Beta

Well the Official Skyrim Patch 1.5 is in Beta at the moment, but I'll be holding off this time and making bloody sure Steam doesn't download even when it when it goes live out of Beta, UNLESS I damn well say so.  I don't know how many times I've changed the options in Steam to say "Do not keep this game updated" and it doesn't apply.   I'm sure new killcams are very exciting for some, but I'm more interested in bug and quest fixes before cinematics.  Besides that this patch breaks the CK so that will also need patching. 

However because of a Steam issue I'm having it will probably bite me in the backside and download, but maybe, just maybe I'll catch it first.  I'm finding myself joining some of the Steam bashers.  Lately I've been having an issue with Steam where it won't shutdown when I want it to after I exit the game, or if the game CTD's and I've finished playing for the time being.  This requires me to login to Steam, otherwise it says there's no valid info on my computer and it cannot be run offline because of whatever is causing the error.  This would probably be fixed by rebooting the PC, but since the process won't end and is looped, ie - shutdown any program using this app - (and none are after ending an offending one in Task Manager, which is usually a process called Game Overlay), or I get an error message followed by the same shutdown process crap.   Steam updated last night after one of these little forays into annoyance land, so hopefully it fixes itself next time I play.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand.   The Unofficial Patch team (Kivan atm) has released Beta 1.2 which when you compare the list of important fixes against the Bethesda patch is really something of wonder.  Four  months approximately, including testing and checking, and only two of those months with the CK, and this is what is produced compared to five patches from the developers and one of those in particular broke so many things...

Official topic with download link
http://forums.bethsoft.com/topic/1358353-beta-unofficial-skyrim-patch-thread-2/ 

Download link which is in the forum topic anyway.
http://www.darkcreations.org/forums/files/file/205-unofficial-skyrim-patch/

The wise dragon says...check out the Unofficial Patch now....

The list is huge.  Granted many things like misplaced trees aren't that dire in the scheme of things, but the number of quest and other things like game mechanics, mesh and textures fixes, creature and NPC fixes, dialogue, item placements, and much, much more is amazing.  Why has it taken the actual developers of the game this long to even acknowledge a tiny fraction of these, in particular the important yet broken quests, some of the perks (ie block), crafting exploits and other much talked about issues that need to be addressed. 

Bashing Bethesda for their buggy games is just a pointless exercise and the fanboys and girls who worship the ground they walk on can think what they like, but I have to wonder why Bethesda is focusing on things like killcams and gimmicks they know all the cool kids will go ape over, when vital things like broken quests and perks seem to be way down on the list of priorities.  New features would be nice, and I like the cinematics myself as long as they aren't too frequent, and as some have asked, there's an option to turn them off if preferred.    The game bugs and glitches should be fixed once and for all by the actual people who made the game and not leave it to modders to fix as every other TES and Fallout game.  And, yes I know they probably have different teams for different things, they also have to code for consoles, and these things have been said a million times by people, but really....

Here's a link to the Official Beta Patch changelog and a video.   It's opt in at Steam at the moment so back up important saves before trying it out.   You may or may not detect my lack of enthusiasm due to previous experiences with "Official patches."
http://www.bethblog.com/2012/03/15/new-features-highlight-1-5-update/

Oh, what happened here.....they are broken.

Let's wait and see.  I'm afraid I have more faith in our experienced and respected modders to do the important things than the actual developers, and more results in a shorter time frame.  

No comments:

Post a Comment