Skyrim .... eh, I'm guessing the game will take a beating here

UtopiA said:
Half-Life 2 is a fraction of Skyrim's size, though.
Name a game that's roughly the same size as Skyrim, with better graphics? The only game that comes close is Just Cause 2, but honestly it suffers the same issue as Skyrim... Stuff far away looks fantastic, the game has amazing views... but up close, it looks like a blurred mess. Another is GTA 4 and it's the same way.

I don't know what you people were expecting.
Bethesda is just another software developer... They aren't miracle workers...
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This is exactly the point I was trying to make. Comparing Skyrim to titles like BF3 isn't fair. BF3 with a big open world and massive amounts of AI would probably be completely unplayable. For the scope of the game, it's the best looking thing out there.

Some times I really think some PC gamers are the snobbiest, most impossible to please people out there. You can't have everything...
 
Viper87227 said:
some PC gamers are the snobbiest, most impossible to please people out there. You can't have everything...
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These are the ones that need to try and develop their own game. It really is ridiculous the amount of bitching about every single game that ever comes out on these forums.

It is funny because there are PC only games that come out, yet they are never popular... why? I dunno, but all the whiners should go play those games. (and don't say things like WOW or SC2 ;)
 
Viper87227 said:
This is exactly the point I was trying to make. Comparing Skyrim to titles like BF3 isn't fair. BF3 with a big open world and massive amounts of AI would probably be completely unplayable. For the scope of the game, it's the best looking thing out there.

Some times I really think some PC gamers are the snobbiest, most impossible to please people out there. You can't have everything...
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I'm convinced some of these people really don't even like games at all.



I feel like they took a lot greater pains to have more diversity of locale and interiors, most noticeably any dungeons, caves, or other interior places like that compared to its predecessor Oblivion.

But some of you? Pick, pick, pick.

Me? Play, play, play.
 
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Yup Skyrim has many shortcomings, but imho overall it's pretty much the best game this year
Portal 2 was almost perfect, but it was a bit short tbh

I was pretty impressed by Skyrim's viewing distance - it's almost on par with ARMA 2 and STALKER,
Graphics wise that's what setting it apart from corridor RPGs like Witcher 2 and Mass Effect.

And boi... what I would give for one more publisher with It's out when it's done motto
 
My biggest issue graphics wise is close up characters and apparel. Some clothing, armor and weapons are downright appalling how low quality the textures are. Then occasionally a piece of armor or robe is pretty well detailed.

The game is gorgeous when looking at the scenary and anything medium to far. Even when in cities and dungeons the game looks fantastic. However armor, clothing and items should be high quality textures. Anything you have in your face should be high quality. I could care less if the pine trees have 4096X4096 maps with smellovision if the sword or hands I have on screen 80% of the time look like I'm gamming at 1024x768.

You could not have the The Witcher 2's or BF3's texture quality and still have the open world that Skyrim has, there just simply no hardware that could run it, unless you wanted the textures to pop in at 10 feet. It should not be expected.
 
Because they needed to keep the performance up on the consoles. You expect them to provide another set of better textures for the PC when the large majority of gamers buy it for the console only? Too much extra work and money for something that is not all that important except to a few nitpicker PC gamers.
 
Gnasher said:
Because they needed to keep the performance up on the consoles. You expect them to provide another set of better textures for the PC when the large majority of gamers buy it for the console only? Too much extra work and money for something that is not all that important except to a few nitpicker PC gamers.
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Going a bit too far with this generalization.

To that end, I can rattle off a bunch of games that are obvious crappy, quickie console ports.

This isn't it.

Yes, I don't like the UI. Yes, I'd like to see some higher rez textures in some areas with certain details but honest to God, fire up Rage if you wanna see what a quick, half assed, sinfully low rez port to the PC really looks like.
 
zacrobmer said:
Arguably the most moronic statement I've read since the game launched.

Close in High quality textures on all clothing, armor and weapons would be a miniscule performance decrease for a console and would not require a special patch for "nitpicky PC Gamers" some armors have higher quality textures then others the same goes for clothing and weapons, therein lies the issue, there is a disparity between item textures.

Edit: meh.
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I got an infraction today for saying "fuck you" to a person on these forums but I doubt you will get one for calling me a moron because you have "seniority".

Anyway, what you claim is pure speculation and really you know shit. Ram on the PS3 is shared between video and system. Consoles have a much greater ram limit than the PC so of course it would negate performance! Enjoy analyzing the textures in Skyrim with your Sherloick Holmes spy glass while I enjoy playing the game.
 
Q-BZ said:
Going a bit too far with this generalization.

To that end, I can rattle off a bunch of games that are obvious crappy, quickie console ports.
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I never said or implied that. I basically said the benefit of doing higher res textures for just the PC was not worth the extra cost to Bethesda. There is a video on youtube by Todd of Bethesda explaining all this so even though some rude person here called me a moron he is also calling Todd a moron at the same time. Nice!
 
Gnasher said:
I got an infraction today for saying "fuck you" to a person on these forums but I doubt you will get one for calling me a moron because you have "seniority".

Anyway, what you claim is pure speculation and really you know shit. Ram on the PS3 is shared between video and system. Consoles have a much greater ram limit than the PC so of course it would negate performance! Enjoy analyzing the textures in Skyrim with your Sherloick Holmes spy glass while I enjoy playing the game.
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You guys have been warned once already about keeping this a civilized discussion, not a petty argument. If we have to come back in here again because you (all of you) can't behave, this thread will get closed right quick.

 
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Gnasher said:
I never said or implied that. I basically said the benefit of doing higher res textures for just the PC was not worth the extra cost to Bethesda. There is a video on youtube by Todd of Bethesda explaining all this so even though some rude person here called me a moron he is also calling Todd a moron at the same time. Nice!
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Is there a link to that video? I tried finding it myself, but am having trouble. It's not a ploy to prove you wrong, I'd just be interested in seeing what Todd had to say. If I find it I will let you guys know.
 
If I were Bethesda, I wouldn't bother including higher res textures for Skyrim because the mod community is going to do it for them anyway... for free! You'll get your choice of better UIs, too.
 
Yeah, but skipping out on features because you know that the community will clean up your mess does not make for good development / design practices.

 
HohnyF said:
Yup Skyrim has many shortcomings, but imho overall it's pretty much the best game this year
Portal 2 was almost perfect, but it was a bit short tbh

I was pretty impressed by Skyrim's viewing distance - it's almost on par with ARMA 2 and STALKER,
Graphics wise that's what setting it apart from corridor RPGs like Witcher 2 and Mass Effect.

And boi... what I would give for one more publisher with It's out when it's done motto
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I think that people are just upset that the games short comings comes from the fact that they have to cater to the console crowd too. Versus, if it was a PC only platform a lot of the design flaws wouldn't be there in the first place
 
Viper87227 said:
This is exactly the point I was trying to make. Comparing Skyrim to titles like BF3 isn't fair. BF3 with a big open world and massive amounts of AI would probably be completely unplayable. For the scope of the game, it's the best looking thing out there.

Some times I really think some PC gamers are the snobbiest, most impossible to please people out there. You can't have everything...
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I completely agree
 
charold said:
Is there a link to that video? I tried finding it myself, but am having trouble. It's not a ploy to prove you wrong, I'd just be interested in seeing what Todd had to say. If I find it I will let you guys know.
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Had a quick look but can't find the specific video, sorry.
 
syn3rgyz said:
I think that people are just upset that the games short comings comes from the fact that they have to cater to the console crowd too. Versus, if it was a PC only platform a lot of the design flaws wouldn't be there in the first place
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Exactly, to say something like "the size of the world means it cant look better" is absolutely retarded. Why does it look the same on crap console hardware as it does on PC hardware? because the game devs are lazy sacks of shit who are catering to console players who will take any steaming pile of shit put in front of them. The saddest part is when you have people defending these actions and then go on to say "game of the year".
 
darkstarcow said:
Exactly, to say something like "the size of the world means it cant look better" is absolutely retarded. Why does it look the same on crap console hardware as it does on PC hardware? because the game devs are lazy sacks of shit who are catering to console players who will take any steaming pile of shit put in front of them. The saddest part is when you have people defending these actions and then go on to say "game of the year".
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Are you blaming the developers for not 'putting in the effort' to optimize the game on a hardware 'platform' that represents less than %9 of the total video game market? Meanwhile the 'enthusiast' portion of that platform is a mere %15, meaning that the TOTAL amount of customers able to take advantage of the optimizations you want (high-res textures, better draw distance etc. etc.) is less than %2 of the total market. As I stated in another post, with a 200 person team, just about three people would be responsible for PC-exclusive features: any more and the developers are quite literally throwing money away.

Yeah, screw them! :rolleyes:
 
syn3rgyz said:
I think that people are just upset that the games short comings comes from the fact that they have to cater to the console crowd too. Versus, if it was a PC only platform a lot of the design flaws wouldn't be there in the first place
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Well some of the shortcomings like dialogues, voice acting, not very memorable NPCs and sub par animation is certainly not due to consoles, but due to overall project constraints.
I'm more surprised that multi-million triple AAA title didn't do better all the things mentioned above, that that devs didn't tune and optimize the hell out of minority platform like PC.

I'm even more surprised that despite all of that, I love the heck out of this game
 
KazeoHin said:
Are you blaming the developers for not 'putting in the effort' to optimize the game on a hardware 'platform' that represents less than %9 of the total video game market? Meanwhile the 'enthusiast' portion of that platform is a mere %15, meaning that the TOTAL amount of customers able to take advantage of the optimizations you want (high-res textures, better draw distance etc. etc.) is less than %2 of the total market. As I stated in another post, with a 200 person team, just about three people would be responsible for PC-exclusive features: any more and the developers are quite literally throwing money away.

Yeah, screw them! :rolleyes:
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Sooooo basically what you're saying is, developers shouldn't even bother developing for PC anymore, right? Since it's such a total waste of money...:rolleyes:
 
UtopiA said:
Half-Life 2 is a fraction of Skyrim's size, though.
Name a game that's roughly the same size as Skyrim, with better graphics? The only game that comes close is Just Cause 2, but honestly it suffers the same issue as Skyrim... Stuff far away looks fantastic, the game has amazing views... but up close, it looks like a blurred mess. Another is GTA 4 and it's the same way.

I don't know what you people were expecting.
Bethesda is just another software developer... They aren't miracle workers...
Click to expand...
Nope, textures look very good up close in GTA IV. It's the best looking open world game by far.
 
MavericK96 said:
Sooooo basically what you're saying is, developers shouldn't even bother developing for PC anymore, right? Since it's such a total waste of money...:rolleyes:
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Actually, yes; well, to a degree. To put it bluntly, the Xbox/PS3 player market is about eleven times the size of the PC gamer market. Now, that includes people who buy casual games, but not people who play facebook games (it's estimated by total number of purchases and dollars spent, not by logged online hours or user activity). Which one can deduce: if someone buys a basic 'dora the explorer' game on PC, it count towards the PC gamer demographic. With the overwhelming amount of casual games for sale on the PC, and the huge amount of people with under-powered PCs (by [H] standards), the actual Enthusiast market is overpowered by consoles by about Fifty-fold.

You own a business: You have a team of 100 talented men and women. 30 are coders, 20 are artists, 10 are designers, 15 members of production/management, the remainder are miscellaneous/administration. You are set to release a game in two years. The food on your table relies on making this game sell well, and make a profit enough to pay your team, yourself, and fund future endeavors.

Consoles: 92% of the market.

Basic PCs: 7% of the market

Enthusiast PCs: 1% of the market.

Yeah, totally makes sense to spend man-hours coding and implementing advanced, enthusiast-only features. :rolleyes:

Edit: I don't want you to think I am against PC gaming. I love the PC gaming experience. But PC gamers need to get over themselves and realize exactly HOW LITTLE they matter, It makes more sense for a developer to scrap PC as a platform altogether and spend those extra man hours on consoles. The fact that we even get games on PC given these facts is something we should be thankful for, and the fact that we can buy PC-lead games like Crysis and Battlefield is a goddamned miracle.
 
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KazeoHin said:
Consoles: 92% of the market.

Basic PCs: 7% of the market

Enthusiast PCs: 1% of the market.

Yeah, totally makes sense to spend man-hours coding and implementing advanced, enthusiast-only features. :rolleyes:
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Where are you getting these figures from? Are these global figures?
 
love it when people give numbers and %'s with out saying were they got those from, perhaps the guy acualy found them on some website with game news or he just came up with the numbers out of his ass unless he tells us we wont know
 
Savi said:
love it when people give numbers and %'s with out saying were they got those from, perhaps the guy acualy found them on some website with game news or he just came up with the numbers out of his ass unless he tells us we wont know
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I'd go with the latter. There are plenty of PC games that are played by millions of people.
 
I love the people who attack the numbers. You guys probably believe that PC games make up 90% of the market which is just delusional.

I can't vouch for his numbers but PCs do in fact make up a very small portion of game sales, probably 10% or less of Skyrim's sales. I don't have the will power to dig up the real numbers (probably not released yet) just to prove to some delusional games that PC sales do in fact make up a very very small portion of sales. Also, very few of those have enthusiast level PCs that can take advantage of super high resolution textures but don't let facts get in the way or anything,
 
Sounds about right, but with the modding success of past Elder Scrolls game on the PC, I'm sure the numbers for Skyrim PC sales are significantly higher... :rolleyes:
If gaming companies weren't profiting from PC sales, then they would stop making PC games... and that obviously hasn't happened.
 
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UtopiA said:
Sounds about right, but with the modding success of past Elder Scrolls game on the PC, I'm sure the numbers for Skyrim PC sales are significantly higher... :rolleyes:
If gaming companies weren't profiting from PC sales, then they would stop making PC games... and that obviously hasn't happened.
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Truth is that all the developers can really afford is to allocate a couple of people to port over the console versions to PC. Any more effort is simply wasting money.
 
KazeoHin said:
The facts. Read them.

The next time someone acuses my of "pulling numbers out of my ass" I'm not going to react so patiently.
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I hope you don't include me in this but can you see where people might get the wrong idea in your previous post? You were citing all kinds of figures but there was no frame of reference or source material of any kind in that post.

Now you've provided it. Thanks. :)
 
Q-BZ said:
I hope you don't include me in this but can you see where people might get the wrong idea in your previous post? You were citing all kinds of figures but there was no frame of reference or source material of any kind in that post.

Now you've provided it. Thanks. :)
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You responded to my statements with skeptical, but logical questions instead of attacks, respect earned.

To all the rest: try to do some studying on your own before you accuse others of not doing so.
 
It's one thing to accept the reality of (enthusiast) PC gaming, but it's another to use that as an excuse to bend over and accept a sub-standard product just because we don't really count for much of the market. Not that I'm saying Skyrim is substandard - I haven't even bought it yet - but it's quite common to see complaints about PC ports being responded to with some variation of "that's just how it is now, put up with it".

Yes it takes extra effort for a thorough PC port, but as far as I'm concerned if they're going to charge as much for the PC game as for the console versions (with their additional platform licensing costs) then I expect that money to go towards creating a quality PC experience.
 
Staples said:
I love the people who attack the numbers. You guys probably believe that PC games make up 90% of the market which is just delusional.

I can't vouch for his numbers but PCs do in fact make up a very small portion of game sales, probably 10% or less of Skyrim's sales. I don't have the will power to dig up the real numbers (probably not released yet) just to prove to some delusional games that PC sales do in fact make up a very very small portion of sales. Also, very few of those have enthusiast level PCs that can take advantage of super high resolution textures but don't let facts get in the way or anything,
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Who said anything about the PC game market being 90%? At least you admitted to making up that 10% figure, which is probably why it's wrong. According to this chart of retail sales for the week it launched shows the PC version with about 15% of sales. Considering that steam and other DD services aren't included and all console sales are retail I would say that 15% is much lower than reality. When you also consider that it's a steamworks game and that many of the week one sales most likely went to steam so people could preload and play right at launch and that PC games (ES games in particular) continue to sell well for longer I would say that "10% or less" statement is delusional.
 
KazeoHin said:
You responded to my statements with skeptical, but logical questions instead of attacks, respect earned.

To all the rest: try to do some studying on your own before you accuse others of not doing so.
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Maybe next time actually provide proof beforehand...

Also can someone cite the page of that report with that data? I am not seeing it.
 
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Ebernanut said:
Who said anything about the PC game market being 90%? At least you admitted to making up that 10% figure, which is probably why it's wrong. According to this chart of retail sales for the week it launched shows the PC version with about 15% of sales. Considering that steam and other DD services aren't included and all console sales are retail I would say that 15% is much lower than reality. When you also consider that it's a steamworks game and that many of the week one sales most likely went to steam so people could preload and play right at launch and that PC games (ES games in particular) continue to sell well for longer I would say that "10% or less" statement is delusional.
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The 10% figure is actually very generous to PC gaming, the division may be different from game to game, as we see with TES, week 1 sales boost the PC share up slightly. You can clamor and claw at little victories in PC gaming, but please understand that PC gaming has a smaller share of the total market than the iPhone, or Nintendo DS. If you don't accept that, than you'll just be angry and disappointed with every release: which seems to be a trend with PC 'gamers'.
 
KazeoHin said:
The facts. Read them.

The next time someone acuses my of "pulling numbers out of my ass" I'm not going to react so patiently.
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Valve refuses to share Steam sales data with the NPD. Hell, the NPD only suggested that they'd start tracking digital downloads earlier this year. Can you see a problem with your report now? Don't worry, I'll be patient while you figure it out.
 
jaegertech said:
Valve refuses to share Steam sales data with the NPD. Hell, the NPD only suggested that they'd start tracking digital downloads earlier this year. Can you see a problem with your report now? Don't worry, I'll be patient while you figure it out.
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This is exactly why I asked where that data was...there is a huge percentage that is due to digital sales that is not directly shown there.
 
jaegertech said:
Valve refuses to share Steam sales data with the NPD. Hell, the NPD only suggested that they'd start tracking digital downloads earlier this year. Can you see a problem with your report now? Don't worry, I'll be patient while you figure it out.
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That is an ESA report, not an NPD report, in fact, not trying to argue with this, but I've never heard of the NPD. I live in Australia, that may change things. Edit: Just saw the NPD referenced charts in the report. I have now heard of them!

Steam choosing not to share sales data only goes on to harm PC gaming, removing it of vital 'power' by splitting the medium's numbers. The other side of the coin is that Valve is trying to hide unimpressive figures. As Skyrim is a Steamworks title, there is no real way to discern if Steam as a medium really contributes to the global figures of PC game sales. I can give the anecdotal evidence that few of my customers have even heard of Steam, even the ones purchasing game-oriented rigs.

And please cut it with snide attitude. I'm not trying to offend anyone with my posts*. I'm giving numbers and supporting my points: you should try it.

MavericK96 said:
Maybe next time actually provide proof beforehand...

Also can someone cite the page of that report with that data? I am not seeing it.
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I simply thought that these numbers were common knowledge. I was wrong.

Page 10. "Video Games" are consoles (PS3 and Xbox360) and "Computer Games" are PC software. It is set up to be understood by investors and publishers, so it doesn't quite match with our vernacular.


*With the exception of my next sentence.
 
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