Dawnguard’s Finally Out on PC, But PS3? Well...

@Lazyaza said:

@OneManX said:

@avidwriter said:

@Sooty said:

It's 2012, the PS3 has been out 6 years and this multi-million dollar studio still can't code for it yet.

Pretty pathetic.

I think it rathers show just how badly Sony made their PS3. This isn't the first nor I bet the last game to have trouble on the PS3. Sony fucked up, simple.

While I agree with the idea, it's crazy for Bethesda to STILL shit the bed on PS3, and other studios have little to no problems, when ported to PS3.

Not every studio has the convenience of having found or been able to train employees to code for PS3 this generation.

Not every studio does extremely well critically and financially when they release a product like Bethesda where they could get the resources to do so.

@Adaurin: Man, either you're trolling, or the worst Bethesda apologist ever. Especially for a major studio that had multiple years to work on this game, it's completely unacceptable to not have content ready. They released a broken PS3 version of the game. I think fans give them too much leeway because they create an extraordinary amount of content.

I don't even play these games. As a consumer, they'd already have burned my good faith, anyway. I just wish that they'd just done the same thing for the disc itself on PS3.

A quote from 4chan that helps explain why open world games suck to make on the ps3

@DeF: Almost half [RAM] is used on the XMB. :( I really wish this is the last time I work on ps3.
Crysis 3 like all the others will be a (big) corridor shooter. Which is why it will probably look better. They always call those games sandboxes but not really.

Yeah open worlds on ps3 are hell for multiplatform development. Third person is fine since you dont need high res assets seen up close, but first person is just unforgiving.
Imagine that everything that needs to be loaded in memory at any given time (14Km draw distance) needs to fit in 135MB of mem, that includes characters, npcs, textures, environments, scripted events, skybox, weather systems, weapons, sfx, fx, post process, simulations. A single weapon can cost upto 2MB

Bringing it back to GTA, as an example, people think that classic bug in GTA where all the cars around you are your own, or when you see like 50 of the same vehicle/taxi, not really a bug, that means theres not enough mem at that instance to have any other car type, so the other cars are just instances of yours (lower cost).
In shooters when NPCs use the same rifle you do, same deal.

@morrelloman said:

I would have revisted this if I had played it on 360. Lesson learned. I am never going to play a newly released bethesda joint on PS3. Tho I must say I did not have any issues with New Vegas. I also played new vegas for 20 sometihng hours and not 80.

I played New Vegas for 50 hours on the PS3 and I didn't run into any major problems that would typically stick in my brain if I felt particularly burned by them. Maybe that was actually a decent port job by Black Isle.......I mean, Obsidian (that is, assuming they didn't outsource the port)? Don't know why I thought Black Isle there.

i fell asleep waiting for it to download :p

And once again, we hit up against the walls of Sony's absolutely awful design decisions in nearly everything they do, specifically the split RAM pool on the PS3. I'd imagine that Cell is less of a problem for Bethesda. But knowing how the game handles certain assets dynamically and concurrently with world streaming and ability/item caching, it's a wonder they every got this game to work at all for PS3.

And, of course, you begin to think about the tradeoffs that could be made to improve this situation, and it becomes apparent what Sony's design decisions and the extended console cycle have done to screw everything up this bad. They could have specifically architectured the game around fitting within the PS3's piddly RAM pools, and lost some of the performance enhancements gained in the other platforms when able to cache world data and player-related assets. Or they could across-the-board reduce the LOD distance on the PS3, conserving memory and possibly increasing performance while uniformly creating a worse-looking game than either counterpart overnight.

It's a pickle.

And once again, we hit up against the walls of Sony's absolutely awful design decisions in nearly everything they do, specifically the split RAM pool on the PS3. I'd imagine that Cell is less of a problem for Bethesda. But knowing how the game handles certain assets dynamically and concurrently with world streaming and ability/item caching, it's a wonder they every got this game to work at all for PS3.

@Zelyre said:

Using your car analogy, a Honda Accord with v-tec yo will smoke a v8 muscle car because it red lines at 9k rpm instead of 6k rpm.

God damn it. I made it through this whole thread reading stupid posts left and right without it phasing me, and then someone goes full retard about cars.

Come on GB. Come on.

I just hope Sony learns something from all of this for their next console release. Considering their past it's hard to say whether they will or not.

This should surprise nobody

Wow, this is dumb. I wish they would fix the already present frame rate issues on the standard game. Never buying a Bethesda game on PS3 again.

@MattyT said:

@Adaurin: Man, either you're trolling, or the worst Bethesda apologist ever. Especially for a major studio that had multiple years to work on this game, it's completely unacceptable to not have content ready. They released a broken PS3 version of the game. I think fans give them too much leeway because they create an extraordinary amount of content.

I don't even play these games. As a consumer, they'd already have burned my good faith, anyway. I just wish that they'd just done the same thing for the disc itself on PS3.

Oh, I'm not saying Bethesda is not at fault. It's a combination of their laziness combined with the difficulty to work with the PS3 that every other company has researched and worked on since it came out.

If Bethesda of all companies will not release something due to it being a buggy mess you know it's in horrible shape. I'm surprised they didn't get sued for releasing a beta version of Skyrim to the public.

Dawnguard on PC! I'll check it out

@Zelyre said:

@GERALTITUDE said:

Is it me or does paying 19.99 for the PC version feel... off. The availability of mods really changes things for me.

You know, I would have tossed Bethesda $19.99 without a moment's hesitation.

If the DLC came out at the same time as the 360 version.

However, Brad seems to be the only person out there who thought the DLC was any good. Every other critic thought it was pretty meh.

While I bought all the FO3/NV DLC, I did not pay full price for most of it. Just the stuff that reviewers really liked.

So, I guess the DLC exclusivity is good for saving me money, at the very least.

Take what Brad says with a grain of salt. During the GOTY discussions he was almost typical-forum-fanboyish and apologetic about anything involving Skyrim to the point of straight up denying claims made by tons of people. Brad really loves the game, and thats fine and actually pretty great that he can get so much enjoyment out of it, but probably not the best objective source on the subject.

@Etnos said:

@Cataphract1014 said:

@nomtank said:

Whelp, that settles it. I'll be switching to a gaming PC for the next generation of consoles. I'm sick of this garbage.

Get ready for horrible ports that can't run on your system that is 10x more powerful than the consoles.

Still PC exclusives make it for it 10x better

Actually having a super powerful PC you spend a ton of money on and getting PC exclusives such as Total War or Sins of the Solar Empire is not all that satisfying to me especially since I am not into those genres. I like third person platformers, shooters and the like - none of which have seen a good PC exclusive in ages. My friend got me Just Cause 2 for PC as a gift and the control scheme is almost unplayable on a keyboard to the point where I broke down and ordered a wired 360 controller on the cheap.

well at least they didn't approach it with the, release it and fix it later ideals. Still as a PC player I think the PS3 crowd has really gotten the shaft on Skyrim stuff.

Well, this is a much better way to run their business than releasing Dawngaurd in the broken state that Skyrim was in the beginning. After I heard about the Xbox 360 exclusivity I didn't think about this DLC much knowing it would be a ways off; another couple weeks won't bother me.

I haven't played Skyrim in a few months, maybe it's time to build up a character in anticipation of a new quest line.

This is just another example showing us, if you have the choice, not to buy Bethesda games on PS3.

Honestly Bethesda needs to make Dawnguard free for PS3 users, they already got a greatly inferior product and many can't enjoy the game. It would be great pub for Bethesda and it's not like they'd really lose that many sales of Dawnguard for PS3.

I guess Skyrim should've just been a PC and Xbox exclusive game. I guess it sucks for PS3 owners, as a proud owner of the PC version I've never had any issues with the game and have played nearly 200 hours. One of the best games in recent memory for me.

@AwkwardLoser said:

Honestly Bethesda needs to make Dawnguard free for PS3 users, they already got a greatly inferior product and many can't enjoy the game. It would be great pub for Bethesda and it's not like they'd really lose that many sales of Dawnguard for PS3.

Wouldn't be surprised if it shows up for free on PSN Plus. Be a good way to generate some goodwill while still making money off Dawnguard.

Bethesda is a such a shitty company.

@C_Rakestraw said:

@AwkwardLoser said:

Honestly Bethesda needs to make Dawnguard free for PS3 users, they already got a greatly inferior product and many can't enjoy the game. It would be great pub for Bethesda and it's not like they'd really lose that many sales of Dawnguard for PS3.

Wouldn't be surprised if it shows up for free on PSN Plus. Be a good way to generate some goodwill while still making money off Dawnguard.

It'd also bump up the incentive to get PSN+, though, the ball is in Sony's court to make that happen. Highly unlikely, Bethesda would want to give something like Dawnguard for free.

@mrpandaman said:

@C_Rakestraw said:

@AwkwardLoser said:

Honestly Bethesda needs to make Dawnguard free for PS3 users, they already got a greatly inferior product and many can't enjoy the game. It would be great pub for Bethesda and it's not like they'd really lose that many sales of Dawnguard for PS3.

Wouldn't be surprised if it shows up for free on PSN Plus. Be a good way to generate some goodwill while still making money off Dawnguard.

It'd also bump up the incentive to get PSN+, though, the ball is in Sony's court to make that happen. Highly unlikely, Bethesda would want to give something like Dawnguard for free.

True. Or at least not at launch. Might be more receptive to the idea down the road, get more people to give it a shot after most have forgotten about it.

If you're not playing it on PC you're doing it wrong anyways. I'm not just saying that because my name is white, but it's just better on PC. It's very scalable and recommended card is only a gtx 260. That card is like $80 now. Plus mods and steam workshop.

@Adaurin: Yeah, other companies have had difficulty with the hardware. But, it's been six years. Nobody can play the "the system's too difficult to work with" card anymore. For crying out loud, even Gabe Newell ate it on that excuse a year ago.

It's not like this is Bethesda's first game on the system. It's what, their third? fourth? If everybody else can learn the system by now, Bethesda certainly can. I get it, they have larger install bases on PC and 360, so they take precedent. But, either skip a PS3 version so you can learn the system better, or come straight out and say right away that you're not releasing the game for PS3. Either way, it's 2012 - we, as gamers, should not be subject to consistently broken content, especially from a single publisher.

As broken as Dawnguard is on the 360, Bethesda must be counting frames per minute with the PS3 version.

Seriously the 360 version wasn't ready for primetime, why take that out on PS3 owners.

@JDillinger said:

Bethesda is a such a shitty company.

People will continue to defend then and the gaming press will keep on sucking their cock.

@algertman said:

@JDillinger said:

Bethesda is a such a shitty company.

People will continue to defend then and the gaming press will keep on sucking their cock.

I wouldn't go as far as to say the gaming press is sucking their cock but the continued excuse of "well these are huge open worlds and it's Bethesda so par for the course that the game has a ton of bugs; Game of the Year 5/5" really needs to stop at some point. It was a valid excuse in Morrowind, still held up in Oblivion but Fallout 3 they should have already had this shit somewhat figured out and Skyrim shouldn't even be a discussion. Then the excuse of "despite game breaking bugs the game is a ton of fun so that's why it got a high score" which is dubious as other games in similar situations had gotten 3's at most. Stiff animations, lackluster story, non engaging combat, ton of quest/game breaking bugs - there's a point where you have to look at the cold hard facts.

there is no excuses, they never should had released a broken game, which had some of the same issues that were present in Bethesda's previous PS3 releases, really pathetic & last time i buy any Bethesda game as new again.

I read a book once on optimizing code for the PS3. The fact that anyone can get anything working at all on a PS3 impresses me. God help you if something's not quite right, 'cuz there's basically a near-infinite number of ways you can recompile your entire codebase to try and find a way to divvy up your processing between those 6 SPEs that will work better for any given problem. Maybe the dev tools that would help you figure out where your processing bottlenecks are have gotten better since then, but I'd be surprised.

While it is probably true that a big studio like Bethesda, with lots of resources and dev experience would have an easier time of it, sometimes no amount of skilled resources you can throw at a problem will help you against the voodoo that happens when the PS3 just outright decides it doesn't like you. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt in this case.

I've been a fan of Bethesda games ever since picking up the extremely foil-covered box of Daggerfall. I gotta say, I'm just happy they made it out of the 90s and still make video games. Their reputation for bugginess is definitely consistent and well-deserved, but I think it's balanced by their reputation for building giant worlds full of minute details, history, and opportunities to actually role play.

I do wish they'd stop courting the mainstream though, and get back to the weird non-standard fantasy we saw in Morrowind. Imperial province and Skyrim have their charm, but they are definitely in the popular fantasy area, just like a vampires expansion is.

@umdesch4: I recall that also being the gist of a section in Carmack's keynote. He feels the 360 is tapped out, while there's still potential to wring more from the PS3 because of its complexity and scaling. Granted this is a man that eats two bowls of Complexi O's for breakfast. :) Although I believe he also said flat memory architectures were the way forward in graphics development, and PS3 is split into 256+256.

I shudder to think what would've happened to this generation if Epic hadn't convinced Microsoft that putting 512 (instead of 256 total) in the box was crucial. Major Nelson would be talking up memory expansions (included with Kinect, guys!) and Donkey Kong 64 references.

The DLC is still pretty "Meh" so PS3 owners have nothing to really worry about. I'm going to be completely honest here a mod called Moonpath to Elyswer, in my opinion, was better made. The ONLY good thing about Dawnguard is the Vampire Lord and even then it still shackles you with the shitty limitations of being a vampire.

Also I've had 4 crashes to desktop, so it's all par for the course with their shitty quality control. An army of brain-dead chimps could probably do a better job than Bethesda's QA team.

guess I'll wait a bit longer to buy Skyrim then

How come it's only ever Bethesda that has problems coding for PS3? Every other cross-platform developer/publisher seems to get it to work.

@Humanity said:

@algertman said:

@JDillinger said:

Bethesda is a such a shitty company.

People will continue to defend then and the gaming press will keep on sucking their cock.

I wouldn't go as far as to say the gaming press is sucking their cock but the continued excuse of "well these are huge open worlds and it's Bethesda so par for the course that the game has a ton of bugs; Game of the Year 5/5" really needs to stop at some point. It was a valid excuse in Morrowind, still held up in Oblivion but Fallout 3 they should have already had this shit somewhat figured out and Skyrim shouldn't even be a discussion. Then the excuse of "despite game breaking bugs the game is a ton of fun so that's why it got a high score" which is dubious as other games in similar situations had gotten 3's at most. Stiff animations, lackluster story, non engaging combat, ton of quest/game breaking bugs - there's a point where you have to look at the cold hard facts.

Bugs, I can handle. The continual simplification of the Elder Scrolls series on the other hand. Lets just say Skyrim's as far as I go.

I have no problem waiting if they spend the time actually fixing bugs. Last thing we need is another 6 month long memory leak.

Skyrim has more than enough content anyways.

Title should of read:

Dawnguard’s Finally Out on PC, But PS3? Oh Well...

Is this out on PS3 yet? I should get my copy back from my brother soon