So I am incredibly excited, and I've been reading reviews for Skyrim all morning. One thing I've taken particular note of, is the number of hard freezes, or lock-ups, that the various reviewers are reporting. In his review, Brad said he had experienced four lock-ups during his time with the game. Justin McElroy, over at Joystiq, said he had five. These occured over a period of roughly sixty hours for both reviewers.

That number is pretty high. However, these incidents were apparently not enough to make a large enough impact to affect score, as both Brad and Justin ended up giving the game five stars.

How do you guys feel about these hard freezes? Are they enough to make you think twice about Skyrim? Or will you diligently save, and prepare for the inevitable, in order to get your RPG fix?

For me personally, I hate crashes, but I played Morrowind on the Xbox, dude. That game locked-up on me twice a day, and I still put hundreds of hours into it. Plus, the fact that the game apparently keeps your last three autosaves should help.

Happened in Fallout 3 and Oblivion for me too. It doesn't bother me since I play on PC and quick-save a lot. A LOT.

Kind of expected with a Bethesda game. I had the same problem with Fallout 3. Just have to save a lot more often.

4 lock ups in 60 hours. hardly even worth mentioning imo.

In comparison to Fallout: New Vegas, four or five lockups ain't nothing!

I dont think the game should get a pass just because "Y'know.. Bethseda". but i think it should get a pass because of the Scope that it covers. 4 or 5 lock ups in a 50-60 hour period when the amount of different activities that have been made available is a real achievement.

No, it doesn't put me off the game, but I am disappointed with Beth. This kind of thing if persistent can totally ruin a players immersion in a game world, and the same can also be said for severe texture pop-in, which I've seen first hand in the console version. I bought the PC version thinking I could avoid these issues, that's why I'm slightly pissed.

I expect it will be remedied soon.

Bethesda game is buggy. Who would have saw that coming?!

It isn't that many in the broad scheme of things, but I've played plenty of games -- as in, most games -- where it never locks up. It's unfortunate to see this is the case, but think of it as a metagame!

Who will win in the battle between a gamer who is forgetful about saving and a game that is prone to locking up? Thrill as half a hour of traveling across the world vanishes in the flash of a hard reset!

Realistically though, with autosaves being so prevalent, it probably won't be a big deal. I remember a fair number of games back in the early days of issues like this, Morrowind for example, where I stopped playing a game permanently after neglecting a save and losing 3-4 hours of play as a result of a lock up.

Skyrim has lock-ups. Meanwhile, the sky is still blue; grass is still green; and North Korea is still pissy. :P

Bethesda shouldn't get a pass on bugs like this, but 4-5 lockups in 60+ hours won't really be spoiling my enjoyment of the game. I can imagine that a patch will be released in days if not hours to address this.

Nothing compares to the 4 or 5 crashes in a single day I used to get with New Vegas.

Fallout 3 for the PS3 crashed all the time. I hated it.

If it's 4-5 times over 60~ hours, then it's fine.

Been playing (without issues) for about three hours so far on X360. And I can already say it's my GOTY without thinking twice.

@Ravenlight: I'm pretty sure I heard Todd Howard, or some other Bethesda Softworks bigshot say they're working on a 0-hour patch. So yeah :)

It autosaves like crazy and you al ways quicksave often, 4-5 crashed in 60 hours will not impact your enjoyment all that much.

Bethesda as usual.....................

ABS Always BE Saving also there have been Updates for Elderscrolls before the game has even unlocked at least steam has downloaded some for me.

I can't really say about joystiq, but a Giant Bomb 5-star review is basically 'A game we can recommend without reservation.' I believe Brad thinks that way about Skyrim. The perfect game doesn't exist, so of course there will be problems, but you can still recommend without reservation. If a problem like that is considered a reservation then no game would ever get 5/5 or full marks.

4 in 60 hours? I've had like 15 in 35 hours in BF3. I still couldn't care less though.

4 freezes in 60 hours, especially when he was probably playing at least 7 hours at a time, is hardly an issue.

Considering the fact that you have 3 autosaves, you won't loose too much progress.

Fuck 4 freezes, that shit doenst even count. Sounds like the most stable game they have ever done. You need some 80s-90s pc gaming experience to temper your expectation. Christ there were a lot of games that wouldnt even load. You'd spend 8 hours trouble shooting shit to no avail. You were prob lucky if that shit ever got patched.

@JakeTaylor said:

Happened in Fallout 3 and Oblivion for me too. It doesn't bother me since I play on PC and quick-save a lot. A LOT.

This.

You spend hundreds of hours in these worlds. And yea. There are so many random things that can kill you. Saving often is part of playing the game.

been playing 8 hours non stop and no freezes yet

Yeah, like I said, I don't think these freezes are gonna trip me up at all. Just wondering what everybody else thought. Good to know that I'm not the only one that thinks that a few freezes here and there are annoying, but tolerable in a game with such a large scope.

Bethesda