Have you downloaded Skyrim's 1.2 update yet? Might want to hold off on that, as according to Elder Scrolls 5 community members, the patch actually causes more problems than it resolves.
Released yesterday, update 1.2 theoretically sorts out a few minor issues (arrows and spell projectiles getting lodged in your body) and at least one major bug - the infamous Xbox 360 texture bug, whereby playing the game from hard drive results in a caching issue which causes low quality textures to appear.
Here's the complete list of patch notes, as detailed on Bethesda's forums.
# Fixed issue where textures would not properly upgrade when installed to drive
# Fixed issue where projectiles did not properly fade away
# Fixed occasional issue where a guest would arrive to the player's wedding dead
# Dragon corpses now clean up properly
# Fixed rare issue where dragons would not attack
# Fixed rare NPC sleeping animation bug
# Fixed rare issue with dead corpses being cleared up prematurely
# Skeleton Key will now work properly if player has no lockpicks in their inventory
# Fixed rare issue with renaming enchanted weapons and armor
# Fixed rare issue with dragons not properly giving souls after death
In the wake of the patch's release, however, some players have claimed that promised fixes haven't been implemented. One irate user insists that the texture bug is actually worse, persisting even when playing the game from disc. Here are some off-screen pictures, apparently showing how textures degrade before and after opening a menu.
The usual caveats apply. Many of these problems may be unique to certain systems - older Xbox 360 models can be temperamental - and some have been blown out of proportion by players who can't seem to see the wood for the trees. A significant, silent majority of players have yet to experience issues, or at least none they consider worth reporting. In a game of Skyrim's scope, with so many possible chains of cause and effect, technical hiccups are sadly inevitable.
That said, these are clearly troubled times for the inhabitants of the frozen north. So what can we do about it? Not much, alas, but here are some starting points.
One Bethesda forum user has claimed that clearing the Xbox 360's cache, erasing your saved games and starting from scratch negates many of the post-bug faults. It's hardly the most desirable solution, but you might want to try this if you're only a few hours long of the title screen (or you're sick and tired of the character you've become).
At the risk of trading on expertise we don't have, it's possible there's a legacy issue whereby loading data created pre-patch causes bugs to persist after installing the patch.
Another, somewhat more radical solution involves downloading Skyrim's 1.1 patch to a PC, transferring it to a USB stick and installing it on top of the 1.2 patch. We can't recommend this, as it requires that you get hold of third party data management software, but here's the appropriate thread and a Yahoo Answers post if you're desperate.
We've tapped Bethesda for comment, and will update this article as and when we get a reply.
UPDATE: Bethesda has apologised for the errors, and says you can expect an "incremental fix" next week.
53 comments so far...
Bezza89 on 1 Dec '11 said:
The only people that will post in problem forums are people with problems, no one is going to post 'The game is working fine', as such it seems the game is full of bugs! I have no problems at all with the game, I had the texture problem, but that has been sorted now, and everyones faces seem dirtier in Riften as a result.
I have fought three dragons since patch, no flying backwards. I have fought a few wizards, and I get raped like I did pre-patch. Though I noticed my nord didn't get hurt much when I was attacked by frost, I noticed when my 2nd horse froze, keeled over and died while I was on it (epic). I have no other resistances because I'm hard.
But this is like every bethesda game I've owned, never any problems, none that are detrimental to the experience in any way. Not even free gold glitches. I reckon it's the minority who have problems, but seeing as they're the only ones who would post (and quite right, it must be annoying), they seem like the majority.
msbhvn on 1 Dec '11 said:
I've had a few glitches, most of them hilarious and none of them severe enough to require more than a reload, like the dragon soul not being absorbed bug. I noticed the texture glitch has been fixed, my character's hands have scaled gloves on them now instead of grey rubber ones.
I had problems with fire resistance before the patch. I'm playing a Dunmer who is naturally 50% fire resistant and has boots with a 50% fire resistance enchantment and I still got hurt by fire traps despite supposedly being immune to fire. I haven't played much since yesterday afternoon, but I'll see how fire affects me post-patch.
One patch isn't going to fix everything, the additional bugs are unfortunate but they'll get it right eventually. I'm still having fun and that's what matters.
Bezza89 on 1 Dec '11 said:
Maybe it is 75% immune? Fireballs absolutely slap me, where'd you get the boots from?
Cokney Charmer on 1 Dec '11 said:
The 1.2 patch has clearly made a mess of the game for a whole bunch of people across multiple platforms, but what is more shocking is that a full 24hrs over it going live, Bethesda have yet to comment on this new problem inducing patch, Xbox Support have yet to pull this patch despite the full gaming media coverage reporting on its problems
Before the patch I found some bugs that prevented me being able to complete some of the quests I was doing, so had to load an earlier save, wiping out up to an hour of gameplay and going back in and bypassing that quest...which was annoying.
My plan is to take a back up of my most recent save game, then remove all things Skyrim from my console and let the game collect dust till all these problems get sorted.....which considering the media attention its getting, Bethesda and MS will be under great pressure to correct it rather then ignore it
msbhvn on 1 Dec '11 said:
I bought 40% fire resistance boots from the Khajiit camp outside Whiterun, then found some 50% boots in random loot, I think. I picked Dunmer because I think they're cool, but also because I thought the fire resistance (nerfed from 75% in Oblivion) would protect me from dragons, then they started breathing ice.
75% resistance doesn't make sense, I get that it's 50% plus 50% of 50%, but in Oblivion your resistance was the sum total of values of your resistant items and abilities, and I don't think it's changed.
kronk10 on 1 Dec '11 said:
There is only one thing that i am having trouble with and i am completely lost! I want to buy the house in windhelm but i cannot because something nasty happened there. I should be able to go to windhelm at night time and start the "blood on the ice quest" which will help me buy the house but it just will not trigger at all. I have done everything everyone has told me to do but nothing happens, I will give it anouther go tonight but this and a few other quests bugs are annoying me to the point where i have turned the xbox off and watched tv or done some DIY or housework! Crap that might be a good thing
Caligulove on 1 Dec '11 said:
So far from what I've seen the patch has fixed pretty much all of the problems listed above (ones I'd encountered anyway).
There are two things still niggling me though, firstly shooting arrows downward from a ledge almost always doesn't work as the arrow gets stuck on an invisible wall sticking out from the ledge. And secondly glitches that prevent you completing misc objectives, such as when I cut a Dark Elf witch down from a spider web and helped her to escape the dungeon she would always get stuck at the entrance.
Similar stuff has happened during a few other misc objectives (usually when it involves people following me) that fair enough aren't game breaking but are really frustrating to someone with completionist ocd.
Grummy on 1 Dec '11 said:
I had problems with it too. Did you find the Amulet in the house you need it AND one of the butcher posters in your inventory? I had to sell the amulet to the collector dude, which I didn't at first. then I had to speak to the nosey old bag who is putting up those posters about the butcher to find out about the Jarls mage. at that point you can either A tell the Jarl or B confront the mage. I confronted the mage, and he told me he was innocent, told me to patrol that night, which I did, then I found another murder aobut to happen, stopped it, killed the butcher then reported to the Jarl or his governor or whatever.
Sorry, I know this explanation isn't the best so I'll try and itemize it instead
1)Get both Amulet and Butcher Poster from house
2)Take Amulet to Collector dude, ask all questions, sell him the amulet
3)Talk to the nosey old bag, ask all questions
Now you have 2 possible paths:
Path A
4) Confront Jarls Mage, ask all questions. Do what he tells you (patrol near Blacksmiths quarters at night)
5) Stop the murder (if you can) and chase/kill butcher
6) Report to the Jarl/Steward
Path B
4)Tell the Jarl about the Mage
5)Wait a couple of days until another murder occurs
6)Go speak to Mage in dungeon
7) continue from Path step 4.
At that point you can buy furnish the house etc.
As for the patch, I haven't DL'd it yet, but I haven't needed to either, I didn't have a single problem in the first place.
arranhiggs on 1 Dec '11 said:
Basic maths say that the first 50% will be applied first, then the second 50% applied afterwards. Say you got hot with 100 fire damage, it will be 50, then the second 50% is applied, so its 25 that you would be taking. So you're actually 75% more resistant than if you were 0%. Hope this helps
msbhvn on 1 Dec '11 said:
Fire resistance is an attribute your character has, every time you equip an item that has a resistance enchantment, its value gets added to the total, then when you get hit by fire, you receive that damage less your resistance percentage. If your items and abilities total 100% you receive no damage. At least, that's how it worked in Oblivion.
Things might have changed in Skyrim, or as I suspect, something is wrong with how the effects are applied. The item description says "increases your fire resistance by 50%", implying it should be added to the total rather than applied separately.
If it were applied as you say, the only way to get 100% fire resistance would be to have an item with a 100% enchantment. In that case, what's the point of making Dunmer 50% resistant if you can't make up the difference?
STE MO on 1 Dec '11 said:
Not had any real problems apart from one dragon didin't give me a soul and another didn't disintegrate. Touch wood
everything seems fine.
msbhvn on 1 Dec '11 said:
Before the patch came out, I came across Alduin resurrecting a named dragon and the column of blue stuff and the dragon skeleton stayed there unmoving with an energy bar that I drained with fireballs. Easiest dragon fight ever!
whelly1985 on 1 Dec '11 said:
im yet to have any problems- mind you i have never had a problem with any bethesda games (fallout 3 fallout nv) even though they were supposedly bug ridden, i havent dowloaded it to hd yet but dont know whether i will, this game is absolutely unbelievable- stunning and brilliant in everyway
Jet Thrust on 1 Dec '11 said:
married mjoll the lioness but she wont follow me as she believes that somebody else is with me at the moment. theyre not, Lydia got nuked and Faendal is nowhere to be seen so that might count as a 'glitch'. maybe not
apart from that its been all smiles and twinkly things for the past 85 hours. lucky i guess
didnt download to hd and have avoided 1.2 patch tho to be fair.
wishface on 1 Dec '11 said:
You do realise that makes no sense.
Bezza89 on 1 Dec '11 said:
'extrapolating from what you read on a tech forum isn't a sound way to gauge the technical integrity of a product as a whole. It's not like people go around starting threads like "comment here if you haven't experienced a game-breaking bug'
I found that quote by our resident Ed, who can write articulate paragraphs much better than I do.
CunningSmile on 1 Dec '11 said:
Makes sense to me. The only people who say anything are people with problems and so it seems every one you talk to has a problem, even though they may be a very small minority. You never hear from the majority of people who aren't experiencing any bugs because they are too busy playing, and loving, the game. This goes double if the forum is a specialist tech problem forum, because that's a forum set up especially for people to talk about problems. It's like visiting Eton school and afterwards declaring "...100% of people are wealthy and educated..."
kronk10 on 1 Dec '11 said:
I had problems with it too. Did you find the Amulet in the house you need it AND one of the butcher posters in your inventory? I had to sell the amulet to the collector dude, which I didn't at first. then I had to speak to the nosey old bag who is putting up those posters about the butcher to find out about the Jarls mage. at that point you can either A tell the Jarl or B confront the mage. I confronted the mage, and he told me he was innocent, told me to patrol that night, which I did, then I found another murder aobut to happen, stopped it, killed the butcher then reported to the Jarl or his governor or whatever.
Sorry, I know this explanation isn't the best so I'll try and itemize it instead
1)Get both Amulet and Butcher Poster from house
2)Take Amulet to Collector dude, ask all questions, sell him the amulet
3)Talk to the nosey old bag, ask all questions
Now you have 2 possible paths:
Path A
4) Confront Jarls Mage, ask all questions. Do what he tells you (patrol near Blacksmiths quarters at night)
5) Stop the murder (if you can) and chase/kill butcher
6) Report to the Jarl/Steward
Path B
4)Tell the Jarl about the Mage
5)Wait a couple of days until another murder occurs
6)Go speak to Mage in dungeon
7) continue from Path step 4.
At that point you can buy furnish the house etc.
As for the patch, I haven't DL'd it yet, but I haven't needed to either, I didn't have a single problem in the first place.
Not really gonna help me as i cannot get in the house ? its locked and needs a key and the jarls slave boy wants to sell the house but cannot? The NPC's in windhelm are talking about the murders happening but i cannot trigger the quest. I make regular trips to windhelm but it just will not work. I have had problems with the quest "repairing the phial" as well, where you need to collect briar harts among other stuff but that is also broken! I love this game but it is getting annoying
Grummy on 1 Dec '11 said:
How? How does that not make sense? It makes perfect sense, a person isn't going to post in a problems forum to say 'everything is fine'. If you only look at the forums where problems are raised then it DOES seem like something is riddled with problems because all the people there are talking about them, but it is a one sided view of things as people who don't have any problems aren't there to actively say so.
To put it another way, those who have a problem are the ones who complain and talk the loudest, those who are happy and have no problems, don't say much at all.
Grummy on 1 Dec '11 said:
Kronk, stupid question mate, but has the Jarl given you permission to buy a house yet?
As for the quest itself,
1) You need to got to the graveyard and find people standing around a body to get things started
2) Speak to a guard
3) Speak to Jarleif
4) Speak to a guard again
5) go to the hall of the dead and speak to Helgrid
Also, Tova Shatter-shield has a key I believe, so try pickpocketing it to let yourself into Hjerim.
OXM JamSponge on 1 Dec '11 said:
How come? It makes sense from where I'm standing - I think it's a fair point to be honest.
EDIT: Hadn't clicked onto page 2 - it seems plenty of people have beaten me to the question!
danb95 on 1 Dec '11 said:
Only problem i have had with the game is some dragons not giving me souls after they die.Apart from that no problems so must be lucky.
Furie on 1 Dec '11 said:
Had the exact same problem. I Fus Ro Dah'd her through the exit to the cave. Amazingly it worked.
comabob on 1 Dec '11 said:
Dragons youve already killed before hand dont give out souls OR fade away - so that might not be a bug...
kronk10 on 1 Dec '11 said:
Yep got permission to buy the house so i ask the jarls steward or whatever he is and he says he would love to sell me the house but h ecannot as something messy happened there? but it will be available soon! So i have done everything in my power to get the "blood on ice" quest to start, left and re-entered windhelm 4 times at night at about 2 am ish. I have fast travelled and entered normally arriving throught the gates at 2 am exactly i have even randomly been there contless times doing other quests and nothing has happened at all? and this kind of thing has happened on other quests etc i do not have trouble with anything else other than quest bugs and its driving me mad!
Grummy on 1 Dec '11 said:
try pickpocketing Tova shatter-shield then, see if that works. Could always try pickpocketing Jarlief too.
comabob on 1 Dec '11 said:
anyone been through Alftand yet?
CHIEFRAPTOR on 1 Dec '11 said:
Can't put books on my bookshelf in breezehome
Bezza89 on 1 Dec '11 said:
3/4 shelves work fine for me, but the one in the living room, top shelf doesn't work. My first bug... this game is BROKEN!!
Grummy on 1 Dec '11 said:
Ages ago. That Dwemer undercity is my favourite place in Skyrim. Sooooo Beautiful.
comabob on 1 Dec '11 said:
ive been told Blackreach is the prettiest place in the game but i havent found i yet...
STE MO on 2 Dec '11 said:
God damn it I spoke too soon. I spoke to a dog in the game and he said that I have to follow him and reunite him with his master. Upon entering the cave I fought a bunch of Vampires! I mean come on talking dogs and vampires and I even contracted vampirism disease or something like that, it must be broke. LOL
Grummy on 2 Dec '11 said:
This has pretty much been fixed already.
I pm'd Ed about it yesterday, but I don't think they had any word form Bethesda at the time, Beth HAVE since commented on it.
I was chatting to a friend on SKype yesterday and he loaded up his PC game to see the patch version had been updated to 1.2.1.2 or somesuch, indicating a further fix. Well Beth have hit up their blog to mention that this new fix is trickling through on Steam, but consoles have to wait longer for Microsoft/Sony to clear it etc etc.
TL:DNR? Give it a few days and it'll be fixed properly.
kronk10 on 2 Dec '11 said:
I have double checked last night and 3 or 4 quests are still bugged and now i am getting other problems with the magic resistances. I am a nord with 50% resistance to frost i have other frost resistance armour on and potions. So when a frost dragon starts attacking me with frost breath my health drops big time i have to keep drinking loads of health potions everyfew seconds just to stay alive???? so i decide to see if worked in reverse and bam frost breath shout almost takes half of dragons health away??? but its a frost dragon so it should not hurt it much ...................... Bethesda really have dropped a stinker with this patch but not being able to complete quests etc in RPG game is the killer for me it just defeats the object entirely
ATATCCU on 2 Dec '11 said:
A thought or two and I've no particular axe to grind. Do developers get the urge to rush the game out into the public domain because of the ground being lost to other AAA releases. Are they also starting to run out of developing money and think 'sod it, Joe Public can be our beta tester for the Alpha game. We'll let them discover more bugs than we're ever going to in the limited time left to us and we'll just 'patch fix 'em to death' like we mean it. After all, they keep coming back for more so must be hooked on Skooma or something equally exotic!
For shame Bethesda....good sneaky tactic though!
Bezza89 on 2 Dec '11 said:
Skyrim is a massive, deep game with literally no linearity. The cost of fully testing a game for each 50+ Hour (let's be honest - 100-200 hours) with so many variables would take millions upon millions of pounds not to mention years to do.
Somebody posted this in the other thread, it's very generalised but it puts the point across.
http://www.360magazine.co.uk/the-mouth/ ... p-whining/
wishface on 2 Dec '11 said:
Why on earth would you want to read a discussion about the problems with the game to be told there are people that don't have those problems?
Who cares if some people aren't having problems. That's not a subjkect for discussion. The fact that, yet again, another AAA title with considerable problems has been released is. And yet again the gaming media sits on its hands. Why not pursue the developers about these issues? No, lets have an article about how many wives you can marry. FFS, do your jobs! Stop making excuses for this. Game after game after game. I can't remember the last time something was released that wasn't full of issues. It's beyond a joke and it's the players that are affected.
So what if you're not having problems, stop trolling then and carry on with the game.
wishface on 2 Dec '11 said:
Really that's just an excuse. IT's not like they have 2 people working on it in their bedroom you know.
And that's also why we pay them money to buy the product.
To release a patch that makes things worse is just inexcusable. You wouldn't tolerate this in any other industry, so why here.
Bezza89 on 2 Dec '11 said:
The point is it's a select number of people with a select few problems.
But I guess you're right, the game I've had no problems on is completely broken, why did I even buy it? (Sarcasm)
I don't think the industry thing is fair, computer games coding/etc is much different to say, baking bread, putting a film onto DVD/Bluray, or making a car. In the industry, does all software come out bug free? Well my iTunes, web browser and plug-ins constantly updates... so does my computer and the drivers... All to fix minor issues.
OXM JamSponge on 2 Dec '11 said:
It's hardly trolling, wish - as was pointed out originally, it's helpful for gauging just how widespread the problems are.
I've experienced a number of glitches during my time with the game, but none of them have been irritating enough to stop Skyrim from being one of the best games I've played in years. We're certainly not ignoring the fact that people are having wider issues, but I don't really know what you expect us to do?
Sure, we could spend all day trying to get people to boycott Bethesda until they stop releasing games that contain so many bugs, but I don't think that would be much fun for anyone. In the short term, I'd personally rather read about people having fun. In the long run, I definitely don't want Bethesda to be pushed into a corner in which they feel they have to deliver bug-free games. The outcome of that is simple: Less ambitious games.
Most of us love gaming because we love having fun. We're not oblivious to the issues at hand, but we're not going to focus on them exclusively either.
wishface on 2 Dec '11 said:
How is someone saying they don't have a problem in a thread about problems going to be helping? They are trolling. Who honestly thinks it's productive to traduce a problem by implying that, because they don't experience it, it's not that serious?
Skyrim seems to have some pretty serious issues right now. This isn't acceptable. Unfortunately it has now become the industry standard.
I didn't say anyone should boycott anything. I said that the gaming media should do its job and start holding these developers to account and not scoring their games, as was the case with MW3, high scores for shoddy work.
SidTheSloth on 2 Dec '11 said:
And where perchance did you happen to read the 'gaming media's' job description?
Surely any magazine, publication or broadcasters role is to report, and namely in an unbiased fashion? Not chase companies demanding answers on the whim of readers. Bethesda have their own forums for reporting bugs. OXM have reported there's bugs, they've reported bethesdas acknowledgment and indeed apology for the bugs, what else is it exactly you're after?
Quite frankly you're saying no-one should boycott anything, but if you're so deeply unsatisfied both with this game and the industry as a whole - as you repeatedly post on pretty much every thread - then surely thats exactly what you should be doing? I bought an LG phone once and it was shit, chances of me buying another? Zero.
Bezza89 on 2 Dec '11 said:
If you are referring to me wishface, I'm not trolling, I'm trying to reassure people that the game isn't broken and it is quite rare to come across a serious bug so it shouldn't put you off buying the game. Imagine if this thread was full of people complaining, no one would buy the best game out this year.
KernowDevil23 on 2 Dec '11 said:
http://www.arrse.co.uk/attachment.php?attachmentid=55149&d=1321002269
Maverick_McCool on 2 Dec '11 said:
Wishface , stop playing games , seriously , it's obvious you don't enjoy the hobby and seem to use the whole game industry as an excuse to vent your anger , be it at the games , or the people who put together this magazine / website and to be frank , it's f**king boring now.
I could list a hundred examples , from claiming SF4 can't be played on a controller , to claiming the Black Ops DLC review was irrelevant because the reviewer hadn't actually paid for it and now Skyrim is broken as well.
Honestly , if you hate games that much , do your self (and others) a favour and take up another hobby , as it's plain you just can't get on with gaming.
KernowDevil23 on 2 Dec '11 said:
Was the image I posted not big enough?!........
Maverick_McCool on 2 Dec '11 said:
What image?
wishface on 3 Dec '11 said:
Then there's no point in having a gaming media. I can read reviews on metacritic if that's all I want. Reviews from people that have played the game, not from people whose reputation is questioned by other people on this thread and dependent on making money. What's the point of having a media if it isn't going to ask questions of lazy game developers and publishers.
wishface on 3 Dec '11 said:
But for some people that game is broken. So all you are doing is trolling.
KernowDevil23 on 3 Dec '11 said:
Wishface, surely even you can see the irony and hypocrisy of your "trolling" comments?!...........
wishface on 3 Dec '11 said:
Except I'm not trolling. This is a thread about skyrim bugs. What did you think it was about?
lovinit on 3 Dec '11 said:
I have put a fair amount of effort into the game so far and hadn't really experienced any bugs at all... other than losing a few books when placing them on a book shelf.... Since the patch though i've seen a fair few more, most notably coming out of a cave and a Blood Dragon almost landing on my head but being so badly rendered that it resembled a blob with wings...
not game breaking but still a little annoying as i didnt come across any any before..
KernowDevil23 on 3 Dec '11 said:
I'm not referring to just this thread.
Your whole posting style and general outlook on the gaming industry is borderline trolling in my opinion. I honestly can't recall you having anything positive to say about any game. EVER......Which always leaves me questioning why you would bother to play games at all.
Sure if we all want to nitpick at games, music, movies and media in general, we could all complain to some degree but not everyone is searching for the level of perfection that you seem to yearn for. Most of us just look past certain discrepancies in the name of fun which after all, is why we all play games isn't it?