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Ah, bugs. Whether you call them by their less colloquial name (glitches) or the thing you probably say when you encounter a particularly nasty one (“Son of a [thing that rhymes with glitch]"), they tend to rain on even the biggest games' parades. So, developers should squash 'em all and hope for the best, right? Wrong, says Skyrim director Todd Howard.
"We try to solve most of it, we're sensitive to a lot of it,” he told Joystiq. “There is a subset of that where we say 'Well, that's what can happen.' If there's entertainment value in that, whatever it is, we'll leave a lot of it. If it's gonna break the game, or unbalance the game in some way, we do try to solve it. If the solution is gonna make the game less fun ... well, hey, leave it in. It's their game."
Given that we've seen one NPC thief chased around and ultimately booted into an early grave by an entire city's population, we're inclined to agree with him. (Also, we pilfered the red-handed sap's house keys after the whole city had gotten back to doing city things. So don't let anyone tell you karma isn't real. And hilarious.)
Howard also briefly touched on the topic of an Elder Scrolls MMO. Or rather, he tepidly reached his hand in its direction before quickly snapping it back.
"I like this kind of game better," he said. "You know, it's what most of us are into. I'm not really an MMO guy. I respect them, I look at them, but I don't play them. It feels more real to me when I'm the hero and it's crafted for that. A community aspect to it, I recognize a lot of people would want that in a game like this, but it changes the flavor for me.”
And so our dreams of “UNLIMITED DRAGONS” versus unlimited players are dashed for eternity.
Comments are closed on this article
sasquatchua
September 06, 2011 at 1:56pm
Every bug fix has to be weighed against the potential other things that could break as a result of fixing it. The line of what is a "must fix" moves farther down (or up?) the further into development you are. I can't count the number of times I've heard the phrase "it's not a bug, it's a feature!" when deciding not to fix something.
Digital-Storm
September 06, 2011 at 8:17am
Like the Dead Island glitch, of pressing Y and getting no clip? It's fun!, leave it in!
shommy2002
September 06, 2011 at 4:50am
wow, it sounds like like a bunch of fanboys in here... yes, lets leave bugs in there, i can see the devs saying to themselves now..."we f*&ked up and we are too lazy to fix it, so lets say it has entertainment value and these retards will go along with our laziness"... retards
Marthian
September 06, 2011 at 5:47am
He gave reasons for doing it. He obviously has noticed the bugs, and I'll agree (to an extent.), some bugs are fun (have all the companions at once in New Vegas was fun.)
They aren't some evil publishing company like EA at least.
acidic
September 06, 2011 at 4:02am
if i remeber correctly there were a couple of an unoffical oblivion patches that came out that fixed either 13,00 or 130,000 various bugs. i guess that is a acceptable amount since it had "entertainment value". thats ALOT of entertainment we recieved for a mere $50
pcwizmtl
September 06, 2011 at 3:39am
"If there's entertainment value in that, whatever it is, we'll leave a lot of it. If it's gonna break the game, or unbalance the game in some way, we do try to solve it. If the solution is gonna make the game less fun ... well, hey, leave it in. It's their game."
I have no problem with this, for example, the 37 bars of gold in the New Vegas Dead Money DLC. Obviously a glitch, but makes it a cool added bonus and takes some kind of timing, skill and precision to obtain.
Like they said, as long as the bug doesn't break the game and make it unplayable, it's all good if they leave it in
Holly Golightly
September 05, 2011 at 11:26pm
Wow... If that is how he and other developers feel... That glitches are alright, it just makes me question the quality of gaming we are to expect in the future...
Brad Nimbus
September 06, 2011 at 11:37am
I agree. Why should we accept glitches in games when we pay top dollar to play them?
Holly Golightly
September 06, 2011 at 9:09pm
Exactly! With the vast fortunes they make from us gamers, they could afford some better software engineers to fix out the problems.
LatiosXT
September 06, 2011 at 7:55am
If it weren't for glitches, some of Valve's finer moments wouldn't have existed.
Holly Golightly
September 06, 2011 at 9:11pm
The fact is, these top dollar games should be released fully prepared and fully functional. This is one of the many problems that turns away many people from PC Gaming. It just needs to work.
Coldrage
September 06, 2011 at 5:42am
Wow, how about you stop posting your retarded comments on MPC and get a life?
Holly Golightly
September 06, 2011 at 9:12pm
How about you get a life and shut up! You are by far the most dumbest troll on cyberspace. Be gone.
Maktaka
September 06, 2011 at 1:04am
Yes, that's exactly what he said: buggy games are a good thing.
How's about you read the article and then comment?
Holly Golightly
September 06, 2011 at 9:14pm
But buggy games are NOT a good thing, no matter how you put it. When you pay top price, you expect the best quality product. Glitches take away from that quality. Meaning you get less value for what you paid for. How about you start reading twice before you judge others.
AKShockwave
September 05, 2011 at 10:42pm
That's awesome, I agree with it. But if that's the case, they should have left in the duplication glitch in Oblivion. That was tons of fun.
