Fallout: New Vegas - Open Letter

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Fallout: New Vegas Senior Producer Jason Bergman has posted an open letter on the Bethsoft forums, explaining the recent updates. More to come, console fixes and some bug myths:

As you may have seen, we released a patch over Steam for PC users last night. While we didn't release a full changelist, the patch contains quest and scripting fixes. It's not a minor hotfix, it contains over 200 fixes in all. We are in the final stages of testing this update on both 360 and PS3 and we hope to have them out to users very soon.

We are also pleased to say that we have just released a second fix for PC users to address the autosave and quicksave issues that some people were encountering. That particular issue was never seen prior to release and it was extremely difficult to reproduce reliably, even after the game had launched. In order to fix this problem we have had to disable Steam Cloud functionality. It has been turned off, and we won't turn it back on until we're absolutely sure it will not cause any more problems. Please restart your Steam client to make sure you get the update.

We are also working directly with hardware manufacturers to improve performance for certain video cards. This is a driver issue, and not directly related to the game.

On consoles, we are aware that a small group of 360 users are seeing a DLC warning which is preventing you from loading save games. We are absolutely looking into this bug now, along with other reports of save game corruption. It is our highest priority right now that we find out what is causing it. In the meantime, we recommend you save often, and revert to an older save if this occurs.

As far as general memory and instability, you should see an improvement once the patch goes live, but we are continuing to work on this based on user feedback.

We want everyone to know that we are monitoring the forums and cataloging every single issue we see reported. We're reading forum posts, we're checking Twitter, and we're reading Facebook comments. We aren't able to reply to most threads, but we're listening. If we see an issue, we have people here trying to reproduce it so we can fix it.

While there are definitely legitimate issues out there, we wanted to take a moment to address a couple of things that have been reported as "bugs."

The now infamous Doc Mitchell video, while very funny (and horrifying) was not a bug. Unfortunately during our launch day, there was a brief window where Steam was pushing out corrupt or incorrect files. In the event that a user wound up with a corrupt meshes.bsa file, they would get that error. It was easily (and instantly) corrected by simply re-validating your files with Steam. At most, a handful of people ever saw that issue, and even then, only for a moment before fixing it.

We have seen forum posts where people are claiming they are not getting all of their perks. Again, this is not a bug. In Fallout: New Vegas, you receive perks every other level, not every level as you do in Fallout 3.

And finally, a quick tip: Be aware of your faction status before assuming the game is broken. Factions will react very strongly to you based on your current armor. If you're wearing Powder Ganger or Caesar's Legion armor, you will be shot on sight by the NCR (and vice versa). Also note that there are groups of renegade Powder Gangers (known simply as "Escaped Convicts") who will shoot you regardless of your faction status.

Please post any issues you are having to our forums and we'll do our best to fix them as quickly as possible.

Thanks,

The Fallout: New Vegas Teams at Obsidian and Bethesda​

 

I won't be buying this game since it requires Steam. I guess they want to herd all of us PC users into playing on X-Box, since Steam has a variety of its own issues. Sorry, no. If I can't play the game as a stand-alone PC game I won't be buying. Bethesda should start considering its clients before it treats us this poorly. A few of us just won't play, regardless of how hyped your game is, until you treat us with some respect.

 

Thanks, BTA. I can PM you, if you think you can help.

 

BTA - No, it is nothing philosophical. I reinstalled it just to see if I could get it to work and it did. Suprise! It seems to be working fine after the reinstall. What I will say is that when it doesn't work, the game is just a shiny disc that doesn't do anything. It does make a good coaster for my beer though.

 

When I first start it, I still get a Windows message that says, "Steam has stopped working -- Windows is searching for a solution." But if I just cancel the message, Steam is still running. Oh, well, as long as it keeps working.

 

The problem is that pc-gamers did it to themselves for pirating so much that the industry reacted.

Steam is OK, I like it. It remains a risk.

 

I'm a PC user and I've never pirated a single PC game. As a PC gaming client, I've paid for all my retail, over-priced games.

 

Leaving aside for now whether or not PC gamers brought it on themselves, my problem is with how the industry reacted to the percieved piracy problem. The problem I have with steam or other forms of copy protection implementation is that they bother only the paying customer. The game will be cracked regardless of copy protection and after that anyone that downloads that version can play without being bothered by Steam, Starforce, SecuROM, whatever.

In the end, then, copy protection only serves to annoy the paying customer, while not stopping piracy in any significant manner.

It is a sad state of affairs that when I buy a game, I become so annoyed with the copy protection implementation that I end up downloading the game so I can play it without that rubbish. I normally avoid games with that kind of copy protection, but it increasingly seems that if I want to persist in this avoidance, I'll soon have no games to buy at all.

Not that this really bothers me, as I have a pretty large collection of old games to replay, anyway. Not to mention that I find myself having less and less time and desire to play games as well.

 

It's called the cost of doing business. Every industry has its share of scammers. I don't feel sorry for the gaming industry in the least. I come from a retail/sales background and have seen bigger scammers. A lot of custmers get free/steal stuff in retail all the time.

Lastest example from last week:

I special ordered an expensive item for a customer, which was supposed to arrive in 3 days. I got an email the next day from the supplier saying that the item may be delayed because it was not at the warehouse. I called the customer explained the situation. The response was, "No problem. I'm disappointed, but there's nothing I can do."

It turns out that the supplier went through the trouble to have the item overnighted to the warehouse, so it arrived in exactly 3 days. You think the customer would be happy? When the customer came in to pick it up, he complained that he wanted $150.00 off the cost because "the ordeal made him nervous." Really! Even though the item arrived on time, at extra expense to the supplier. Guess what? He got his $150.00 off. This kind of stuff goes on ALL the time.

THAT costs all of us as well. Who do you think pays for that in the long run?

 

Licensing fees are also higher for consoles.

 

I know people who do. Some on a large scale, one even had a side business in it.

All my software is legit, games, programs and windows. I accept all the stuff gamemakers do to prevent it. I will not use half-reasons to justify anything. Some companies go to far. I once had to remove Nero burning rom from a pc to play fallout3.

No matter how you try to justify it, It is and remains theft no matter how many loopholes local laws have. It remains theft. There is no grey area.

It is not personal Chandos.

 

NP. I did not take it that way, but only in the "PC gamers brought it on themselves." There are many PC gamers like you and me who buy our games, and the lot of us should not be condemned for what a certain group of "other" PC gamers do in this regard.

But I believe that your remarks towards gamers in general is pretty much the attitude that the industry has towards PC gamers and I believe that is, at least in part, why they treat us so poorly. The other part is that they don't know any better.

 

IMO Steam is much better than Games for Windows.

Many things in New Vegas make me think about Fallout 2. One thing is for sure, New Vegas is certainly as buggy as Fallout 2 (unpatched)...