The Elder Scrolls: The XVII Princes of Oblivion

[Keltest]

so.....weird thing that happened with my skyrim SE cloud save on Steam.

the cloud save says its only saved as far back as February 3. okay. probably normal.

the weird thing is my local files say that I last saved on Wednesday december 31, 1969. which I'm pretty certain is impossible.

my skyrim se is modded, so it makes me afraid that somehow skyrim SE doesn't remember the modded saves and if I pick local it'll be overwritten so that they don't work anymore but I don't want it to be overwritten by the cloud save either. is there something I should do, or am I worrying over nothing?

If you're concerned, you can turn off your internet and run the local save. It won't be able to reach the cloud to override it.

[veti]

so.....weird thing that happened with my skyrim SE cloud save on Steam.

the cloud save says its only saved as far back as February 3. okay. probably normal.

the weird thing is my local files say that I last saved on Wednesday december 31, 1969. which I'm pretty certain is impossible.

I turned off cloud synching years ago, but...

The date is suggestive. It's the day before the start of the POSIX/Unix epoch, which is the earliest date (the "day zero", if you like) that can be natively stored in many types of computer system without conversion tricks.

So I'm guessing there's a timestamp that's stored as an integer, counting the seconds since 00:00:00 on 1 January 1970. And some bright spark had the idea that, in the event of some kind of condition that would stop them from checking the exact time, they would simply put "-1" in this field as an error code.

And the person who coded the function that converts the integer back into a human-readable timestamp was unaware of this possibility, and didn't put in any special handling for it.

So - I doubt if it's anything to do with mods. It sounds like a bug in the Steam server programming, and the fact that I can't find any other reports of it suggests it's a pretty obscure one. And I don't see why it would cause anything else to be overwritten, although if you're worried, it costs nothing to make a local backup.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

ESO is having a free play event right now (as in, you can make an account and play the base game for free until the event ends). It’s scheduled to last until the 26th.

[Lurkmoar]

I turned off cloud synching years ago, but...

The date is suggestive. It's the day before the start of the POSIX/Unix epoch, which is the earliest date (the "day zero", if you like) that can be natively stored in many types of computer system without conversion tricks.

So I'm guessing there's a timestamp that's stored as an integer, counting the seconds since 00:00:00 on 1 January 1970. And some bright spark had the idea that, in the event of some kind of condition that would stop them from checking the exact time, they would simply put "-1" in this field as an error code.

And the person who coded the function that converts the integer back into a human-readable timestamp was unaware of this possibility, and didn't put in any special handling for it.

That programming is also why certain games expired in the Playstation Network store.

[veti]

So, after ten years, three major versions and more than 6000 hours* playing Skyrim, today I discovered there's a back route up the mountain to Bleak Falls Barrow.

I wonder how much else there is I've never found yet?

I remember being excited when I found the shortcut from Whiterun to Ivarstead. And the back door into Solitude - that took me a few years to find. But there's still corners I haven't paid much attention to.


* According to Steam, anyway. That'll be a slight overstatement because a fair bit of that time was spent on pause screens while I was (e.g.) cooking dinner, minding children, or sleeping, but it's still a lot.

[Anteros]

That's....a lot of hours. Like almost a full year of playing Skyrim. I think my most played game now is about 200. I'm impressed with your attention span.

[Imbalance]

Morrowind just turned 20.

[LibraryOgre]

Morrowind just turned 20.

Absolutely not.

<old man grunts as he stands up to run away from your lies>

[halfeye]

Morrowind just turned 20.

What does that make Dungeon Master (1987)?

[Aeson]

What does that make Dungeon Master (1987)?

Thirty-four.

[veti]

Morrowind just turned 20.

I'm amazed it's so young...

Skyrim is over 10. And TES7 seems to be developing at the speed of nuclear fusion.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

I'm amazed it's so young...

Skyrim is over 10. And TES7 seems to be developing at the speed of nuclear fusion.

Second this. There is hope though; the Zenimax Loremaster was recently replaced because they moved him to another project.

[Fyraltari]

I'm amazed it's so young...

Skyrim is over 10. And TES7 seems to be developing at the speed of nuclear fusion.

I mean, we've already been waiting for TES VI for a while, sonyou really shouldn't hold your breath for VII.

[Rynjin]

I'm amazed it's so young...

Skyrim is over 10. And TES7 seems to be developing at the speed of nuclear fusion.

Assuming you mean VI, you do realize it hasn't been "developing slowly", right?

It hasn't been developing at all. They've all been working on Fallout 4, then '76, and finally Starfield, the latter because they wanted a break from making games for the same two IPs one after another.

There's a basic concept in mind but they really only threw that out there to assure people that yes, TES VI would happen...but it was never going to be any time soon.

[Anteros]

because they wanted a break from making games for the same two IPs one after another.

Considering that the Bethesda team in question has made exactly one Fallout game and zero Elder Scrolls games in the last decade+ that's a pretty lame excuse. ESO was outsourced to another studio, and 76 was Bethesda-Austin which was a newly acquired studio that they slapped their name on and has nothing to do with their main team.

The truth is just that Bethesda has gone the way of other previously high quality game studios when they realized it's easier to coast on past success and brand recognition than actually make good content.

[Rynjin]

Considering that the Bethesda team in question has made exactly one Fallout game and zero Elder Scrolls games in the last decade+ that's a pretty lame excuse. ESO was outsourced to another studio, and 76 was Bethesda-Austin which was a newly acquired studio that they slapped their name on and has nothing to do with their main team.

...Yes, because they put in-house development of both franchises on hold to make Starfield, as I said.

7 years is not an egregious amount of time to make a game, and isn't even out of line with how long it has taken them to make other games in their existing IPs (it was nearly 6 between Oblivion and Skyrim, for example).

[Ortho]

Considering that the Bethesda team in question has made exactly one Fallout game and zero Elder Scrolls games in the last decade+ that's a pretty lame excuse.

That's a bit misleading. 11 years ago, Skyrim was released, and later this year Starfield will be released. If you extend your date range by six months in either direction you'll find another game in there.

[veti]

The truth is just that Bethesda has gone the way of other previously high quality game studios when they realized it's easier to coast on past success and brand recognition than actually make good content.

They seem to have never fully stopped working on Skyrim. First porting it to platform after platform, then upgrading the flagship PC version - twice, now.

And I'll give them credit, both the upgrades have been good. Oldrim to SE was a massive improvement in performance, stability and aesthetics. SE to AE was horrible when it rolled out, and the performance improvement is much more marginal, but now that it's had a few patches - and I've figured out how to excise the crappy CC content - it's left me with another slight boost.

I assume the thinking was that whenever 6 does appear, it doesn't have to endure the shock of a platform upgrade at launch, because they've already done that part.

[Anteros]

...Yes, because they put in-house development of both franchises on hold to make Starfield, as I said.

7 years is not an egregious amount of time to make a game, and isn't even out of line with how long it has taken them to make other games in their existing IPs (it was nearly 6 between Oblivion and Skyrim, for example).

You just don't really get to claim you're burnt out on working on something you haven't touched in 11 years. If they made that comment a decade ago they would get less grief for it.

Well...you can...but people are going to realize it's obviously silly and call you on it. They're welcome to do whatever they want with their time, but as a consumer who is evaluating them for potential future purchases they don't look good.

Also, 7 years is a ridiculous amount of time to make a game. Fromsoft has released 7 AAA titles in the time since they made Skyrim. Mass Effect took 3 years. Even your example of Oblivion was only in development for 4 years. It was longer from Oblivion to Skyrim but they made Fallout 3 and 4 in that time. The fact that they haven't churned out a decent game in a decade is incredibly concerning. Even if you're the rare person that considers Fallout 4 to be good, we're still going on twice as long as usual between releases.

That's a bit misleading. 11 years ago, Skyrim was released, and later this year Starfield will be released. If you extend your date range by six months in either direction you'll find another game in there.

Well, yes....that's how ranges work....they end at the end.

It's not like I'm cherry picking the number to make them look bad anyway. It's been over a decade.

[Rynjin]

You just don't really get to claim you're burnt out on working on something you haven't touched in 11 years. If they made that comment a decade ago they would get less grief for it.

Well...you can...but people are going to realize it's obviously silly and call you on it. They're welcome to do whatever they want with their time, but as a consumer who is evaluating them for potential future purchases they don't look good.

Also, 7 years is a ridiculous amount of time to make a game. Fromsoft has released 7 AAA titles in the time since they made Skyrim. Mass Effect took 3 years. Even your example of Oblivion was only in development for 4 years. It was longer from Oblivion to Skyrim but they made Fallout 3 and 4 in that time. The fact that they haven't churned out a decent game in a decade is incredibly concerning. Even if you're the rare person that considers Fallout 4 to be good, we're still going on twice as long as usual between releases.

Yeah, look, I love FromSoft games. But they've made the same game on the same engine repeatedly for a long time. That cuts down a lot on dev time.

...And even then, it took them 6 years* to make Elden Ring after DS3. Because it takes a long time to make an open world game.

7 years is not, and has never been, "a ridiculous amount of time to make a game". Not every company is Ubisoft or EA who **** out an annual title apiece for 3 different franchises every year.

(Also no...Fallout 4 did not come out before Skyrim, but why let facts get in the way?)

*Before you mention Sekiro, I'm fairly certain it was made by "the B Team" (the same team that made Dark Souls 2), not the "A Team" who made Demon's Souls, Dark Souls 1/3, Bloodborne, and Elden Ring. IIRC they're the team that usually works on Armored Core, but there hadn't been one of those in a while.

[Anteros]

Are....you trying to argue that Bethesda doesn't remake the same game? Cause otherwise you don't have much of a point there. They've been doing the same thing since Morrowind at least. You could even make an argument for Daggerfall.

Elden Ring started development in 2017 since we're being nit-picky. So 5 years at most if we discount Sekiro for some reason despite it being excellent and half Fromsoft's games coming from that team.

As for studio A vs B, it doesn't really matter to me how a company allocates their staff as long as they're putting out good products. Something Bethesda hasn't done since 2011.

[Rynjin]

Are....you trying to argue that Bethesda doesn't remake the same game? Cause otherwise you don't have much of a point there. They've been doing the same thing since Morrowind at least. You could even make an argument for Daggerfall.

Significant upgrades in most technical regards, but sure. The main thrust of my point being that open world games take a ****ing long time to make. Bethesda is not taking, as I mentioned, the Ubisoft route of making a carbon copy of the exact same game, in the same map, with identical mechanics, and identical side content, with a token "new" (and that's debatable since they've been trying to chase that Vaas high for over a decade now) plot plastered over. If you genuinely believe Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim are the same game, you need to maybe actually play them.

Elden Ring started development in 2017 since we're being nit-picky. So 5 years at most if we discount Sekiro for some reason despite it being excellent and half Fromsoft's games coming from that team.

Sekiro gets discounted because I was humoring your own point about '76 and ESO being made by different teams.

{{scrubbed}}

Game development takes a long time. That's it. That's really all there is to it.

[Keltest]

Significant upgrades in most technical regards, but sure. The main thrust of my point being that open world games take a ****ing long time to make. Bethesda is not taking, as I mentioned, the Ubisoft route of making a carbon copy of the exact same game, in the same map, with identical mechanics, and identical side content, with a token "new" (and that's debatable since they've been trying to chase that Vaas high for over a decade now) plot plastered over. If you genuinely believe Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim are the same game, you need to maybe actually play them.



Sekiro gets discounted because I was humoring your own point about '76 and ESO being made by different teams.

But at this point it's clear that you're not actually trying to have a conversation since you're actively discarding and contradicting your own assertions to try and achieve some kind of "dunk" on the company you have a hate boner for.

Game development takes a long time. That's it. That's really all there is to it.

Youre right, it does take a long time. Which is why game development typically starts much, much earlier than 10 years and change after the previous game was released.

Lets not pretend that the time gap has anything to do with the game development process here, they just haven't been working on it. Which is fine, thats a perfectly valid decision to make, but its not one that needs excuses being made for it either.

[Rynjin]

Youre right, it does take a long time. Which is why game development typically starts much, much earlier than 10 years and change after the previous game was released.

Lets not pretend that the time gap has anything to do with the game development process here, they just haven't been working on it. Which is fine, thats a perfectly valid decision to make, but its not one that needs excuses being made for it either.

Which game are we talking about?

TES VI? Absolutely, they haven't been working on it. That was my entire point in this conversation. It's why I literally started with that.

I'm amazed it's so young...

Skyrim is over 10. And TES7 seems to be developing at the speed of nuclear fusion.

Assuming you mean VI, you do realize it hasn't been "developing slowly", right?

It hasn't been developing at all. They've all been working on Fallout 4, then '76, and finally Starfield, the latter because they wanted a break from making games for the same two IPs one after another.

There's a basic concept in mind but they really only threw that out there to assure people that yes, TES VI would happen...but it was never going to be any time soon.

Because they've been in the process of making other stuff, primarily Starfield, which they announced in 2018. They'd probably been working on it for a couple of years before that, after they were done making FO4 and its DLC (the last of which released in late 2016). We know it was already planned, since it was trademarked in 2013, but probably took a back seat to FO4's development.

Whether they'll start working on it after Starfield is also another matter, but regardless, this isn't an "excuse"...it's an explanation.

It's just absolutely bizarre to act like they've been working on NOTHING just because they haven't been working on the exact thing you want them to make.

[Imbalance]

By all means, keep arguing, but I just booted a 20-year-old game and am loving it all over again. Have fun, though.

[Anteros]

Significant upgrades in most technical regards, but sure. The main thrust of my point being that open world games take a ****ing long time to make. Bethesda is not taking, as I mentioned, the Ubisoft route of making a carbon copy of the exact same game, in the same map, with identical mechanics, and identical side content, with a token "new" (and that's debatable since they've been trying to chase that Vaas high for over a decade now) plot plastered over. If you genuinely believe Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim are the same game, you need to maybe actually play them.

Well, if Ubisoft if your standard, no wonder you think Bethesda is doing fine. Personally, "better than ubisoft" is not the convincing argument you seem to think it is. And yes. Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim, Fallout 3, and Fallout 4 are all basically the same game with different skins slapped on it or guns inserted for bows. They do change the map. I'll give them that. They're at least as similar to each other as Fromsoft games which was your original example.

Sekiro gets discounted because I was humoring your own point about '76 and ESO being made by different teams.

{{scrubbed}}

Game development takes a long time. That's it. That's really all there is to it.

These are two different points. {{scrubbed}}

Point one: It's ridiculous to claim that you're burnt out on something that your studio hasn't touched in a decade.

Point two: Bethesda as a whole has not released a high quality product since Skyrim in 2011.

I'm not actually that invested in the Elder Scrolls. If Starfield is a good game I'll be happy with them. Do I expect Starfield to be a decent game given their recent track record? Absolutely not.

[LibraryOgre]

The Mod Ogre: Oooh, boy, did I take the wrong time to gloss over this thread. Let's lock it for a bit and see what needs a mini-nuke applied by a Fat Man, shall we?

The Mod Edit: Ok, looks like there wasn't too much that needed attention, just some folks who forgot that Destruction school practice must take place off Collegium grounds. Illusion practice may happen at the Collegium, such as the charm spell I'm casting to make you all ignore my Fallout, rather than Elder Scrolls, reference in the initial post.

Play nice, kitties. Remember, this is a clean fight, so no claws, no Destruction spells (especially not Flames).

[LibraryOgre]

By all means, keep arguing, but I just booted a 20-year-old game and am loving it all over again. Have fun, though.

I played through it a couple years ago and it really was lovely. I'm pretty sure I used a mod that turned the aggression Cliff Racers way down, but I view that as a quality of life kind of mod.

[Vinyadan]

Assuming you mean VI, you do realize it hasn't been "developing slowly", right?

It hasn't been developing at all. They've all been working on Fallout 4, then '76, and finally Starfield, the latter because they wanted a break from making games for the same two IPs one after another.

There's a basic concept in mind but they really only threw that out there to assure people that yes, TES VI would happen...but it was never going to be any time soon.

I hope Starfield and Avowed release dates don't overlap. Avowed is Obsidian's TES-like that should come out sometime in the nex two years. There aren't that many future games I really want to play: STALKER 2, Avowed, Starfield, the System Shock UE4 remake, and, should it come to be, a Deus Ex sequel.

I'd like to say that I also want TES VI, but I actually am more stoked about the modding going on around Morrowind. OpenMW is adding Lua support, and MWSE already has it, and it's giving many new options in a setting I already love.

[Rynjin]

Avowed I'm hoping is good but sadly don't have great expectations for. The Outer Worlds was very meh, both in terms of gameplay and writing. Maybe working with an existing setting they've already made two games for will help in the latter department though.