Glitches are a part of the Elder Scrolls charm. They are a fact of life, like death, taxes and Mission Impossible sequels. No matter how much one game improves upon the last, there are always a bajillion glitches, and it never seems to stop them from winning awards and garnering widespread praise.
Dorkly mocks this phenomenon with a sequence of highly hilarious (and highly fictional) internal development memos that show how Skyrim‘s programmers got a little, well, out of control. Here’s a taste:
We forgive the Elder Scrolls their glitches because of the sheer scope of the games. When you can go almost anywhere, do almost anything and never run out of quests, the occasional floating horse is no big deal. And we embrace these glitches because of their community-building aspects. Hoards of nerds relish the opportunity to find, document, share, exploit and create memes based on glitches stumbled upon in this world for which we share a passion, even an obsession.
Sometimes they are fun, like floating objects in Morrowind. Then again, sometimes they are infuriating, like when my female elf became a vampire in Oblivion and her face transformed into a dude’s face (on a female body) and then the old witch lady who was supposed to cure me locked herself in the basement and wouldn’t come out. Man, that was a bummer.
Now I invite you to share your Elder Scrolls glitch stories in the comments. I know you have them.
Via Kotaku
Tags: Bethesda, Elder Scrolls, Skyrim
I’ve heard a lot about these glitches and have been playing (PC) since the day of release and have yet to have one glitch yet other’s suffer endless glitches.
Weird.
The only thing I’ve noticed so far, is the flying mamoth while killing a dragon as I played last night. It was rather funny to watch this huge beast “hang in mid air” while I disposed of the blood dragon. The only other thing I’ve encountered is when my huskarl “Lydia” [ who looks incredible in ebony armour btw ] simply refused to enter a mine. Then there was the time I had to shout her off a roof..But that is another story.
So far in Skyrim, I’ve only experienced a floating horse, which is kind of awesome. But since the Oblivion incident, I will never experiment with vampirism again.
Playing on PS3 : At release, lag, and lots of it. Freezing/crashing, and infinite load times. Post patch, better, hasn’t frozen again, yet. But I am locked out of Solitude. I have seen animals drop from the sky now and again, had a horse fly out from under me while dismounting, poor thing was launched off into the valley to its demise
I had a Dragon Priest freeze against a wall (that worked in my favor, took it out easily) but the biggest irk was loseing saved game files saying the data was “currupted” setting me back 7-8 lvls and all together loseing new characters I had started. Fun game, still love it, still playing it.
Horsie, no!
On PS3, I’ve had a number of the usual freezes, crashes and whatnot, plus flying horses, dead dragons dropping from the sky for no reason, etc., but the goofiest glitch I’ve seen has got to be when my follower Aranea disappeared on me. This was not, in itself, unusual, as followers often have trouble with route finding. But when I went back to find her, I found she was lying flat on her back. I assumed she had died in an encounter with some miscellaneous wildlife, but when I went to retrieve the equipment she was carrying, found that she was very much alive. She could talk and interact as usual, but stayed laying flat on her back and would even follow me around, sliding around as though I were pulling her on a toboggan. I eventually tired of the situation and dismissed her from my service. My wife and I howled in laughter as she slid feet first into the distance…
I just had shadowmere. Just walk out from under me. I truly, am in awe of this glitch. Only downside is, what this glitch may mean…..