Fallout dev focusing on 360 save bug fix

By Wesley Yin-Poole Published 22 October, 2010

"Save often."

Bethesda Softworks has told Xbox 360 owners to save often while playing stonking great open world RPG Fallout: New Vegas as it works to fix a bug that prevents gamers from loading save files.

"We are absolutely looking into this bug now, along with other reports of save game corruption," senior producer Jason Bergman wrote on the official Bethesda forum.

"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."

Bethesda's already released a patch containing over 200 fixes through Steam for the PC version. It's "in the final stages of testing" and will be available to download for the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions "very soon".

Fallout: New Vegas – out in the US since Tuesday – has enjoyed impressive review scores, but fans have reported bugs that in some cases freeze the game and force a restart.

"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," Bergman said. "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 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."

Bergman also took the time to bust some Fallout bug myths.

The infamous Doc Mitchell video, which sees the NPC's head turning in hilarious fashion, was not a bug, apparently, but an issue to do with Steam pushing out corrupt files.

Some have complained about not getting all of their perks – Bergman reminded players that in New Vegas you receive perks every other level, not every level, as they did 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."

Phew. Glad that's cleared up.

Picture of Wesley.

About Wesley Yin-Poole

Wesley is Eurogamer's news editor. He likes news, interviews, and more news. He also likes Street Fighter more than anyone can get him to shut up about it.

Read more articles from Wesley by visiting the Wesley Yin-Poole archive page.

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Comments (49) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • RKOwned #1 2 years ago

    Is this save thing a 360 only bug

  • peteb #2 2 years ago

    How about downgrading the 9/10 until they fix this EG :-P

  • Jonny5Alive7 #3 2 years ago

    I had been wondering about that perk thing, glad I read this.

  • Deckard1 #4 2 years ago

    a patch with 200 fixes a day after release?

  • Shikasama #5 2 years ago

    Its straneg that the ability to patch so quickly and whenever you want has actually reduced the quality of games off the shelf. 'Just release the damn thing and fix it later'. MMOs seem to be able to get away with this in the public view (when games like Champions Online were released half finished it was common to hear 'yeah but its an MMO and they'll make it better over time') but console games don't.

    Is it a good thing that games get released on time only to be patched later or should the devs suck it up, delay the release and fix it first? Both ways cause a lot of bad feeling.

  • Kill_Crazy #6 2 years ago

    Only played for a few hours but no problems so far on the PS3.

  • Hog-lumps #7 2 years ago

    These days, it seems the norm for games to be patched/fixedshortly after release.

    Thats fine if you have an internet connection but I assume there are lots of people out there who don't? I suppose they just have to put up with 'buggy' games?
    Edited by Hog-lumps at 22/10/10 @ 08:40

  • Nighthawk_08 #8 2 years ago

    I have the ps3 version and it's crashed/frozen on me 3 times. I got the game yesterday and played about 6 hrs worth. Just save your game alot like the article says. I lost about half an hours worth of play (exploring). Infuriating. Can't wait for the patch. Great game though

  • Olemak #9 2 years ago

    I wonder if this will affect the inevietable face-off conclusion on which platform to get New Vegas for?

  • lucky_jim #10 2 years ago

    Oh Obsidian, why do you always do this. After reading EG's review, I was disappointed that I couldn't afford to buy this today and would have to wait until next week. As it stands, I'll pick up Vanquish and Fable 3 next week and wait a bit longer, for Fallout NV.

    From what I've read, this is bugged to hell. It shouldn't have got a 9/10 in that state.

  • GamesConnoisseur #11 2 years ago

    I read that actually all versions are buggy as hell and none escape unscathed, don't be misled that this on any platform needs far more Q/A testing.

    Still getting the game but man why does Obisidan always goddamn let themselves down on bug thing? Every time including KotoR II.

  • lennon #12 2 years ago

    I was struggling to find a key character i needed to speak to and according to the map I was spot on. Took ages to occur to me that I should maybe check to see if he was hanging from the ceiling by his ears. Top bug frustrating but made me chuckle.

    No save issues so far and great game.

  • bluem4gic #13 2 years ago

    Steam = Awesome

  • peteb #14 2 years ago

    @peteb

    Ouch, 4 negs for a slight joke. A lot of grumpy EGers about this morning it seems. I mean no disrespect to you and to your game which is by all accounts awesome. I reiterate...it was a joke. (Kinda :-P)
    Edited by peteb at 22/10/10 @ 09:17

  • deadmonkeyuk #15 2 years ago

    Started playing Fallout NV last night, great to be back in the Fallout world, but the game is missing a level of polish.

  • Ranger101 #16 2 years ago

    Obsidian need to adopt the SCRUM method of agile software development, where they always ensure that they are at release quality at the end of every functional iteration.

    Seems like they must've used a waterfall approach, leaving QA and bugfixing to the end where they have run out of time.

  • apoc_reg #17 2 years ago

    This shouldnt have been released yet. how do EG give it a 9/10 in this state!?!

  • DefendoCroc #18 2 years ago

    It does make you wonder how a game that is publicly acknowledged by the dev's as buggy got 9/10 on here, you shouldnt really rate a game on how good it will be when its actually fixed. Some of us look at these ratings when deciding to spend our cash, and right now it looks like people would be better of waiting for a few weeks to see if all these 'fixes' actaully work.
    Edited by DefendoCroc at 22/10/10 @ 09:43

  • itsfuzzy #19 2 years ago

    If i remember correct Oblivion on the 360 had similar save issues. This shouldnt be happening, down right poor effort.

  • waynenot #20 2 years ago

    "test often" - sloppy fuckers.

  • Darren #21 2 years ago

    Fallout NV didn't unlock until 2AM here in the UK so I only had a brief go on it this morning prior to leaving for work. I didn't notice any serious bugs in the 45 minutes I played it but I did see the same eyeballs-hanging-out-of-its-head glitch on the dog at the start that is shown in the Xbox 360 gameplay video EG posted yesterday!!! I never had that glitch at all in Fallout 3 (played on two formats) or Oblivion (played on three formats).

    I'm sure the eyeball glitch won't be the only bug I'll see either... Obsidian, a developer notorious for making bug-ridden games, and the Gamebryo engine which New Vegas uses, famous for its glitches, was never going to be a winning combination but I'm quite shocked at some of the bug/issues being reported on forums. Makes me wonder if Obsidian did any beta testing at all really or maybe they rushed the game out before it was completely finished?

  • homerramone #22 2 years ago

    save often.... save fucking often...

    They have capped the number of fucking saves to 100 so thats not really a fucking option is it.. fucking fuckers.

    Oh and in 2 hours of play I got stuck twice. Once in the room you start in (got stuck behind the TV) and once in the side of a hill.

    Edited by homerramone at 22/10/10 @ 10:03

  • Darren #23 2 years ago

    @bluem4gic - "Steam = Awesome"

    If you mean for quick, easy patching of games that I whole-heartedly concur! Imagine if this game had been a Games for Windows LIVE release like Fallout 3? That is infamous for its prolonged certification process and one of the reasons, I believe, why developers do not like it. As understand that GfWL is the reason why we're having to wait two weeks for the patch for F1 2010 (correct me if I'm wrong).

  • molekiller #24 2 years ago

    I think I'll wait until the goty version comes out....
    Edited by molekiller at 22/10/10 @ 10:07

  • Darren #25 2 years ago

    @homerranone - I presume the 100 save limitation is the consoles only as the PC version is also limited but to 1,000 saves.

  • slippysloppy #26 2 years ago

    Played this very briefly last night and my immediate impressions was there was a huge amount of screen tearing and the villain looked like the lead character in Alpha Protocol but the story started off great. The mark of Obsidian, bugs and flaws, uninspired design but great stories.

    It's a shame the engine is so dated but I can live with that, I assume that's why Obsidian are passed the keys so Bethesda can work on a new game engine for the next generation of Fallout. Looking forward to playing this but hope the bugs don't ruin the game like they have for some reviewers.

  • yupyup #27 2 years ago

    "Bethesda's already released a patch containing over 200 fixes through Steam for the PC version."

    "...before assuming the game is broken"

    Can't imagine why anyone would jump to that conclusion.

  • arcam #28 2 years ago

    So while the devs focus on patching, management focus on intimidating sites into pulling bad reviews.

  • Spence1115 #29 2 years ago

    I've been playing the 360 version for a couple of days now, and I've ha no slowdown, no crashing, no glitches at all. The only bug I've seen is a generic NPC typing on a non-existent keyboard/typewriter, which is known about and has no remote affect on the game as I'm never gonna see that guy again anyway.

    So far deserving the 9/10, though I imagine the save game bug would annoy the hell out of me if that happened, but I expect that'll be fixed pretty damn fast anyway so not too fussed yet.

  • slippysloppy #30 2 years ago

    @arcam

    Quite surprisingly Gamespot gave Vegas an average review (7.5) yet there's New Vegas advertising all over their site. I've never seen that before.

  • kinky_mong #31 2 years ago

    Played for two hours last night and it already crashed my 360 once.

    And that cunt Rocky stole most of my caps at a card game where I had no idea what was going on.

  • TVoJ #32 2 years ago

    @Darren

    No the pc version also has a 100 save cap. that is unless they uped it with the recent steam patches as I have not updated it.
    Edited by TVoJ at 22/10/10 @ 10:30

  • ZizouFC #33 2 years ago

    Update for Xbox 360 is out.

  • niroe #34 2 years ago

    Just got the update myself

  • Darren #35 2 years ago

    @TVoJ - I was so sure I had 1,000 save slots when I saved the game manually this morning. It was very early when I played it though, pre-massive caffeine intake, so I accept I might be mistaken...

  • Xardan #36 2 years ago

    Im glad i didnt pre-order such a mess of a game.

  • Sunyavadin #37 2 years ago

    I installed to HD because after 10 hours of playing, it was taking about 5 minutes to load each area transition.

  • mcwildcard #38 2 years ago

    "We've fixed the PC version and we're nearly done fixing the Xbox version. That's everything cleared up I guess. PS what? I'm sorry, I can't hear you, I'm distracted by this huge wedge of cash I've been given for exclusive DLC."

  • chrisola #39 2 years ago

    i was finishing up the Alien DLC for Fallout 3 last night -- realised my main save file is at 138 hours and i still don't have the visit every location achievement (although once the Alien one is done i have done all the quests i think).

    Playing on 360 and I think it may have crashed a couple of times if any at all --- only slight bug i remember was launching the caged super mutant into orbit with a fatman :p (and the repellent stick which you can't drop!) -- although the frame rate is awful on the Alien ship and i remember it being awful during the attack with the Iron Giant guy helping.

    I'll still get stuck into NV tonight but a dodgy save file bug is one thing i won't put up with, no matter how much i love Fallout.

  • darkmorgado #40 2 years ago

    @arcam

    That duckandcover thread is such bullshit. It's been made up by biased fanboys butthurt that Bethesda took over the Fallout franchise.

  • arcam #41 2 years ago

    @darkmorgado

    No it's not, it's based on tweets from the founder of Bitmob.com (Dan Hsu) and from the gaming editor of Ars Technica (Ben Kuchera). Unless they are the butthurt fanboys you are talking about?

  • telboy007 #42 2 years ago

    Will all the whiney bitches please stand up, open the door and fuck off. Thanks. :)

    Played this for a bit last night, nothing amiss so far accept for a Bighorner standing in a fence at an angle. Thought the gfx looked slightly better than FO3, but only slightly. Good start though, playing on hardcore so should be interesting.

    Glad they're fixing the game, even though they should have delayed the release a bit as they were obviously working on these fixes for a while now. They must have seen them as defects they could live with. Thanks for that!
    Edited by telboy007 at 22/10/10 @ 13:42

  • Pacman8MyGhostkart #43 2 years ago

    @Slippsloppy

    7.5 is not average!

  • 32768Colours #44 2 years ago

    I know these games are epic in scale, and because of that there may be the ineitable bug here and there, but when fundamental requirements such as saving are bugged there's got to be something very wrong with their QA process.

    When was the last time anyone bought a CD and found that the guitars were missing from a particular track, or bought a film to find the faces of all the actors lacking any texture!

    Software developers are to my mind the only people that can regularly get away with this "get it out, patch it later" approach and it's simply not right. It creates a disparity in the quality of a product based solely on whether or not you have an internet connection and the HDD space (your HDD space) to download it. Are people who are not online legally entitled to these fixes to a faulty product and if so, how are they provided?

    If they are not entitled to it, does this mean that the game being sold should be considered faulty and would this be grounds for a recall as it would be with any other product?

    In all likelihood there's no precedent, meaning offline gamers are essentially getting a lesser product unless they get online. I personally find that outrageous. Not so bad if its a random floating tree, not so great if it means that 100 hours of game won't save or load.

  • mooseti #45 2 years ago

    No probs so far, 2 hours in...

  • darc #46 2 years ago

    @32768Colours it's a good point re: HDD space. These games are all compatible with an XBox 360 Arcade on paper, but in practice those owners are stuck with the unpatched code that ships on disc, which is a pretty major bummer. Granted there are lots of solutions nowadays, esp. with support for USB drives etc, but I'm sure a lot of gamers aren't that clued in (e.g. my brother, to whom I'm always recommending a cheap 360 Arcade.)

    I'm still on the fence about buying New Vegas. I know it's a great game and its gotten rave reviews, but the fact that nothing was done to advance the Gamebryo engine was a big let-down for me. I finished and loved FO3 but by the time I came back around to play some of the DLC, it was already feeling a little crusty to me. I'm not sure I can run out and spend another $60 (and then another 30 hours, maybe?) on a game that looks and feels essentially the same as it did in 2008. I know it's not fashionable to say so, but a little extra love in the graphics dept. would have gone a long ways for me.
    Edited by darc at 22/10/10 @ 18:11

  • Puppaz #47 2 years ago

    Maybe the game'll stay at 9/10 then get upped to 10 when fixed?
    I haven't come across anything on ps3 version yet but only played a couple of hours. Seems odd that they never came across them before release though...

  • BBIAJ #48 2 years ago

    Not sure what the patch released today addressed exactly, but one thing it did fix, was the bizarre tearing in the intro video, which was even worse than Fallout 3's!

    I was very surprised and annoyed to see it, so glad it's gone.

  • MrMaaaaattt #49 2 years ago

    Most of my 'bugs' so far have been relatively funny ones.. characters stuck in an object, or seeingly walking up invisible stairs and then falling to their death

    The only one which caused a real issue was I had the primm deputy at the start of the game disappear without a trace until I reloaded my save, there was no way I could continue the quest. I'm a huge fallout fan - and so far enjoying the game - but it does leave me questioning the QA / Testing department of Obsidian! Is there even one?