PC users invited to beta test Skyrim 1.4 update

By Fred Dutton Published 23 January, 2012

Bethesda: "Apply the update at your own risk."

PC users can take an early look at The Elder Scrolls V: Skryim's 1.4 update via a Steam beta that's just gone live, publisher Bethesda has announced.

A post on the Bethesda Blog explained that anyone interested in testing it out should log in to their Steam account, click on 'Steam' in the upper menu, go to the 'Beta Participation' section in the 'Account' tab and select 'Change'. Then choose 'Skyrim Beta' and select 'OK'.

Once you've tried it out you can then post feedback on the update in Bethesda's beta forum.

A few words of warning from the publisher though:

"This patch is still in development. Apply the update at your own risk and only if you are affected by issues listed in the fix notes," read the blog post.

"Be sure to back up your saved games or simply be careful not to overwrite your existing saves. If you decide to opt out of the beta program, your old saves will still work with the current release of Skyrim (v 1.3)."

Bethesda announced full details last week of exactly what you can expect from the impending update.

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About Fred Dutton

Fred Dutton is Eurogamer's US news editor, based in Washington DC.

Read more articles from Fred by visiting the Fred Dutton archive page.

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Comments (41) Latest comment 4 months ago

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

  • The_B #1 4 months ago

    *Awaits first "Well, at least they're warning us it's a beta this time." comment.*

  • LazyDan #2 4 months ago

    I miss the days when computer gaming wasn't akin to server maintenance. You know, that bit just after the days when computer gaming was akin server programming.

  • Cjail #3 4 months ago

    "This patch is still in development. Apply the update at your own risk and only if you are affected by issues listed in the fix notes"
    It's funny because when they announced this patch I really thought that Bethesda was starting to do things seriously!.
    Also this must be some sort of "world record" because I have never heard about a "demo patch" that potentially can break your game even more.
    It's almost like curing a cold with cyanide.
    Edited by Cjail at 23/01/12 @ 21:49

  • Timotei #4 4 months ago

    Good Christ. Beta patches now?

    Do you not have testers at Bethesda? You've had nearly a month to sort this shit.

  • mr2ange #5 4 months ago

    Hurry up and give me the patch for the ps3, i'll get it straight away and tell you if i can actually play the game again. ~1 fps in some areas is not really playable in my opinion.

    Edit - Typo
    Edited by mr2ange at 23/01/12 @ 23:08

  • peppergomez #6 4 months ago

    More like "play our buggy, unoptimized retail release at your own risk"

  • Lucodeath #7 4 months ago

    No thanks mine is working great, compared to the console versions that is.

  • Khanivor #8 4 months ago

    I thought everyone who bought a Bethesda game in the first 12 months was a beta tester. Does this beta patch now mean such purchasers are alpha testers?

  • Hellion83 #9 4 months ago

    Post deleted at 20:12:17 01-02-2012

  • Killerbee #10 4 months ago

    I've only had the game crash on me once since 1.3 so I think I'll stick to that for now. I'm not sure I like the idea of beta patches and after the reversing dragons thing, I'm not entirely confident this won't make things worse. Pass.

  • TheApologist #11 4 months ago

    On pc I've honestly barely seen a glitch let alone a crash or a broken quest. 1.3 is smooth as butter. Looking forward to the steam mod section thing though

  • rtk79 #12 4 months ago

    Bethesda state this : "Apply the update only if you are affected by issues listed in the fix notes". In other words, they're offering the beta patch as a hotfix. Not relying on customers to do their testing. Why complain ?

  • Baleoce #13 4 months ago

    When is a game ever brought out complete anymore? Skyrim is not an MMO. It shouldn't need these kinds of ongoing extensive tests after release. Stop being lazy and employ competent testing staff to do this before it's released instead of expecting us to do it for free, after we've already payed you for what we believe in good faith is a complete product. A single-player offline game going back into what is effectively beta stage months after its release is just ludicrous. Back on cartridge/non-HDD based consoles we never had to put up with any of this. They had one shot and that was it. And yes I realize it is an optional beta. But these problems (especially PS3) should not still be occurring at this stage of the games life cycle.
    Edited by Baleoce at 23/01/12 @ 22:16

  • Zaiz #14 4 months ago

    @rtk79 Because some jackasses think this unstable patch is a "final" version. People have been clamoring for quest fixes, Bethesda gives them a chance to get them early. Then they bitch and moan that the early version is a beta version that they can install at their own risk.

    By the sounds of the moaning above, you'd think Bethesda forced them to play an early alpha build.

  • MrWonderstuff #15 4 months ago

    Let's hope this fixes the CTDs I have had since last month when I stopped playing.

  • CloisterBlack #16 4 months ago

    Yo dawg, I heard you like betas, so we put a beta patch in your beta game, so you can beta test while you beta test.

  • Nico4 #17 4 months ago

    Beta for a patch? Sounds like we've hit a new low

  • Hellion83 #18 4 months ago

    Post deleted at 20:12:17 01-02-2012

  • darkmorgado #19 4 months ago

    @Zaiz

    "By the sounds of the moaning above, you'd think Bethesda forced them to play an early alpha build."

    Or that the retail release was buggy as hell and that Bethesda have a track record of shoving out games that are buggy as hell and not fit for purpose. It amazes me that people continue to defend them.

    "At least they are fixing it" is not an excuse that justifies the fact that the game should have not have been released with such extensive issues in the first place.

  • Hellion83 #20 4 months ago

    Post deleted at 20:12:17 01-02-2012

  • Lunatic4ever #21 4 months ago

    I guess I'm really lucky. I've played Skyrim for about 70 hrs now and I've only encountered one bug so far that really spoiled a side quest for me. And all the annoyances that other people report, I've never seen those. I'm still amazed that a game of this epic scale runs so smoothly and delivers on all the promises that the developers made. It's incredible and the most remarkable experience in gaming that I had in many many years.

  • jimr9999us #22 4 months ago

    It's amusing to me how folks feel entitled to stuff that wasn't in existence 10 years ago.

    Louis CK has a name for y'all: non-contributing zeros. Get over yourselves.

  • StooMonster #23 4 months ago

    I'm still waiting for the patch to use more than two hardware threads on PC. Fingers crossed for next one.

  • smelly #24 4 months ago

    >Do you not have testers at Bethesda?

    MILLIONS of people have bought skyrim. If all those people play the game for just 1 hour.. That's MILLIONS of hours of play testing.

    They could hire thousands of QA staff and still not be able to compete.

    Something as big and complex as skyrim, you cant control exactly what the player will do or what order they do it in. It's a damn sight more complex than the latest linear snorefest shooter, where the developers know EXACTLY which way you're going to go and the order you're going to do things in (as you have no other choice).

  • smelly #25 4 months ago

    >I don't see other companies releasing half-assed engines with problems.

    I dont see any other company releasing games as complex as skyrim...

  • Hellion83 #26 4 months ago

    Post deleted at 20:12:17 01-02-2012

  • DrStrangelove #27 4 months ago

    Well, at least they're warning us it's a beta this time.

  • Stardusted #28 4 months ago

    So if it turns out to be broken, they can just release a patch for the patch to patch it and fix things, voila!

  • jogyourmind #29 4 months ago

    @darkmorgado

    You have changed your tune... A few weeks back you were the biggest skyrim fanboy of all.

  • Murton #30 4 months ago

    @Khanivor

    Depending on what version you bought yes. The performance of Bethesda's PS3 ports are more comparable to alpha builds than they are to retail releases.

  • rudedudejude #31 4 months ago

    I used to be a beta tester...

  • mccappind #32 4 months ago

    I've never had a problem with the PC version probably like the majority of people. I’ll hang on till the patch is official.

  • Darren #33 4 months ago

    Hey, Bethesda, we've all been beta testing this game since 11/11/11 so it's a bit late in the day to be issuing warnings for these beta patches! :lol:

    It's true though. PC owners have had the Large Address Aware tweak added, which came from a user-mod, and now compiler optimizations, no doubt brought about from the various TESVAL.dll/SkyBoost mods which rather showed up the unoptimized nature of the original code. Makes me wonder what kind of testers Bethesda employ that it took user complaints to fix major issues with the code. Or did they just rush the game out after all knowing these issues existed? I guess we'll never know.

    This beta patch works very well from my brief testing this morning and improves the game performance up to and possibly beyond the standard of the SkyBoost r4 mod I was using previously. The game has also been 100% stable since v1.3.10 but even this patch has not fixed a small number of unresolved (read: broken) quests in my journal (Collect bounty from Skald, etc. and Take dragon bone/scale to Esbern).

    I've also been given a quest by an inn-keeper to kill a Giant in Dulgun but I've already killed it so the quest marker refuses to update and when I go there the Giant is (obviously) not there. I guess I'll have to wait for him to respawn to complete it. It's kind of laughable though that the game gets confused over locations you've visited before being given a quest there; I don't recall this issue in Oblivion at all and I played that for 320 hours (vs. 230 hours so far for Skyrim). In order to not break the quests it seems you're expected to only visit and complete locations after you're given the quest to go there which is bizarre for an open world RPG that positively encourages you to explore right after the opening tutorial section!
    Edited by Darren at 24/01/12 @ 11:03

  • tassletine #34 4 months ago

    "Something as big and complex as skyrim, you cant control exactly what the player will do or what order they do it in. It's a damn sight more complex than the latest linear snorefest shooter, where the developers know EXACTLY which way you're going to go and the order you're going to do things in (as you have no other choice)."

    It is more complex, however it's not THAT complex and it's clear to me that Bethesta have only managed to make a complex looking game and nothing else.
    A game that have no emergent gameplay/ loading screens when you open doors/ characters that walk through floors -- should not be given any sort of leeway in 2012, to say nothing of the more serious bugs that actually prevent users from playing or finishing the game.

    Bethesta have made a game that is addictive but NOT good -- and with this patch crap they have found the perfect way to extend and deepen the public's interest in the game. They botch their games DELIBERATELY because it works for them. It keeps people playing, talking (and pining for) about their games for longer periods of time. It's an age old management trick.

  • Caimbeul #35 4 months ago

    what is this 1.4 supposed to do?
    Hope it allows more than 2 core multithreading and unlimited RAm on 64-bit systems.

    Creating a nice easy interface to mangage and apply/remove mods would be very welcome. Just dreaming.

  • mccappind #36 4 months ago

    The interface is the only thing that has annoyed me. It’s time consuming to navigate and its obvious it was designed with consoles in mind. They could do with changing it asap

  • Darren #37 4 months ago

    @rtk79 - One of those issues mentioned in the beta patch notes is compiler optimizations which affect everyone running the PC version as it gives a noticeable performance boost throughout the game over the previous version, similar to that of the TESVAL.dll and SkyBoost mods (maybe you're already using those?). This optimization should have been done BEFORE the game was released IMO but it took numerous forum threads and a clever user-mod for Bethesda to wise up to and include it. It was the same story with the Large Address Aware tweak which improved stability and was added following many user complaints and a nifty user-mod as well.

    This beta patch is now of a standard which I would have expected of the game at release but then it's pretty obvious to me that Bethesda rushed the game out to capitalise on a pre-Christmas market and meet its long-announced 11/11/11 release date. I was actually surprised that it wasn't delayed six months like Oblivion was as I was expecting it to be. I think the game should have been, awesome as it is, as the bugs and issues do tarnish the experience slightly. At one point I was getting constant crashes every play session for example which were very annoying. They've now been fixed but I was over 100 hours into the game at that point.
    Edited by Darren at 24/01/12 @ 11:50

  • Darren #38 4 months ago

    @Caimbeul - Compiler optimizations (so SkyBoost/TESVAL are no longer needed) and numerous bug fixes for broken quests as listed here:

    http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-01-19-skyrim-update-1-4-detailed-in-full

  • jonfon #39 4 months ago

    @Caimbeul
    There's the Nexus Mod Manager. Works well for me.

    Beta testing patches is something which most MMOs do, mostly for the same reasons (you can get more test hours from a beta than you can from a QA team across a wider selection of hardware).

    Still though if it's in beta then realistically the actual patch must be at least 10 days away surely? Otherwise how would any feedback be dealt with? (which makes me sad, I can't wait for the Construction Kit and the slew of mods it should spawn)

  • DrStrangelove #40 4 months ago

    I subscribed for it actually, some things work better, seems to run smoother than before, but there are also some annoying bugs still. Nothing game-breaking so far, but still a bit annoying.

    But dragons can fly backwards again!

  • SG #41 4 months ago

    Killerbee #10 18 hours ago

    I've only had the game crash on me once since 1.3 so I think I'll stick to that for now.

    What a sad state of affairs gaming is today! It really makes you wonder why some companies can't manage a polished release on PC when others clearly can, such as Portal 2.