Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Message Board older than one year ago

After a couple of months spent kneeling at the altar of Microsoft exclusivity, Skyrim’s first expansion Dawnguard has made its expensive way to the admirably-supported PC version. It brings vampires and it brings vampire hunters – but will it bring the game-changing of Bloodmoon or the deflation of Shivering Isles? Gaze into my proud undead eyes, human cattle, and allow me to seduce you into reading on.(more…)

Dawnguard, the first expansion for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, is now available on PC for $19.99. It is not, however, available on PlayStation 3, and it’s unclear when that will change.

The reason: it's not ready.

“We are not satisfied yet with Dawnguard’s performance on the PS3,” said the company in a statement on its blog. “We would like for everyone to have a chance to play Dawnguard, but we aren’t going to release it for PS3 knowing that some people’s experience in Skyrim will be worse. “

We have come to expect, and to some extent forgive, some of the issues that plague the traditionally ambitious Bethesda Game Software releases. Skyrim had serious problems on PlayStation 3, however, which is why it technically wasn’t part of our Game of the Year award for Skyrim last year.

“We do everything we can to have our content available to all; from our free updates, to user mods, to paid DLC,” continued the statement. “We’re as disappointed as our fans when that isn’t the case, but we’ll continue to push for that reality.”

Bethesda are saying (at QuakeCon) that Dawnguard PC is out at last right now, but I can’t get it come up on Steam just yet. But oh well, I’m sure it’s either a caching thing or it’ll be there any moment – me, I’ve just got to postpostpost and then sleepsleepsleep. Here’s the official word though. I’m hearing it’s $20 for the long-awaited, Vampire-centric Skyrim add-on. Now I’m off to clean my teeth. Good luck, enjoy, and see you tomorrow.

Update: and here it is on Steam to buy now. $20/£14 to you, sir or madam.

There should be news on the PlayStation 3 and PC release of Dawnguard, the first downloadable expansion to The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, “later this week,” according to a company representative.

Players have become antsy since realizing the 30-day exclusivity window on Xbox 360 had come and gone without any news on Dawnguard’s availability on other platforms. It didn’t help that Bethesda Game Studios was unable to produce a response to quell people’s fears other than “wait.”

Bethesda VP of PR and marketing Pete Hines has taken the most heat on Twitter, but has continued to allude to impending news, with the most telling tease coming earlier this morning.

“Nothing has been said/announced about it,” said Hines today. “We should have info later this week.”

It’s probably not a coincidence QuakeCon is later this week, an event Bethesda is now heavily involved in.

There should be news on the PlayStation 3 and PC release of Dawnguard, the first downloadable expansion to The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, “later this week,” according to a company representative.

Players have become antsy since realizing the 30-day exclusivity window on Xbox 360 had come and gone without any news on Dawnguard’s availability on other platforms. It didn’t help that Bethesda Game Studios was unable to produce a response to quell people’s fears other than “wait.”

Bethesda VP of PR and marketing Pete Hines has taken the most heat on Twitter, but has continued to allude to impending news, with the most telling tease coming earlier this morning.

“Nothing has been said/announced about it,” said Hines today. “We should have info later this week.”

It’s probably not a coincidence QuakeCon is later this week, an event Bethesda is now heavily involved in.

That’s not to say that it’s not coming out, just that there’s no announcement, and that we should therefore not expect its imminent release – which was something we wondered about with the advent of the recent patch. Pete Hines, who tweeted the news of the non-announcement, followed up by saying “I was simply stating that expecting/demanding something today is unfounded. Not that news is never coming.”

Oh well, that’s a shame. I’m going to pass the time by installing one bajillion mods from Skyrim’s Steam Workshop and seeing what happens. Crabs wearing monocles, probably.

It’s odd to look back to the many frustrations of Skyrim’s launch, all those PC-specific oversights and technical flaws that drove us spare, and how so many (but not all, I know – modding the UI is still all but vital) of them have since been addressed. New textures, 2GB RAM cap lifted, sound quality bug sorted, mounted combat added… What seemed to be a fairly perfunctory PC version has been nurtured to fuller health in the days since launch, and that continues with patch 1.7, now in beta on Steam. There isn’t much in the way of big revelations, but “General memory and stability optimizations” is the kind of thing that’s always good to hear. I wish someone would optimise my stability.(more…)