Five reasons Skyrim 1.3 is still torturing console gamers

Bethesda has officially released patch 1.3 for “The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim”, intened to fix many of the issues with the game that players were encountering, including the notable “texture” bug 360 gamers were experiencing. Whilst the patch did manage to eliminate the 15+ bugs, it also managed to create a range of new bugs.

Issues with dragons seems to be just one of these new bugs. Fans have been complaining that they are encountering flying dragons that can not actually fly, dragons flying backwards, dragons that are turning invisible when they shouldn’t be doing so, causing some annoying problems for gamers.

Another common bug seems to be that gameplay is now being lost. Fans have been mentioning on Skyrim forums that when returning to the game after saving, on average they are losing between 90 and 120 minutes of saved gameplay, with some higher level spells missing from their abilities, and also some of their items seem to have gone astray from their inventory, causing many players to cease gameplay in order for them not to spend more wasted time playing for their progress to be lost.

The Thieves Guild Quest bug is another common one. Many gamers are complaining that after completing the “Loud and Clear” quest, the questline breaks and the gamer is unable to complete it. They are also complaining that after starting the quest “Summerset Shadows”, you are unable to locate Torsten Cruel-Sea to talk to him, rendering you unable to complete the quest yet again. These are just two of the Thieves Guild Quest related bugs that are plaguing Skyrim players after installing the 1.3 patch.

As far as regular quests go, gamers are complaining that if you go to a quest are before actually having obtained that quest, once you return to actually complete the quest, you are unable to complete it, due to either the essential item you need to obtain being unattainable, or due to the enemy you need to defeat having already been killed, and not respawning for you to kill them yourself.

A common PC glitch for Skyrim appears to be that textures still aren’t loading correctly for many gamers, using colours such as pink, black, or white as substitutes. Other PC bugs include spontaneous error messages which result in the game closing to the desktop.

Overall, it seems that whilst patch 1.3 seems to have managed to sort out the range of bugs previously present in Skyrim, it has also managed to bring a new range of bugs with it, which could be fixed with the next patch… but what new bugs will be brought with patch 1.4?

About the author

Thomas has written 103 articles for

28 Responses to "Five reasons Skyrim 1.3 is still torturing console gamers"

dox 11:55 PM 18/12/2011

I’m level 38, I’ve probably played between 40 and 60 hours. My girlfriend is level 28 she’s played about 20 to 40. Aside from 1 instance of dragons flying backwards and 1 geometry loading glitch we haven’t had any issues on 360. Nothing game breaking no freezes nothing. The only possible glitch is belethor is missing but he might have died during a main story quest. Nobody is running his store which kinda sucks.

Reply
Louis 01:55 AM 19/12/2011

70+ hours, not a single bug here (PC)

Reply
Tony 02:15 AM 19/12/2011

I have over 200 hours (167 on a tank char, 80 on my mage) and have only seen one bug, the bookcase glitch on my house in Markarth

Reply
Eric 04:56 AM 19/12/2011

I wont download 1.3..i have enough issues with 1.2 My wife Camilla in Riverwood disappeared. And her uncle or whatever he was is gone also. just gone..The Riverwood Trader is just abandoned…and i cant get remarried. Also massive freezing and framerate issues. I love the game but its getting annoying to play.

Reply
Blake 05:39 AM 19/12/2011

One of the more amusing bugs I’ve seen on the PS3 so far is dead dragons appearing in Whiterun. There is one that keeps showing up outside the general store, sometimes vibrating on the waterfall like a latex Gwar setpiece. Sometimes it falls out of the air and sometimes it pops out of the ground. Comment from guard: “I saw a dragon fly over the town the other day.” Orly? Don’t turn around because there’s one right behind you!

Other than that though, let’s see… Miscellaneous quest markers disappeared for a few hours then reappeared. I’ve had some problems with npc path finding in a thieves guild quest that made me worried I wouldn’t be able to trigger the right dialogue and finish the quest. Fortunately eventually everyone walked to the right position so they could move the quest along. Yes, I’ve had the lag of course. I haven’t noticed any freezing yet on 1.3 though, so that’s a positive. I don’t bother with followers anymore because it’s another thing for the game to glitch on… Same thing with horses; I prefer to steal them if I’m riding somewhere and wave farewell to them as they wander home through the cold wilderness.

Reply
Tom 07:18 AM 19/12/2011

Shadowmere glitches out and climbs mountains. Yesterday he managed to get to the top of a bandit tower with me!

Reply
WTH 12:05 PM 19/12/2011

PC gamer here on a pretty old rig (2007). So far only 2 bugs (characters not being where they should) that were resolved with loading the last autosave, and 2 crashes to desktop (one inside a cave on mage guild quest and one when going inside a shop). But that’s for a 38 level character and over 35 hours of playtime. So on my count that’s actually less bugs/crashes per hour for an average PC game…

Reply
Bharath 01:03 PM 19/12/2011

Level 41 imperial , so far the problems I have faced is random crashes to the desktop which is very persistent and on 1.1 the game used to freeze every now and then .

Reply
Cy Ellis 01:58 PM 19/12/2011

I am a level 58 nord. I held off downloading patch 1.2 until 1.3 came out.First battle with a dragon took 2 shots with my bow and he turn invisible on the ground.I’ve had 2 other quest I could not do because bugs. I have a 360.

Reply
Antony 02:54 PM 19/12/2011

Playing on the PC here. A couple of small bugs, most of them just hillarious stuff, but nothing game braking. And I’m one of those who likes to tinker and test the boundaries of the experience game designers meant us to go along with.

Best RPG I have ever played overall.

Reply
Faust 05:48 PM 19/12/2011

The game crashes like every 45 minutes on my PS3. My save file is 8Mo, 40h. 1.03 added some freezes to the 1.02 crashes… Thank you Bethesda.

Reply
D... 07:04 PM 19/12/2011

A long time ago a game called Final Fantasy came out and it was 100 times bigger than just about any other game competing with it, You could go anywhere, basically do anything. People wondered how this was possible. It was pretty cool. What was also cool was that the game worked and the developers didn’t pretend that the game was so bug that they just had no idea how to fix it.

Reply
D... 07:05 PM 19/12/2011

Big bug Dig dug

Reply
Christian thompson 08:53 PM 19/12/2011

I am lv 81 and I have over 200 hours played and I have come across now glitches and it runs amazing for me

Reply
Chris 09:00 PM 19/12/2011

It just randomly freezes now for me on 360, like Fallout New Vegas did on my PS3.

Reply
Spartan1590 09:58 PM 19/12/2011

Here I had lots of problems in the Blindsighted quest for the Thieves Guild, the frame rate was terrible and the game kept crashing.

Also all the random encounters with dragons are invisible, I can only hear the sounds and take damage.

Reply
Anon 10:03 PM 19/12/2011

Funny thing is that a friend of mine pirated it on PC and the only major glitch is the Esbern glitch.

Reply
javi 12:25 AM 23/12/2011

I have a Ps3.I am a Nord Level 64 my Ps3 Freeze in the loading every 30 or 40 min Never this happen to me in version 1.1 or 1.2 but the last version BUGS everywhere Bethesda do something.. If you have Ps3 add me PurpleDragon123

Reply
Ermane 10:40 AM 27/12/2011

After I follow the girl oh took the horn from the first dungeon quest the the greybeards give you, the dragon (frost dragon) stays flying on mid air and the girl i was following just shoots it with her bow ‘n’ arrow but the dragon takes no damage and I use my shout (Unrelenting force ) on the fragon nothing happens I have tried restarting the Xbox but nothing happens.

Reply
niut 07:55 PM 30/12/2011

Lvl+54 and now dragons are invisible 3 of 5 times, a dragon shout cannot be unlocked because the word is “blocked” on the wall, a quest done appeared 2 times in the quest journal,….. a lot of bugs but the game is incredible, especially with mods. The world of this game is incredible, the atmosphere, the graphics, the quests, a fantastic travel in a fantastic universe. I hope that Bethesda will correct all the bugs to make this one perfect !

Reply
Coqpwner 04:51 PM 31/12/2011

30-40 hours in on 360, I had 3-4 quest-breaking glitch so far and a companion being completely stuck and unable to move for several in-game days wherever I go so I had to abandon her (Aela in Markarth’s Talos temple) Honestly I am just growing tired with the game after so many glitches…

Reply
alex mcleod 02:59 PM 17/1/2012

only 20 hrs of play and my character cant get past the first level of dialogue with anyone and cant complete quests. uninstalled update, reinstalled, uninstalled hd data, reinstalled, still persists. cant buy things from shopkeeps, accept new quests, or do anything than fight spiders and bears.

on ps3 with 1.03… fingers crossed 1.04 will be out soon

Reply
- Glitched 12:49 AM 30/1/2012
  
  Damn dude That sound like the worst yet ! Bummer !
  
  Reply
Shadow sword 03:47 PM 31/1/2012

I wish tjey would fix the bug for PS3 so you can remarry.
Also so I can finish my dadric quests. Because i went into northwatch
keep befor the dude and the qjest froze, fucker!!!!

Reply
Tonje 10:15 PM 02/3/2012

I’ve had skeleton dragons popping out of mountains, got stuck with the loading page, quests disappear (actually I could use some help about that, anyone know how to get them back? They disappear because I do other quests in between) though this had only happened twice, being accused for stealing things. And I had a horse that flew up in to the air when I dismounted it, so high up that when it landed it died.. :3

Reply
Bry 03:08 AM 04/4/2012

Finished thieves guild quests a while ago. I go into dwemer museum and says i have a quest. I follow it thinking someone random told me 2 do this. Turns out that i have 2 do the thieve guild quests again… Wtf? Karliah already has nightingale armour?

Reply
Reapers MC Sierra Vista 08:09 AM 24/10/2012

I am lvl 69 Kahjit only problem i have and has happend not only on my main character but on a few of my other characters is Belethor at Belethor’s General Goods in whiterun will be there one day and then just vanish never to be seen again, store will remain locked and never open again.

Reply
Tommy 02:00 PM 31/12/2012

Lvl 28 here trying to complete the Nightingale Quests. Unfortunately as I am running to do the actual quest the game freezes on my ps3. So disappointed in Bethesda.

Reply