Bethesda Extends Fallout 76 Beta After "Spectacular" Bug Causes Download Deletes

[VSG]

Well, I suppose we were warned about bugs in the Fallout 76 Beta in advance but no one could have predicted it would be this.. freeing. So much so that a not insignificant fraction of participants in the Fallout 76 beta found their storage drives to be free of all 50 GB of downloaded files without notice. It got to a point where the Bethesda support account on Twitter put out a spectacular tweet saying "PC #Fallout76 B.E.T.A. players: We are aware of an issue with the client and are investigating. Do not click any buttons on the client for the time being." which has since been deleted. There were understandably upset people, including those on a metered or slow internet plan to whom downloading 50 GB again is a lot to ask for- even assuming they could do so and play again before the original beta period ended.

It must be noted that a beta test is for identifying issues such as this to begin with, and this is not the full game that one has paid for either. Although this bug not being caught until a public beta is still worrying, the public outcry to this bug has been a touch overblown and this is coming from the guy who gave Bethesda some unpleasant news and then some over their treatment of the latest addition to the Fallout game IP. To their credit, Bethesda have extended the beta session, as noted in the image below, to allow for a patch to the launcher client and that should hopefully fix this issue as well. Whether or not they did the right thing by not using Steam as a client is a matter for another discussion, relevant as it is now, and you are welcome to carry it out in the comments section.



View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[windwhirl]

Something like that happened to me today with Steam and Shadow of the Tomb Raider. Since my Internet connection is rather crappy (10 Mbps plan, which on a good day manages 6 Mbps but most of the time barely reaches 2 o 3 Mbps), downloading SOTTR takes a long while. Until yesterday I managed to download somewhere around 12 GBs of the 26.2 total. Today I launch the Steam client and, surprise, has to start all over again.

If I had to guess, the game received an update and Steam decided I had to start over and download it again.

EDIT: Indeed, the game got a patch today.

 

[Solaris17]

You cant even be mad. I could name a million reasons for defending my point of view but really

-Its a beta
- if your metered you take a risk with everything. God forbid the binary was corrupted.

 

[silentbogo]

You cant even be mad. I could name a million reasons for defending my point of view but really

Not when the issue existed before beta and even before FO76 announcement.
The issue lies within that stupid abomination of a software called Bethesda Launcher and the way it distributes updates. Before Quake Champions went on Steam, I used to play through Bethesda Launcher and every patch/update was essentially a complete re-download of the game. E.g. every time you'd have to re-download complete game distro instead of an actual patch, and if this process bugs out on you or gets interrupted (which happened very often), your previous installation becomes non-existent and you have to start a 15-20GB download all over again. To be honest it was a hassle even on a 100Mbit/s connection. What they need to do is fire the entire team responsible for BL, scrap everything and either start from a blank sheet, or switch to Steam or any other distribution platform permanently.

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

Inexcusable. This has been an issue for years with bethesda's launcher, there is no excuse other then incompetence for this not being fixed yet.

I watched some of the "beta" gameplay, looks boring AF. No NPCs anywhere, real basic quest lines, ece. OG WoW puts this game to absolute shame. It looks like a knockoff fallout with no substance, just pretty graphics.

This game is going to bomb once people see how shallow it is. Even basic MMOs have NPCs, and many have voice dialog. This game has neither, just a vast, empty world, kinda like sonic boom.

 

[Solaris17]

Not when the issue existed before beta and even before FO76 announcement.
The issue lies within that stupid abomination of a software called Bethesda Launcher and the way it distributes updates. Before Quake Champions went on Steam, I used to play through Bethesda Launcher and every patch/update was essentially a complete re-download of the game. E.g. every time you'd have to re-download complete game distro instead of an actual patch, and if this process bugs out on you or gets interrupted (which happened very often), your previous installation becomes non-existent and you have to start a 15-20GB download all over again. To be honest it was a hassle even on a 100Mbit/s connection. What they need to do is fire the entire team responsible for BL, scrap everything and either start from a blank sheet, or switch to Steam or any other distribution platform permanently.

yeah for sure! didnt know it affects a bunch of other games in which case, yeah no defense! thats enlightening!

 

[Vayra86]

Great, another nail in the coffin of this complete horror story.

I really hope it flops so hard, Bethesda will never think of doing online again and focus on what they do 'quite' well.

 

[Gasaraki]

Perhaps they should have called this an Alpha, not Beta.