DAILY MANIFESTO

How PlayStation Plus Saved Skyrim

Posted on Thursday, December 15 @ 14:01:47 Eastern by Anthony Severino

This post came so very close to being a "REALLY?!?!", a feature I haven't done in some time. But it has turned into a story of why I'm ready to fully embrace the cloud - with a very, very happy ending.

If you've listened to our podcast, or visited our homepage over the past month, then you'd know that I am obsessed with Skyrim. I might as well have slain a goat, pledging my life to the game via sadistic sacrifice.

I'm well over 100 hours in - so many hours logged that I've lost track. I wouldn't consider myself a trophy or achievement whore, but I've ditched any and all quests in Skyrim aside from my one true quest: Get the platinum trophy. With the sheer size and scope of the game and the fact that most people consider the PS3 version to be broken, the feat of unlocking that shiny trophy seems all the more spectacular to me. And in this case, the quest for platinum has only increased my enjoyment of Skyrim, never hindering it.

And I came this close.

Having finished the Thieves Guild, The Companions, Civil War Quests and The Dark Brotherhood all within days of each other, and having just so happened to have killed my 20th dragon and earned my 100,000 gold coin, all that remained was obtaining the 15 Daedric Artifacts needed to unlock the silver trophy "Oblivion Walker".

The Daedric Princes are pricks, and their quests incredibly annoying. That Sheogorath one was by far the worst in the entire game. And it didn't help that Vaermina's quest glitched on my like three times. Last night, I finished my last of the Daedric Quests and finally could rid myself of they pestering Princes. Or so I thought.

I obtained the last artifact, and I awaited to hear the sweet "ding" sound of unlocking the trophy. I waited. And I waited... Nothing.

I checked through my list, and strangely I did indeed have 15 artifacts. Except that one of them wasn't an artifact, and I was supposed to make a different choice during the quest - not killing the character - to get the real artifact. Instead I was stuck with some useless axe I'd never even use, and only 14 artifacts. And it was far too late to fix this. I'm level 75 - there's no fucking way I'm starting another character. I'm far too invested in this one.

In a panic I took to various Skryim forums accross the 'net searching for an answer. Can I do something about this? Unfortunately, no, there's nothing that can be done. In a fit of rage, I messaged Daniel about how I was so pissed and I had to stop playing Skyrim for my sanity's sake. I just couldn't put this many hours into a game again. I decided to give up.

Then I remembered... I'm a PlayStation Plus member, and I have online storage set up for Skyrim, which backs up my saves each night. There was a glimmer of hope.

I found a save filed from three days earlier. Far enough back where I could exploit a different Daedric quest to give me not one but two Daedric Artifacts from just one quest. I'm currently playing my old save file on another PS3 to get this trophy, then I'll switch back to my other PS3 to finish out my other quests and say goodbye to Tamriel until the next Elder Scrolls game.

If it weren't for this cloud storage, I'd be shit out of luck. I'd have given up on a game that I've dedicated the past month of my life to. I would have abandoned the quest for platinum. And worst of all, it would have ruined my otherwise wonderful experience with Skyrim.

If this doesn't sell you on PlayStation Plus or cloud storage, then I don't know what will. I like my physical media, but after this situation, I'm ready for the cloud.

[UPDATE] I got my Oblivion Walker trophy last night. Thanks, PlayStation Plus!

Related Games: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Tags: skyrim, playstation plus, psn, ps3

Comments

Longo_2_guns
Joined: Jun 2003

Posted: Dec 15th, 2011 at 2:14 pm
You know what would've been better? If they didn't have to rely on internet services like that to be a crutch for them and just actually cleared out bugs before releasing a game. Though I see your point, and that sort of thing can happen with any game.

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usaglory
Joined: Mar 2009

Posted: Dec 15th, 2011 at 2:29 pm
Right, that is pretty sh*tty. When they release the GOTY edition they better have cleared up all those f*ck-ups.

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Anthony_Severino
Joined: Oct 2010

Posted: Dec 15th, 2011 at 3:05 pm
Check Turin's comment below. This wasn't a bug. It was just a poor development decision to make it so unless you knew in advance which way to choose, you could find yourself screwed down the line when it's too late.

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usaglory
Joined: Mar 2009

Posted: Dec 15th, 2011 at 3:30 pm
In a game this long, that's even worse. Again, they better fix it for the GOTY edition.

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usaglory
Joined: Mar 2009

Posted: Dec 15th, 2011 at 3:50 pm
In a game this long, that's even worse. Again, they better fix it for the GOTY edition.

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Longo_2_guns
Joined: Jun 2003

Posted: Dec 15th, 2011 at 4:20 pm
Okay, I know what you mean now. The Clavicus Vile quest?
Regardless, do you not run multiple hard saves? I keep at least 2 or 3 in any RPG. This is all you, man. Hell, if I'm achievement hunting, I keep plenty of hard saves so I can just get the achievement and reload for a different one.

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Anthony_Severino
Joined: Oct 2010

Posted: Dec 15th, 2011 at 4:32 pm
The PS3 version only lets you keep 3-4 saves, which unfortunately, were autosaves. And then the one hard save. But the truth is, it happened LONG before I even decided I wanted the trophy. Like 40 hours prior. I never would have kept any hard save that long.

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warmaster670
Joined: Jun 2007

Posted: Dec 17th, 2011 at 6:00 am
How is it a big that he made a bad choice during a quest? learn the definition of bug please.

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De-Ting
Joined: Nov 2006

Posted: Dec 15th, 2011 at 2:19 pm
My PS+ is only on the master account, which I don't play on myself. So I'm getting no benefits from this.

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usaglory
Joined: Mar 2009

Posted: Dec 15th, 2011 at 2:31 pm
I have heard so much about Skyrim that I can't even keep facts straight, is there DLC coming for this game? I've been wondering.

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TurinAlexander
Joined: Sep 2006

Posted: Dec 15th, 2011 at 2:58 pm
This is why I don't even look at achievements. I'm loving Skyrim and getting some meaningless digital trophy isn't going to do a damn thing to make me love it any more or less.

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Anthony_Severino
Joined: Oct 2010

Posted: Dec 15th, 2011 at 3:04 pm
I wasn't playing Skyrim for the trophies originally. It's only when I came close to getting them all that I decided to make it a focus.

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TurinAlexander
Joined: Sep 2006

Posted: Dec 15th, 2011 at 3:01 pm
Also, him not getting the artifact from the quest is part of the quest. He made the choice and got the reward for making that choice. There was no bug involved until he couldn't stand the thought of not getting the Trophy and went back to an old save to exploit the bug to get two artifacts from one quest.

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MarkyBee
Joined: Mar 2007

Posted: Dec 16th, 2011 at 3:44 am
Also - if you had the game on PC then you'd have access to every savegame you ever made. (This is the only game I play with an Xbox 360 pad on the PC, infinitely better than owning it on the console just for the un-crippled save feature)

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zdstjohn
Joined: Dec 2011

Posted: Dec 16th, 2011 at 12:05 pm
Created an account just to correct you. I have roughly 40 saves on skyrim. There is no 4 save limit. I have saves from hour 1, 10, 15, 18, 19, 20, 25, 32, 44 ans everything in between.

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JordanDuguay
Joined: Dec 2011

Posted: Dec 27th, 2011 at 3:19 pm
Sixteen Daedric artifacts appear in Skyrim.

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