So I've been playing Skyrim, of course, and it has been on my mind the past few days because I just started my Skyrim Giveaway For Xbox 360, Playstation 3 (PS3) or PC. I've actually been ridiculously addicted to the game, I was up until 3 AM last night playing it.. This week they decided to release a patch for the Xbox 360 to fix some of the "known issues" associated with the game but I certainly ran into some interesting bugs since they released the new patch.

1. Dragons Flying Backwards – Something got screwed up in the pathing of the Dragons in the game which causes them to get buggy and fly backwards, but not just backwards, they actually fly sideways and teleport away from you. Good luck trying to chase one when this happens, it happened to me last night on top of a mountain where I couldn't exactly continue pursuit on foot. Unfortunately I had to let him go.

2. Infinite Stamina – There was a certain situation where I changed "form" and the game failed to properly change me back. The result? I had infinite stamina. For those of you who are playing this game with a sword and shield you know that this makes the game incredibly easy. I walked into a room full of people and shield bashed everyone to death – they barely even hurt me. Thankfully, this one went away after turning the game off and then back on.

3. Stuck Quest Log – I've also experienced an issue with the quest log not properly completing some quests. This is actually an issue with Bethesda in general. I've experienced in their last three game and really wish they would let me remove or abandon a quest from my log. I understand why they dont but it gets annoying knowing there is a quest that is bugged that I will never fix. This particular quest was a Miscellaneous one escorting someone out of a cave (which I completed, by the way, it just didn't register it).

4. Save Game List Inconsistency – If you go to the save game list to load a game, for some reason a friend of mine has an extra save game at the bottom of his list that is blank – it just throws the list off by one for each item. this means Save 1 is really Save 2, Save 2 is Save 3 and so on and so forth.

5. Lost Elemental Resistances – I guess this is a known issue for everyone. If you had elemental resistances on your character they are just gone after the latest patch. No more resistances for you!

This really brings up that oddball issue of online connectivity causing long term issues with games. One of the most frustrating things about developers now is many of them are releasing games buggier than they used too because they can get away with patching them "after the fact". Their concern is more with making the game playable and shipping it sooner rather than polishing the game in it's entirety.

This is a big concern I have with the upcoming Star Wars: The Old Republic as well. Really they haven't had an extensive online Beta, and when I was in Beta last week there were many issues that needed to be ignored. It is hardly a polished game, but I am sure it will not keep them from hitting their December 20th release. Too much money in it.

What are your thoughts? Does patching after the fact hurt games now? Personally it used to be great because developers would fix known issues, but now it's being used as a crutch.

I hear you, man this Dragon pathing has been driving me crazy over the past week. I've already missed up to five opportunities to kill Dragons because I cant get to them. The issue seems to be when the Dragon starts to attack you and really has no place to land so he gets stuck.

Very annoying, I'm sure if I wasn't a sword and shield build, and also a loser, I would just shoot him endlessly with a bow or spell until he dies. But how is that epic? It's just embarrassing if anything. Like kicking a bear tied down and calling myself heroic.

I hear a new patch is coming soon for the Xbox, hopefully they will resolve this issue. Definitely not a deal breaker for the game, but annoying none-the-less.