Emasher

Ended up playing as a Altmer battle mage. I'm already loving the dual wielding, however, it would be nice to have access to hotkeys to swap spells quicker, although the favorites menu is a nice addition, its a little bit clumsy if you have a lot of stuff in it. Speaking of the favorites menu, the only bug I've encountered so far (that I noticed) was not being able to add anything to my favorites menu after changing the function of the F key. It would be nice to have some sort of key that allowed for blocking while dual wielding as well. I'm also liking the addition of sprinting. The game looks great even on high (ultra is just a little bit slow on my card for my liking).

Still an hour to go before it unlocks in my timezone. Strange its set to unlock at 11 rather than midnight, but I'm not complaining.

Seeing as most of you at least live in a timezone much closer to GMT than myself, has anyone been able to activate it yet? Is it possible to activate early through a VPN? Is this against the Steam EULA?

You get out what you put in with Bethesda games. As others have said, you should be able to get through the main quest pretty quickly, however, people don't play Bethesda games for the main quest. Bethesda games are all about the side quests and exploring the world looking for new locations and treasures. The faction questlines (mages guild, dark brotherhood, etc.) are sometimes as good, and as long as the main quest itself. Most people who enjoy the game will play it for more than 100 hours, some more than 500 hours. But you don't have to play it that long to enjoy it, and it's an easy game to go back to after a while of not playing (just make yourself a note about what you were doing at the time). I'd say go for it, take a break from it when Zelda comes out, and then go back to it once you're done. You could also do a straight play through of the main questline and then start a new game and do the side quests after Zelda.

In most countries it can be a bit of grey area, and it really depends on context. But the mod chips themselves generally aren't illegal. Some countries make circumventing DRM measures illegal (The United States as an example) so if that was your intent, you could potentially be charged, but people who just modify the hardware generally aren't breaking any laws. Again, it all depends on context. Shouldn't take too long. Its only 6 GB or so (surprisingly), which is smaller than most games.

I'm pretty sure that's still just a civil thing at the most. Its your hardware, you have the right to do what you want with it. If you violate someone's copy-write, they can sue you. If you break the EULA they can ban you from PSN/XBL, but unless you live in some sort of nanny state you're not going to get charged with anything... oh wait...

Since when is violating an EULA a criminal offense?

Pre-loading via Steam at the moment. Can't wait. What races and classes are people planning on playing as? I'm thinking I might start out as a battle mage again, as I did in oblivion, but I'm not really sure about race yet.

Looks like I've got myself a most anticipated game of 2012 (assuming it comes out next year).

Can't wait. Easily my most anticipated game of the year. Annoyingly I have another midterm on the 12th though.

They still have a contract for two more seasons. It was never in any danger.

What other video output ports do you have on your laptop? Perhaps try routing it through VGA just to see if it works? Also, what are your laptop's specs?

They're a low end manufacturer. Don't expect it to last that long, and make sure your case is well cooled, but for that price, you really can't go wrong.

It would depend on the OC of the 6850. Check out some benchmarks perhaps?

Okay, so that card isn't the SE version, so definitely go with the EVGA 460. Now, one other thing I will mention is that the 6850 has a slight edge (a few FPS) over the 460 on average, but I wouldn't buy anything from PowerColor. If you can find a 6850 from a better manufacturer, that might be an option as well. Mind you, it usually isn't going to be a notable difference, and there are situations where the 460 can still perform better. Maybe consider the features of Nvidia cards VS AMD cards if you can find a decent 6850 for around the same price.

The only cards from reliable manufacturers on that list are the EVGA 460 1GB (Don't buy this if its the SE version, I don't think it is though), and the Gigabyte 550 TI. The 460 1GB is a better card overall compared to the 550 TI, so go with the EVGA 460. I recommend if you're going to make lists like this you post links to the store pages so we can tell exactly what it is without searching.

What two consenting adults do regarding each other in private is no business of mine, nor is it the business of government or anyone else. I'll leave it at that for now.

That sounds like a terrible future.

How does that make 460 1GBs hard to find though? There might not be as many SKUs for sale, but there are still plenty of the actual cards.

Please tell me you don't buy computer hardware from brick and mortar stores. http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007709%20600030348%20600007323%20600062521%20600007779&IsNodeId=1&name=1GB

Does anyone know if 1.9 PR 4 broke build craft. I was able to get it working in PR 3, but I can't seem to do that with PR 4, and I'm not sure if I'm doing something wrong, or if its just not possible.

They're not that great. If you can spare an extra £20, you can go up to a 1GB non-SE (This is very important) GTX 460, which is a great card in that price range, and outperforms the HD 5830 by quite a bit.

I have no idea what Red Rover is, but I remember as a kid there was this forest beside the school I went to, and my friends and I used to go in there at lunch, build stick forts, and try to sneak into those made by other groups. Those are probably some of my favorite childhood memories.

You mean you didn't play anything like that as a kid?

As long as you didn't take a blowtorch to it, or grind the platters into a fine powder, it will be possible to recover some if not all of the data. The question is more, how much are you willing to pay to get the data off of it? If the data is worth something to you, look for a local data recovery business and get them to take a look at it.