Skyrim - Officially Gold
 

I suspect this is more symbolic than actual reality but the Bethblog announces Skyrim is Gold. Head over for some pictures of the team celebrating at the office with a "sweet golden mead brewed by Kurt Kuhlmann, Ryan Jenkins, and Shane Liesegang."
More information.

It's got to feel good making and releasing a game you know without a doubt is going to be a massive success.

lol. Some stores are already selling the PC version in California (it's Steamlocked until the 11th).

I guess this mean day 0 patch.

I'm pretty sure there'll be a Day 0 Patch.

My only concern is whether a day 0 patch would be huge and require endless waiting to suck it off Steam (with 10^6 other users). A mate said "oh, Steam has no problems with major releases anymore!") I seldom use it, so is that true?

well, at least it seems like the steam servers are relatively quick…

It didnt take me too long to DL and install SHogun TW2 yesterday, and that was 12g. I went and took a shower and it was done after

Sadly, even though i have recently 'upgraded', I still have slowish connection - I'm very lucky if I can get a sustained 3 Mbps. Bought a 6 GB game yesterday on steam - took about 4.5 hours (from a local steam server). I almost ground my teeth to stubs - I'm not patient when it comes to dloads - I want them now! Or yesterday, even…

Definitely, in this day and age if i have to wait for smething to load for over a minute, ill shut it down in disgust! 56k was torture!

During the internet's stone age, downloading a 100 kb file from Microsoft's public FTP server needed half an hour minimum !

Speaking of big downloads does anyone know if there will be a preload for Skyrim on steam? One of the nice things about last couple of Day 0 games I've bought was a preload availability. I don't plan to play the moment it is released but I also don't want to have to remember to kick off the download when it does become available. Its much easier for me to kick it off a day or 2 in advance and do it while at work.

Yes, a preload has been confirmed by Bethesda but how many days in advance (which might be important info for people with slow connections) has not been revealed. Still, it's "only" 6 GB…

True enough but for me that is still an hour if I can get a sustained 2 MBps connection that I have to the internet. Usually I get about 1.2 with steam but I've had a number of cases where downloads were 3-4 times slower than that. Life will go on but its nice to have that preload if you can get it and time it where it doesn't interfere with anything else.

Gotta say it's strange to hear about slower internet connections here, meaning that I'm surprised at how slow they are in some areas. For a basic package around me you can get 50 mbps…I'm running 100 mbps myself.

Well I have Comcast in the US and they advertise a 100 MBps connection. I never downloaded faster than 1.5. If I want a faster package it will cost me $250 a month and still not give the right speed. They can kiss my ass with there false advertising.

That's not factoring in almost every internet company in the US in enforcing caps now. The digital only future is still a far ways off. I do find it funny and non-excusable how smaller countries have better Internet and cellphone service than America.

That is actually 100 Mbps (Megabits) which is 12.5 MBps and this is how all companies in the US measure their internet speed.

Actual download speed is usually significantly slower than what's being advertised, but it depends on a lot of factors, such as time of day and how many people are on that hub. I'm lucky to get 750-800 kps most of the time. (AT&T)

Exactly. They advertise a certain speed in which no way you ever get. I know certain factors influence your speed. I average around 300kb to 1.5MB and that's on a good day.

There is nothing you can do since there is only a few large company's that cover certain sections. Yet you hear how digital is the future when the current infrastructure can't even handle the stress.

There is no false advertising from comcast, they have 100 Mbps speed available if you are willing to pay for it, otherwise you buy a lower tier of speed. If you are getting 1.5 Megabytes per second, then you got their 12Mbps speed. I have their 20Mbps speed and download at 2.5 MB/s from steam. I also always get my full speed 100% of the time from comcast. Even if Steam is being slow, I can still get the remainder of my speed downloading other things to get me to my 2.5 MB/s.

Anyways, when you got smaller countries with the land size nearly the same as a State in the US, it is easier to create an infrastructure for it, as compared to creating an infrastructure for the whole US.

Actually I'm in canada, And I get great speeds….it really does depend on how many users are on the same hub etc.

According to my payment plan and internet connection I'm supposed to have a 100 Mbps. They only offer two plans in my state. $65 or $250. Seriously not worth the money.

I used to have unlimited also now its capped. Very easy to reach the cap with games being over 10gb. Not counting movies and music. I'm tired of making excuses for Comcast and there terrible service but as I said there is literally no alternative.

Just Google internet infrastructure in the US and how we compare to other country's. You will see how flawed it is . It needs to be upgraded as the isp's basically said they wont be able to handle the traffic.

I'll stop there since I'm basically going in a circle and repeating myself, Back on topic only 5 more days to go. Can't wait