I really hope someone can answer this question. No one seems to have answered it so far. I haven't put too much time into it yet for fear of this but I know some of you are like 30 hours in. Since they say the patch is being approved for certification can they confirm it won't require starting over?

They won't be able to confirm or deny that until the patch is certified and they can tell you what's actually being addressed in the patch. Really it depends on what the actual core problem causing the lag is - if it's something that can be corrected directly in the game via scripting, then you probably won't have to start a new game. If it's something to do with the actual saves themselves and the broken thing is being stored in those saves then it's likely we'll have to start new games to get around it. Hopefully it won't require a restart, but honestly I'd assume for most people who are experiencing the problem they'd just be happy to be able to play lag-free even if it does mean starting a new game.

Most of the patches for New Vegas and Fallout 3 required a new game for the effects to kick in.

i.e., having a broken quest and downloading the patch won't fix the quest. You have to start over so the quest won't break again.

Although sometimes the patch actually does work on the old file. Performance issues in general were fixed in the same file. Usually things pertaining to NPCs required a do-over.

Noone knows. And Bethesda isn't going to respond to you here. And anyway, as I'm sure many people here will be eager to point out to you: for good or bad Bethesda have not yet made explicit that the patch will adress the PS3 save lag issues.

If its in the savegames (which is prolly only part of the issue if its the actual problem to begin with..) they could just decompile/recompile the savegames.
If it does require a new savegame im bringing skyrim back to the store.
Dont feel like putting another 95 hours into the game to get where i was...

No one can say for certain if any certified patch will require that you start a new game, well the debug programmers could but they don't post here.

We will just have to wait for info to be released, this game has so many ways of playing that if you really do enjoy TES then replaying won't be boring imo.

I'm not starting again, my dude is too skillfull at warrioring now. Rawr!

Man, if it truly 100% fixes the lag problem, then I don't care. I'll gladly start over.

I had multiple character types in my head before starting the game anyway.

I don't know why I find that so funny, but I can't stop laughing.

I'm prepared to start over. Actually the more I think about it, I'm going to start over regardless, just for extra measure. Most of the hours I put into the game are due to my no fast traveling rule, which I can probably catch up to where I'm at now in no time if I just FT up until where I'm at. Especially doing A Night To Remember.

All the quests I've done, I can probably do just as fast during a second play through