Hey everybody,
When Skyrim was released I was ecstatic. Unfortunately I had ordered it online and it didn't arrive until today, but that didn't bother me too much as I was able to play it at a friends, pretty much taking shifts basking in its glory haha. As I had done quite a lot of progress and was happy with where my character was, I copied the save game onto a USB and put it on my PS3. Unfortunately when I did I recieved a message telling me that the save was locked, I couldn't unlock trophies and I couldn't save any further progress. My question is, what the hell Bethesda and is there any way I can play my game without having to restart?

maybe its the profile it was on maybe you have to have that psn name if you were logged in at the time just off the top of my head idk

It wasn't being signed in, I've tried googling and contacted PS3 support, what they told me is some companies lock their saves for copyright reasons, which makes absolutely no sense. Supposedly the way I could get around it if Bethesda confirms that that is indeed the case is to purchase a Playstation Plus account, which makes me very tempted to just return my game, I love everything about Skyrim (apart from the stuttering issues) but I just do not have the time to restart a game and I am not paying $21 just to recover my old data.

if it works fine do not your lucky your not me ive had to restart games nearly 15 time because of there "issues"

The save is locked to restrict players to cheat with trophies.
Unfortunately there is no way to unlock the save. Buying Playstation Plus doesn't help. It would help, if the save file was copy protected, so that you can't even put it on the USB stick, then you could up- and download it with PSN Plus to your PS3, but the lock to your friends profile would remain.
Unfortunately you have to restart or maybe play it with your friends profile on your PS3 if that's possible and pass on trophies for your profile

I couldn't care less about the trophies I just want my save haha, if there was some way to play it but give him the trophies or whatever I would be fine, all I want is my little argonian and his collection of nick nacks

EDIT: Another thing, who cares if people cheat to get trophies? You don't get anything from them, they don't effect anyone and there will always be someone who can figure out how to get around the security measures and end up with 12831 platinum trophies anyway.

The saves are no copy protected.

However the way the PS3 handles the saves is by assigning them an ID relevant to your PSN ID. When you play "offline" that accounts ID is never paired with your PSN ID". So when you make an account with the same name but on a different PS3 it still has a different ID to the one on the other machine.

The only way you can transfer saves is between two PS3's using the same online PSN account. This way, on both PS3's, the account has the same ID as it is connected to the PSN and can therefore sync up.

Basically, since you played offline, you cant copy your save.

This is Sony's issue, not the games. It applies to all games.

if thats the case just have your buddy make a psn name for that profile then have him save it after then try with the same name after you copy it again

Yes, this would work, ofcourse it would mean using a new PSN without all your friend list.

i wouldnt be worried its just one game not even multiplayer

Ok if this is the solution can anyone give me a tutorial on how to do this so I can transfer it over? I would really appreciate it
Or do you mean he just needs a PSN account? Because he already has one and I tried to get him to log into my PSN on his user on his PS3 (as I was thinking about doing the Playstation Plus thing :/ ) but it said he can't log in as another persons PSN id

the same way you tried but with the same psn on both ps3s and new saves if you were offline at that time
edit: i think

Could you give me a step by step? Sorry to be a pain but I'm not 100% sure what you guys are actually telling me to do

First if your buddy has a psn on that profile skip 2 and 3 if not have him make one

second save a new save from the same game on his ps3 ( so load then just save again

third copy the game to you flash drive

fourth copy his info psn for the prof you played on to a prof with no psn

5th copy the save over and play

im not 100% sure this will work

I dont think if he signs in he can do it,

I think the only way of deffinatly doing it would be to have your friend make a PSN account of the account you were using.

SO basically if you were using his playstation name (on his ps3) , just it wasnt signed in, then he will need to sign in , save the game, then you sign in on your ps3 using his name, and load it that way.

However if you were using an account on his PS3 that has NEVER had a PSN on it (the account , for example, my ps3 has "amanda" as an offline account for my gf, she never uses PSN so its never been signed on on that name), then your friend needs to go onto that name on his PS3, goto the account bit that says "register/Sign in", and register it as a new PSN account, that you both have the username/password for,.

Then once its made and signed in, re-save the game, copy it again, take it to your PS3, sign in on the new username and password you just made, copy the save over.

That will deffinatly work.

Unfortunately I've learnt that not only has my friend forgotten his password as he had it set to remember, he also lost his old email and thus cannot recover the password. Looks like I'm all out of luck D: There goes a days worth of my life lol

I need to know if this solution is confirmed to work or not. I'm planning to get the game this weekend but I play on a different PS3 on weekends than I do during week days because of location. Seeing how this doesn't transfer over through PS+ either, i might end up being screwed if I buy the game.