Hey, I just purchased skyrim today despite some of the horror stories I've read from ps3 users.

It started just fine, downloaded the latest patch, and I was totally pumped to start my adventure!

However...

I started the game up, made my character and played through the intro up until ralof and I escaped Helgen. I had noticed that during the entire escape, the system menu was greyed out and I figured it was because it was the intro, but even after we were outside helgen it still wouldn't allow me to save, change settings or even quit to the menu. This wasn't when anyone was talking to me either. I figured, oh well, im sure the autosave was doing it's thing, so I'll just quit to the ps3 main menu.

Yah. . .turns out the autosave saved ONCE, and that was just BEFORE i spent 50 minutes making my character exactly as I wanted and taking my time escaping Helgen.

As soon as i restarted again from the beginning again, system menu was fine and everything was great(i guess..) except for the fact that i've played about an hour an a half of skyrim, and that time has been a complete waste of time. I can honestly say I've never had a game act like this on the ps3. It's weird because this seems like an awesome game.

Is there anything else I need to keep watch for, ie saving every 10 mins, autosaving every 5 or anything like that? Just want to keep the game breaking to a minimum ^^

Thanks!

Well from my experience is better no to use the auto save at all...
Without it the game runs faster and less bugs are prone to happen. Just remember saving before you start each quest and after if you double check every thing went well.
If you updated to 1.5 and with a bit of luck and you'll be fine most of the time...