You definitely will want to get your hands on some sort of manual; the rules are quite different to anything I've ever played before and it takes a bit of reading plus experience in the game to get a handle on it. Any RPG experience you've had will be beneficial but like I said, it is quite different in a number of ways.
The best thing for you to do is start playing. You may well start a number of new games before you settle on a character you really like, so don't fret too much about getting your first character just right. The most important thing to do that is different from other RPGs is use your skills! The level-up mechanism is different to most games I've played, in that you don't get generic experience for kills and quests which is added to an experience bank. Instead, using your skills gives you experience in them specifically, which, when you increase them enough, levels you up and you can add points to your attributes (strength etc). So using an axe increased your axe skill, casting a conjuring spell increases conjuration and so on. So try to use a wide range of skills - run instead of walk, jump a lot, lockpick doors instead of using open scrolls, cast any spells you have, use magical items, have a range of different armour types and so on.
I actually haven't patched my game at all. I've been playing it for 8 weeks now (and no end in sight! Very big game!!) and haven't run into any problems (or at least not ones I've noticed anyway
). If you don't have quite the specs you need, you can adjust the graphics so that it's not so demanding on your system. I find I need to do this when I'm fighting a number of creatures at once because it slows down a lot. If you're going to do this though, walk out into the open at night and check out the sky first though! It's so beautiful! [img]smile.gif[/img]