I'm almost sure that this won't become a full-scale war, but end in a few days with a cease-fire.

Reason:
A full war would be detrimental to Putin's interests.
He wants the Georgian government weakened, and eventually replaced by an at the very least neutral government.

I'm convinced that this isn't about South Ossetia, Abchasia or oil.
It's about the definition of the zone of influence of NATO/USA and Russia.
Ukraine and Georgia are the two prizes that are left in this East-West struggle, and Russia needs to destabilize their governments to pull them out of the Western influence zone into theirs.
Most importantly, it needs to prevent that they become NATO members. Warfare almost guarantees that they won't become members for a while.

The Georgian government has probably done a lethal mistake already with the apparently excessive violence against civilians.
The Russians can use this "multiple rocket launchers shot into villages/city full of civilians" thing to portrait the Georgian government as bad guys.
That would have two phenomenal advantages for Putin; disrupting the Georgian government for a higher chance of a new government and keeping Western support small.
We don't (officially) support civilians-massacring baddies, after all.

Putin has already won. His troops only need to capture some square kilometres in South Ossetia to keep the status quo ante (plus quasi-permanent presence of Russian troops in South Ossetia).
He would be stupid if he allowed an escalation or long duration of the war.

I told others that there's some major conventional war potential in Eastern Europe; especially one bloc against the other bloc's proxy was a viable scenario. I cared more about Ukraine because that country is much more relevant, though.
I encountered deaf ears mostly, and very few people seem to see the dangers of the struggles and alliance growth in Eastern Europe.

We tend to discuss celebrities' haircuts much more than vital alliance policy.