On leveling:
Totally revamped, no more class selection at the start of the game, every skill you level contributes to your overall level. And each time you level you get extra health plus the ability to get either more health, magicka or stamina.
Each level also brings you perks. Cool abilities I guess like in Fallout 3.
Also, the leveling was moved from 1-25 or something like that to 1-50, but 50 is soft-capped, you just advance really slow after that.

On skills:
Mysticism is gone.
18 skills, down from 21 on Oblivion, and 27 on Morrowind.
Tries to accomodate players who want to specialize in a certain proffesion (like mage or thief), while at the same time giving room for players who like to do plenty of everything. They want to keep a special care so that this feels good, not prone to cheating and organic.

On the story and lore:
200 years after Oblivion. Set in Skyrim, a region north of the imperial city, where the Nords live.
The dragons are returning, as it was prophetized. You are gonna be trying to stop the wicked dragon god. You are a dragonborn, a dragon hunter. Your mentor is one of the last blade, voiced by some old dude from Shutter Island and Minority Report.
Also, there is a civil war, since the king is dead.
Enemies include were-yeti's, giant spider, dragons and other cool creatures.

On combat:
They want to make it more dynamic and tactical. You have to assign each hand with a function I think, either magic, 2 weapons, a weapon and a shield, etc.
You can also waste stamina by sprinting, allowing you to get access to tactical postitions.
Emphasis on really improving the combat this time around.
They are also putting care on how each weapon feel on your hand.

Other:
Third person view has been improved
5 massive cities, more variation in caves and underground stuff.

On quests:
Quests are much more dynamic now.
The quests are now more determined by how you build your chracter, individual actions and overall much more dynamic. Examples provided: If you are more of a magic user, some other mage may approach you who may not have had if you were just a melee character. Or if you killed some dude who owned a store that was gonna give you a quest, his sister would inherit the store, but she may resent you before giving you the quest. Also, if you drop a weapon in the street instead of selling it, it may just dissapear, some kid may get it and give it back to you, which would lead to a series of stuff, or some dudes may fight over who gets it.
Also, it said that the quests you are given would be modified by how you have played (I guess like scaling the quests). For example, the location of a rescue mission would be determined by which location you have visited (it will try to give you a dungeon you haven't been in) and I guess also giving you appropiate enemies to your level.


I can add that there is an option for no HUD.


On Conversations:
Conversations aren't done in a zoomed in static shot anymore.
Start a conversation with some and they will act like someone would in real life, looking at you occasionally and walking around a bit and also continue doing a task if they were doing one while talking.

On Weapon smithing:
Go to a forge and carve a new weapon out of red hot metal.


Recap from raphier

Dual-wielding: you have two hands now in combat and you can wield anything to both hands. You may assign a dagger on left hand and use a mace with right hand. The choice as they say is yours.

Duel: You may duel any NPC on the streets western style.

Inheritence: When you kill a shopkeeper, his/her family member will inherit the shop and will be angry about you, but stil give you missions.

Level-scaling: It is coming back

18 skills: supposedly even less skills to play with?

No mysticism

Perks: Rumored to be in Skyrim. I may have understood it wrong.

Boosts: Pick stamina, health, magic boosts on level up.

Enchanting: This skill makes a return.

"Radiant storytelling" or Level Scaling 2.0: "The game eventually logs a huge storehouse of knowledge about how you've played, and subsequently tailors content to your capabilities and experiences. Entering a city, a young woman might approach you and beg you to save her daughter from kidnappers. The game will look at the nearby dungeons you've explored, automatically set the mission in a place you've never visited, and designate opponents that are appropriately matched to your strengths and weaknesses."

Fast-Travel: As you probably expect, you can instantly travel to previous locations with a tap of the button

Sprinting: You can now sprint about!

Town visiting: You may do more in towns, like tailor weapons, cooking, farming or mining. Not much details about this or how detailed they are as jobs.

"Level-scaling: It is coming back"

What does that mean?

That everything will scale with me?

Even Deatshpank(an Arcade game) doesn't have that shit.

am I the only one who actually liked how Oblivion adjusts is difficulty with your leveling?

Yes you are, as someone who grew up on games where "your not allowed here till your harder" i despise oblivions layout
FF8 trying to get stronger so you can go to the heaven and hell islands was ace, not oblivion no, you go where ever at level 1, the fact you could complete the game as a level 1 says it all, it ends up been like mass effect 2 where leveling was pointless and meaningless

The scaling wrecks the exploration aspect though, you'll constantly find the same enemies scaled to your own level and with the same boring ass loot. In Morrowind, you could sneak past and outsmart enemies and still walk away with some damn cool stuff, but you had to fight hard for it. Exploring a cave was fun and worth it because there might be something good in it, not the same damn iron short sword every time because of your level. Scaling sucks, kills the best part of this type of game imo. That said, oblivion was still enjoyable but it doesn't get fun for real until you play it with something like Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul.

That said, oblivion was still enjoyable but it doesn't get fun for real until you play it with something like Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul.

but the combat sounds like demon souls.

I kinda thought more of Bioshock when I heard about the combat, with the whole combination of weaponry and magic being akin to the plasmids and weapons in 2K's game.

Dismissing the level scaling before we've seen how it is structured is pointless. Fixed level enemies also cause a lot of problems, especially with truly open games.

Not really. I have it for my 360 and have spent 100+ hours on it; never once has it been anything less than great fun.

So because you like vanlla that instantly means that OOO doesn't fix the crappy parts?

I think you don't understand how huge the difference is with mods applied.

So what exactly did you mean with the whole "Not really, i played it on the 360 bla bla bla"?

I'm fully aware of the difference mods can make, not just to Oblivion but to many other games as well. By your own admission, just because applying mods can make a significant difference, doesn't mean the 'vanilla' version can't be enjoyed immensely - to the point where you don't particularly feel the need for it to be improved through the implementation of mods.