So here we go...

I'm really excited about an online component for TES. I wanted to play Oblivion and Skyrim with my friends really badly. However, TEScO isn't going to be the TES we all know and love with an online component. It's going to be WoW in Tamriel. ZeniMax Media founded a studio, ZeniMax Online, in 2007 with the explicit purpose of building this game. I'm a bit excited, but at the same time, a bit exhausted of the overused MMO schemes. The thing I liked about TES was that you could play it as you wanted. Granted, in the world of MMO balancing, having a class-less system can be challenging, but it's not impossible. Plenty of games utilize a class-less setup; Champions Online, The Secret World, etc. It would have been nice to see TEScO break the holy trinity, and with the name brand behind it, succeed in winning over people from the necessity of classes.

I am excited that most of Tamriel will be in the game. However, from what I've read so far, we'll see a lot revolving around Cyrodill. The mainstay of PVP will be to conquer the Imperial City and crown someone from your faction as Emperor. I like the sound of that, but it will make Cyrodill a pain in the a** for carebears like myself. I'm also curious to the scale and size of the world. TES games of late have felt "large" but not large enough. Oblivion and Skyrim have a lot of open ground to explore, but they don't feel large enough when you can walk from town to town on foot in under 20 minutes. That works to a degree for single player, but now we're adding in hundreds of people to the area you're walking in. The isolation will be lost if the game world's scale isn't increased.

I'm not too happy to hear that standard TES skills will be utilized like most standard MMOs. I liked not having a toolbar with hotkeys and cooldowns in Skyrim. But again, the combat style of Skyrim doesn't mesh well with MMOs.

In the end, I'd rather have seen BethSoft release a co-op component for Skyrim.

Game Informer for June will have a cover story on this. http://www.evilsourcegaming.com/screens ... ine-scans/

Also, Kotaku, Rock Paper Shotgun, and Destructoid have ran announcements of the announcement for a cover story if you want to do further reading.

I heart RPS.

I've been quite fond of TES Lore since I discovered the series with Daggerfall, so I'm definitely excited to see the world expanded upon with an MMO. I'm worried about gameplay, since MMOs tend to be pretty broken all around in my eyes. But...we'll see. There was a time when I thought maybe an MMO based in a universe that I already have a vested interest in might draw my attention. But I doubt it. SWTOR is s***. WoW is boring. I have some hope for The Secret World but ONLY because it's got Ragnar Tornquist involved. But my faith in MMOs is basically nil, and TES is no exception.

And another on point post by our resident vortigaunt

And another on point post by our resident vortigaunt