I'm still dubious about it all, but that isn't stopping folks from continuing to develop Elder Scrolls Online. Well, at least these days, the question with new MMORPGs is not "will it kill WoW", but "will it crash and burn within the first year". Many fail because of lack of innovation in the genre (even in Secret World, fighting is not too different), other trudge on, like Star Wars: The Old Republic. How will ESO fare, we do not know, but we do have the skinny on how players will develop their characters.

The classes won't bind you to certain weapons and skills like in other games. Here, they supposedly determine only your starting skills. I'd like to note the certifiably munchkin naming of those: Templar, Dragon Knight, Sorceror and Nightblade. Because only pussies and squares are warriors and rogues. No, your special snowflake is a "Nightblade". Anyways, once you gain a level by killing monsters, you get an attribute point (to be spent raising Health, Magica and Stamina) and a skill point to improve, well, skills. You can improve whichever ones you want, so you'll probably see Sorcerors in name only armed heavier than Templars. Also, magic schools seem to now have been reduced to Destruction Staff and Restoration Staff. Skyrim design team is green in envy of such dumbdo... simplification skills.

Once you put enough points in an ability, you can "Morph it", which is a special way of saying that you'll have two options of specializing it. A tired new age trick of streamlined RPGs everywhere. And once you reach the end of the line for the skills, boom, you gain an ultimate, from the fun looking Dragon leap to other super abilities so bland, they don't bother with flashy animations. And if you want something even plainer, you can also invest into passive abilities, yay!

The devs would also like to tell you that you race choice (orcs are made entirely too pretty – the female is Rule 34 material like nothing else in TES universe) and Classes (give you three unique skill trees) "represent only a fraction" of the character development, and that nothing is locked through you. Thus, need to try alternative characters is diminished, much like the need to replay, say, Oblivion, because you can do everything in one go.

Some skills can also be gained from, say, joining Fighter or Mages guild. And you can become a Vampire or Werewolf, which, if Skyrim and Oblivion are anything to go by, will be all bonuses and no downsides.

So as not to limit the player, you see.