For its first foray into the world of massively-multiplayer in The Elder Scrolls Online, Bethesda appears to be cleaving fairly closely to the hugely successful format that took a hardcore RPG and made it a mainstream phenomenon. The Elder Scrolls Online's engine looks and feels like Skyrim, and boasts similar controls and design.
Gameplanet took the game for a brief spin this morning.
But first of all there's a departure from tradition. The first thing fans of The Elder Scrolls series will notice when creating a character in The Elder Scrolls Online is the class selection tab. Typically in an Elder Scrolls title a race is chosen (which comes with particular boons and blemishes) and skills are dynamically honed based on the amount of use they get.