Through all of the press releases I did not see 1 article talking about the ability to go off rails and explore the surroundings and come upon a plethora of Caves, Camps, Keeps, Dungeons, Grottos and all the other things that made Skyrim an amazing open world adventure. Last October there were plenty of articles discussing the "Compass" and the ability to show near by Points of Interest (P.O.I.'s) which followed identical exploration content like Skyrim.

Has this been scrapped and has this game turned into a Linear themepark complete with Quest Hubs? And if so why for the sake of all that is TES?

I gues we watched some different ones. I specifically recall Paul Sage talking about how they expect to see players to go off in some other direction and run into quest givers on their own. And I am pretty sure he mentions something about how when we come out of a dungeon some guy runs up to us and says thanks right there so we dont have to go back to some hub to turn in quests. That was out of the stuff this week prior to PAX.

It remeinded me of that guy by the bear cave with his two friends that got killed inside and he gives you that lucky dagger. It really sounded to me like those types of randomly encounterd quests are very much a part of ESO.

You should be able to go off the beat and track, i like nothing more than being out in the wilderness and hardly coming across another player. In Vanguard i use to keep my ranger out in the wilderness for days at a time. Thing is you need a vast world to really feel alone and far away from everything plus you need to come across plenty of content or hidden dungeons/caves.

TESO is a themepark mmo but how linear no one knows at the moment. I have a feeling it will be like Age Of Conan which will be a pity if it is.