I can't find much information since the game hasn't been released, but it sound like certain skills fall under one of three archetypes you have to pick when you start. Warriors cover the combat skills, mages the magical ones ect. I understand you can level up skills outside your class like a warrior with lock picking and a rogue with one handed, but do they recieve a penalty or level up slower? I know there are Guardian Stones that will increase your level up with a particular set but is their more than that? I belive they said they still want you to be able to customize your charector.

Classes were removed entirely.

the removed classes i think you pick combat, magic, or stealth based character.

There are no classes per say, you could be a Warrior, Thief, Mage if you wish.....

You don't have to pick anything, you just use the skills you want. You'll still find people that talk about picking some class or play style though since that's how every other game has been up to now so it's a bit of a paradigm shift.

The guardian stones can be activated to make certain sets of skills level up faster, but only one can be active at a time.

Edit: added info.

There are no classes, the skills that you use are the ones that level up. AFAIK all the skills level up at the same rate. Once you level up enough skills, you character levels.

Basically if you want to be a lockpicking, heavy armor wearing, magic casting, 2 handed wielding crazy person...you can.

Just do whatever you wish. Want to open a chest? Go pick that lock. Cast a fireball? Go for it. Your skills in whatever you use will increase. The higher the skills that you increase, the more you level, the more perks you can pick.

All you choose at the beginning is your race, gender and appearance. After that, you just use whatever skills you want to use. At level up, you pick a perk, which is a boost to one of your skills. Certain perks need a certain level of that specific skill to unlock. The perks you choose, determine your "class".

What about stats? If you level up combat skills does that increase your strength or do you get most of your stats from armor and weapons?

Stats are gone.

Every level you gain, you can raise Stamina, Health, or Magicka.

Melee damage is related to your skill in your weapon.
Magic damage is related to your skill in your magic field.
Archery damage is related to your archery skill.
etc
etc

So if you intend on being a "GlassCannon" type of magic user, you'd want to mostly spend your points in magicka. If you want to be a sneaky assassin thief, you'd want stamina/health and minimal if any magicka.

The three class archetypes Warrior, Mage and Thief are purely a lore feature that has no in-game relevance, it's for RP at best. It simply tells us of which general archetype those given skills fall under. In other words, it makes sense to call yourself a Warrior if you got a lot of those skills, but you can call yourself whatever the heck you want hehe.

If you wanna be the Ship's cook, then go ahead. Just don't expect to get a oily, black hairdue with a ponytail and crappy acting abilities.

There's no pony tails!?

You don't have to choose anything. You play how you want to play. No classes.

I do agree that it's a bit confusing because I'd read previews that say in Skyrim you can pick any race and play how you want. So you could just as easily be an Orc mage as you could a High Elf. But then I've read a couple of magazine previews that said picking an appropriate race at the start is essential as the initial boost to the preferred stats (albeit small) can make all the difference. I'm personally planning to take my Khajiit or Argonian (haven't decided) down the magic path and I'm sure the magic related perks and putting my level up into magicka will compensate for not having the absolute best available starting stats. I don't think it will take long for my mage and my firiends Altmer mage to be more or less the same, if the system works like I think it does.

I spent way too much time in Oblivion's character creation trying to put the best set of skills together for my custom class. I'm actually quite glad that's not an issue anymore.

Skyrim sounds like it's got the right idea: Pick a race, a gender, tweak how they look, and get on with the game!