First and foremost I would like to show my appreciation for all of those whom provide information on the topics in this discussion. I hope that this is the appropriate place for this topic, if not I sincerely apologize. Please keep in mind that these are my opinions and not at all an attack on the game.

Although, I have no previous experience with the Elder Scrolls Series I can certainly tell that ESO has great potential. Like many other hardcoe gamers I have watched all the ESO interviews, pod-casts and trailers that I could get my hands on. Through many late nights of theory crafting I have applied all the knowledge I collected about the game to maximize my efficiency at launch. While waiting on more information about ESO I decided to try Skyrim to obtain a feel for the basic mechanics of the game. At the time I figured it couldn't hurt anything, at the very least I would become more familiar with the lore. However, my experience with Skyrim has left me with nothing other than doubt. I would like to hear from Bethesda themselves but, also look forward to hearing opinions and possibly answers from the community if they can back up their information with reliable sources.

Skyrim is much more difficult to control than it needs to be. Previous games I have played offer the option to use a wider variety of keys to control your character (For example: move forward, strafe left, strafe right, rotate screen left, rotate screen right, rotate screen up, and rotate screen down controls can all potentially be binded to the keyboard). Key bindings are not a factor I left out of my theory crafting. I own a 17 button Razer Naga and plan to take advantage of it playing ESO. However with body turning, aiming, attacking, charge attacks, blocking, looking up, looking down and more all on a mouse; how could I possibly add 5 abilities, an ultimate ability, a quick slot for potions, etc. to that list? What I am hoping for is more customization options pertaining to key bindings. Choices such as the option to change your attack button to a key on the keyboard as well as rotation of your character to keys like the up, down, left, and right arrows all seem essential to me due to the fact that I don’t always play with a mouse. Not only does Skyrim prohibit you from reassigning many important controls, it also punishes you for making changes to default controls. As a newbie running around in Skyrim, as if it was not enough of a task warming up to new bindings, when entering any interface the game mislead me. Offering shortcuts within different interfaces is nice but, when the key that the game associates the shortcut to doesn't proc the command due to customization of key bindings the interface does nothing but frustrate me. I would like to know more about customization options that will be available in ESO. In many interviews I have heard Paul Sage refer to the fluidity of the game as well as being able to immerse yourself in the game. If I am constantly trying to juggle 20+ commands on a mouse I don’t believe I would be able to feel completely immersed into the game. Even if a 17 button mouse is not the situation I still see scrambling to adapt to an unfamiliar key system taking away from being completely immersed in the game. The screen itself looks great but, leaving out small details can ruin the impeccable job that they have done constructing a HUD.

Also, feel free to add in other speculation that has been haunting you!

Pretty much any game out there lets you customize the loadout of the controls. So I don't see what the real issue is here.

Well he's saying Skyrim didn't let him. Which I have no clue about since I just use the defaults.

Speaking of which, ummm doesn't it use WASD and mouse look? So where's the problem in moving around?

As to adding 6 more attacks etc, umm 1-6?? WASD and clicking numbers works for me......

First, as Lep said, there should be some degree of customization in controls.

Second, I don't really get what you're saying. You won't need to execute any commands with your mouse other than your basic attacks if you don't want to. I have a similar MMO mouse (http://www.amazon.com/Logitech-Gaming-Mouse-Black-910-002864/dp/B0086UK7IQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1374032607&sr=8-1&keywords=mmo+gaming+mouse) and I think this system will work fine.

Its is reticle driven, like FPS games. You just look where you want to go. No buttons needed. Strafing will be done with the "A" and "D" keys. Forward and back will be "W" and "S." Your 5 skills will be your first five buttons on your mouse. So you should have 12 left over. If you wanted you could add your dodge roll, your consumable, and your weapon swap to your mouse as well. That way the only thing you will need for combat will be "W, A, S, D" and your mouse (only 8 buttons on your mouse.) The rest will be done just by moving your reticle.

EDIT:

I forgot about the ultimate. So you would only have to use 9 buttons if you mapped everything to your mouse. That's way way way less than most MMOs.

The controls are similar to Skyrim but not identical. Skyrim was rigid in that you couldn't rebind most things, TESO will let you rebind pretty much everything, like other MMOs.

This is not Skyrim Online, guys. Its an MMO.

Wait! So you are telling me that this isn't Skyrim with friends?

Well, one point where Skyrim's binding customization failed me was for some bizarre reason, they locked out the number pad. I'm not allowed to map it for ease of use (default keybinds aren't often left-handed friendly), Skyrim tells me those keys are "reserved". In short, I move stuff from the left side of the keyboard to the right (arrow keys for movement, other close at hand keys for whatever, and number pad for hotbar shortcuts--If the controls are simple enough, I use the number pad for everything).

That's a really bizarre layout, lol.

It works for me, and keeps my hands closer to their natural positions--Try using the standard control setup with your right hand on the keyboard, it's awkward as hell, and most games don't package a preset lefty set of keybinds. I mouse left-handed, so unless I want to completely give up aiming to hit buttons (much less move), I have to remap to something more comfortable.

Besides, it's not like I ever claimed to be normal.

Nah I feel you. I just never really pictured it from a lefty's perspective.

So thank all of you for checking out this topic, I appreciate the feedback and opinions. To clarify though, like myself many people are going to ESO from other games they have established a comfortable feel for. In my case, coming from 4story and GW2, I am not at all use to using my mouse to aim and choose the direction i walk in. Hopefully I will have the patience to get use to this but, after becoming comfortable with another system I would much rather just continue playing with what is familiar to me. If I cannot adjust I may not be able to play ESO, being how competitive I am if I cannot preform like I would like to I loose interest and often times revert back to a game I am more familiar with even if I don't enjoy it as much. Being a part of a hardcoe PvP guild I can say from experience this is the case for a decent majority of the MMO crowd. Luckily I took the time to look into the game before playing and went as far as to buy a game to check the mechanics. However out of the fifty some people in my guild planning on getting ESO I am the only one to go as far as to buy a game and do extensive research. If 1/50 is the case I am not sure how many people out of that 49 person crowd would be willing to stick with a completely new game with an unfamiliar setting, player base and mechanical scheme. I feel that a completely customizable key binding system would really improve first impressions and could, in many cases, be the difference between a loyal long time player and a disappointed gamer.

They'll probably let you change the controls if you want. And if that fails, they are apparently going to allow interface mods.

Hmmmm.... I'm sure you'll be able to change key bindings but I sort of doubt that they'll let you do away with the reticule driven game play. That's sort of central to the game and I don't really see how an action combat system (with aiming) could work with out it.

Mouselook takes some getting used to, but once you get into it, you'll never want to go back (much faster response times than using the keyboard to turn, unless the game developers hobble mouse tracking speed for some stupid reason).

Never thought of Skyrim being awkward to play with controls. The only key I remapped was the shout button to the mouse button 4. Other than that the defaults were used to great effect.

The specials are resource driven and are not on a global cooldown like most mmo's out there. You use Stamina and Magicka when you fire them so if you fire them all at once you will have to fall back on basic attacks and wont be able to dodge incoming damage. This for me brings in some nice strategy to the combat side of the game, rather than just sitting there in a WoW'esq fashion button mashing a sequence over and over again while the character auto attacks between them.

I do agree though with Skyrim inventory it was difficult to use so I download SkyUI to help me with this. Ever since TES games started to show up on consoles this has been the case in their games. Oblivion UI was a horrible low res and Skyrim was difficult to navigate and sort items. The journal is another thing that has been dumbed down to near removal within the game, Morrowind had a far better journal.