Look at the spin surrounding TOR. They kept saying that all the things people would expect in an MMO will be there, along with the story, and yet TOR launched missing many staples of MMOs, and instead of the four pillars, it was more like two: Story, an oh yeah, we tossed in some other things too.
Star Trek Online? All through development, when all they kept showing was Starfleet stuff and people were wondering if the Klingon faction was even real, and they assured us that they'd start revealing the Klingon stuff "next month". Only to find out in closed beta that the Klingon Faction was only about 20% complete. But Cryptic never gave any official statements, just letting people believe that it would all be in place by launch.
Star Wars Galaxies, all through its development they hyped the hell out of player cities, the ability to ride mounts, and drive vehicles. They waited until two weeks before launch to reveal that those three things, which were THE main selling points, would not be in at launch, but would be patched in as soon as possible afterward.
At least Zenimax Online Studios is being straightforward with what TESO is not at this juncture rather than just leaving us to speculate.
Many ES players do not understand the degree that most MMO companies mislead the community by not saying anything at all. I've heard less "we can't talk about this yet" statements from ZOS than I have from any other MMO developer. They are talking about it. We may not like what they are saying, but they are at least talking about it. And in terms of MMO development discussion, it's refreshing to say the least. I would rather have a developer deal honestly and say that this or that isn't in the game, than have them say nothing about it and let us assume it will be when it isn't.
Beleive me, ZOS is off to a more positive start as a developer than a lot of the others. It actually makes me want to give them a chance. I get it that some of you don't, but then some of you do not appreciate what most MMO fan communities have to endure in terms of lies by omission on the part of developers. ZOS has made claims that this or that feature is too difficult to do in an MMO, and they are BS, especially when those same things already exist in other MMOs. But at least they have made no attempt to hide the fact that those features are not there, for whatever reason.