3. Can you share more with us about the skills available in Oblivion; what may have been added, removed, or merged; skills perks; how *many* major/minor skills our character may choose?

I think the whole list will be announced soon, and we always change it with each game to get better game balance. So 21 was the magic number for us for skills, as it allows each of the 7 main attributes to govern 3 skills. Also, we try to make each skill have meaning, so less is more when it comes to that. We never hit perfection there, but it’s better this time. For instance “Long Blade” and “Short Blade” are just “Blade”, so now you have one skill that allows you to use more weapons, and you get a better balance for the player when choosing between say, “Destruction” and “Blade”. We really trimmed back the weapon skills and combined them, so that it played better if you chose all of the weapon or combat ones. That was an area in Morrowind where you really lost out if you majored in all the weapons at once. In Oblivion, you choose 7 majors, and then you have 14 minors. The 7 majors are the ones that affect your leveling up. It plays out much better than our previous systems.