I remember hearing Todd say that Bethesda wanted to remove classes from Skyrim, because people often restarted the game after realizing they wanted their character to develop differently. I can get behind that. I'm going to miss that aspect of Elder Scrolls, but I know the perk system will be a lot of fun and I won't be disappointed with the game, so I'm not going to complain.

What I don't get though is why Bethesda thinks that replacing stuff related to attributes and classes with perks is going to make people less likely to restart.
Think about it: When you played Oblivion for the first time, you might have realized that your game plan had some holes, but most of those holes could be filled over time if you trained a lot and made sure to receive the maximum level boosts.
In Skyrim, you are going to be selecting 50 perks from a list of over 200. Your character will probably be highly specified for specific strategies. What happens when you realize half way through the game that certain perks and strategies are simply superior to the ones you have chosen. You can't go back, you just have to work with what you've made so far, and try to improve him as much as possible before lvl 50.

There was not much change between my first two Oblivion characters, but I can almost guarantee there will be a HUGE change between my first two characters in Skyrim. The first time I play skyrim, I'm going to want to compare the effectiveness of the perks for fighting with a shield, fighting with two weapons, and fighting with a two handed weapon. We're also going to have to compare the perks for swords, blunts and axes.

I think its pretty easy to see that Skyrim is going to make even more people want to restart than Oblivion.
And like I said before, I'm not complaining; I'm excited. But I'm not understanding the logic here.

Im pretty sure when he said "restart" he meant restart right when they started, because they didnt like what class they chose, or how they looked, or what attributes they chose, etc...

yeah I think in the example he said something about people playing for like 3 or 4 hours and realising it's not the way they wanted their character.

Of course, when you were halfway through the game, you compensated (this is what I did with my first character).

I think they mean to " remove classes to make thing flow naturally" not to be more complex persay but a natural build to the game is still very complex and has a better presentation than dealing eith a standard character sheet..whats more impressive on release day? " oh the character stat screen has a new look guess i'll stop a moment to think about where i put my points" or would it be better to play the game leveling up with ur perks for so long before realizing that over the 5 hours u've played and the 6 times u leveled up u realize u lose health slower and u can shrug off those blows that enemies give u and can cast a spell more often now...that sword swings a little faster and now u can carry around more loot cuz u've gotten used to heavy armor now....natural progression..simply genius"