Yeah, Game Informer's got an article with a code cover. One huge advertisement for the plot side of things, which is cool if you're into that, but if you were trying to guess what I was interested in from the last thousand posts I've made about the Elder Scrolls games, it's the mechanics.  
 
NeoGAF, source of many things false, abusive, and sometimes true and cutting edge about games was the source of a few posts with some very specific details about the upcoming Elder Scrolls V.  These were reposted on the much more genial Quarter to Three, and passed on from there to me via a friend of mine.
 
The highlights: 
 
I'm happy to say that one of my earlier suggestions about skill-based leveling may be implemented. Rather than major and minor skill foci (focuses? whatever), every skill leveled means you move one step closer toward leveling your character. That level increases base survival stats, and something that may be like Fallout's perk system, which sounds juicy.  Skills, too, have been pared down from Morrowind and Oblivion. I guess it's a slow process figuring out what's less useful. 
 
For combat it seems that players can now decide how you use weapons, shields, and spellcasting. If you want to have weapons in both hands, one hand with a weapon and one for spellcasting, or whatever else, these change what tools you have available during a fight. I really like this, but my natural desire to break things has me wondering if this means you'll be able to have two shields, or if having both hands open will improve spellcasting. 
 
Quest beginnings might be more dynamic, where you run into people who were affected in some way by your actions before who act as triggers for new incidents; and it seems like people pop in to replace people who have died, though they have long memories.  The example given in both sources quoted from the source linked at the bottom talk about a shopkeeper inheriting the shop from the previous owner, a man you murder. This person will still give you a quest that the original owner was supposed to give out, although she'll be angry at you...  doesn't sound like much of a consequence for murder to me.
 
[...]
Source  
 
--
 
Edited Update: Various Sources point to an official forum post stating that Fallout 3's scaling system will be the model for Skyrim, not Oblivion's system.
 
I'll keep posting new tidbits I find here if anyone's interested, although I'm betting some of the intrepid webcrawlers out there have already learned more than I have. :)
 
One of the biggest potential improvements, something I've been hoping to see ANYWHERE, is that the dynamic quest system acts as the director might in the Left 4 Dead series. You learn about new places you haven't seen through quests that are sprung on you through the course of play, and it keeps track of your playing style and adjusts what it does to fit you.  Very neat, although potentially this cuts players out if they wind up unknowingly playing too similarly: what if my particular way of playing means I won't see as much content as I would otherwise?  How much would I have to adjust my style to see more of what the game has to offer?
 

Check my comments for more thorough posts and caps of article snippets, if you haven't run into those posts elsewhere already!

Yeah, Game Informer's got an article with a code cover. One huge advertisement for the plot side of things, which is cool if you're into that, but if you were trying to guess what I was interested in from the last thousand posts I've made about the Elder Scrolls games, it's the mechanics.  
 
NeoGAF, source of many things false, abusive, and sometimes true and cutting edge about games was the source of a few posts with some very specific details about the upcoming Elder Scrolls V.  These were reposted on the much more genial Quarter to Three, and passed on from there to me via a friend of mine.
 
The highlights: 
 
I'm happy to say that one of my earlier suggestions about skill-based leveling may be implemented. Rather than major and minor skill foci (focuses? whatever), every skill leveled means you move one step closer toward leveling your character. That level increases base survival stats, and something that may be like Fallout's perk system, which sounds juicy.  Skills, too, have been pared down from Morrowind and Oblivion. I guess it's a slow process figuring out what's less useful. 
 
For combat it seems that players can now decide how you use weapons, shields, and spellcasting. If you want to have weapons in both hands, one hand with a weapon and one for spellcasting, or whatever else, these change what tools you have available during a fight. I really like this, but my natural desire to break things has me wondering if this means you'll be able to have two shields, or if having both hands open will improve spellcasting. 
 
Quest beginnings might be more dynamic, where you run into people who were affected in some way by your actions before who act as triggers for new incidents; and it seems like people pop in to replace people who have died, though they have long memories.  The example given in both sources quoted from the source linked at the bottom talk about a shopkeeper inheriting the shop from the previous owner, a man you murder. This person will still give you a quest that the original owner was supposed to give out, although she'll be angry at you...  doesn't sound like much of a consequence for murder to me.
 
[...]
Source  
 
--
 
Edited Update: Various Sources point to an official forum post stating that Fallout 3's scaling system will be the model for Skyrim, not Oblivion's system.
 
I'll keep posting new tidbits I find here if anyone's interested, although I'm betting some of the intrepid webcrawlers out there have already learned more than I have. :)
 
One of the biggest potential improvements, something I've been hoping to see ANYWHERE, is that the dynamic quest system acts as the director might in the Left 4 Dead series. You learn about new places you haven't seen through quests that are sprung on you through the course of play, and it keeps track of your playing style and adjusts what it does to fit you.  Very neat, although potentially this cuts players out if they wind up unknowingly playing too similarly: what if my particular way of playing means I won't see as much content as I would otherwise?  How much would I have to adjust my style to see more of what the game has to offer?
 

Check my comments for more thorough posts and caps of article snippets, if you haven't run into those posts elsewhere already!

I am extremely pleased if this information is true. Killing people and knowing it had a permanent consequence in Oblivion always made me avoid killing anyone, and it felt like a shackle really. Obviously, if you kill someone in real life it is inevitable that they won't be replaced, but considering this is a game I want them to be replaced. Fable II replaced people, and while they always felt expendable for that reason, I still prefer that system to "Oh, you killed him - you'll never get his quest or loot now!". So yes, I'm incredibly excited for Skyrim now. I think Sledgehammer are going to have difficulty selling me on their Call of Duty title at this stage, and Bethesda should definitely milk the date they have taken for all it's worth.

If they use Fallout 3's scaling, it would at least be more tolerable and still leave that game entertaining.  I personally found the hardest difficulty in Fallout 3 to be very engaging and less of a grind to kill off each foe like in Oblivion, which got very tedious.  That didn't mean such a problem never existed in Fallout 3, but it was less common as I saw it.
 
Also hell yea dual spell-casting!  They better make the destruction school a bit more fun allowing you to cast powerful spells with less of the mana hit, yet of course keep it balanced.  It may have just been me, but every time I was a mage I always relied on the other schools like Illusion and Alteration to mess with my foes before beating them to death with a weapon, as you kind of had to be good with a weapon regardless of class in that game.  I hope I can feasibly be a weaponless magician of true shiftiness this time around.

 Found some pics:  http://www.gamekyo.com/groupnews_article16624.html 
 
I really hope these are real.

All I hope is that the environments will be more varied this time around. Oblivion was great when it came out, but the gameworld was one big forest and when it came to dungeons there were like 3 templates that seemed to get reused... I daresay Two Worlds was superior in that aspect!

" @Aronman789:  Holy crap!  They sure look real, and they look damned pretty.  Excellent find! "

All the things you list as rumors are probably true, given that I saw them in the leaked scans. I'm excited, but I need to see gameplay footage, even gameplay footage that is clearly under the control of the developers, to have a more concrete idea of what is actually going on. I hope that their changes are honest to goodness "streamlining" as opposed to what is unarguably watering down on Oblivion's part (though, in its favor, I can actually play Oblivion, whereas I can only listen to people talk about how Morrowind is so much better than Oblivion and only stupid little peasants like Oblivion, etc etc.)

Update: Various Sources point to an official forum post stating that Fallout 3's scaling system will be the model for Skyrim, not Oblivion's system.

"  Found some pics:  http://www.gamekyo.com/groupnews_article16624.html  I really hope these are real. "

This seems to be a good example of how you can streamline a game, without simply dumbing it down Oblivion style.  Seems like the new leveling up system gives you a lot more flexibility with how you want to play the game and lets you focus on skills you like using, instead of thrusting you into a specific class with skills you may end up not using.  I am aware that you've always been able to create custom classes, but it's impossible to know what skills will you'll like, right at the beginning of the game.. let alone which ones will be useful.  For example, how many people picked lockpicking as a skill in Oblivion.. only for it to be made completely redundant by an ingame item? 
 
The environments also look a lot more unique and less of the randomly generated, generic medieval forests.  Now I'm just hoping they've ditched the compass, fast travel and have brought back open cities.

" Now I'm just hoping they've ditched the compass, fast travel and have brought back open cities. "

I must admit, i'm very disappointed that you didn't mention what is probably the most revolutionary change announced so far: 
 

BEARDS!

No real consequences and further streamlining. Right out of the Bioware playbook.

I am tired but if I am reading this right I dont see how allowing you to kill anyone only to have them be replaced by some one who does the exact same things as them will be any good. If I decide I want to kill someone then I have made the choice to kill a person and thus shouldn't be able to come back a week later to find that their replacement wants to give the same quest to me, its stupid if I kill them I live with the result which is that I may lose out on a quest or good loot.

" @Aronman789 said:

"  Found some pics:  http://www.gamekyo.com/groupnews_article16624.html  I really hope these are real. "

omg. Look at that skill screen. beautiful "

I hope the consequences are a bit direr than that. Totally going for double shields, if such a thing exists, just to see what that would be like. 
 
My affinity for being weird takes me all over the place- in Oblivion, I was a vampiric Argonian God-King with stunted magicka and strong ties to the Dark Brotherhood. Mostly I just Wabbajacked stuff.

OMG this game is gonna be super tits.  I can't wait to play this game.  I'm so pumped up for this game it is unreal.

Less broken magic to screw around with, no more murdering everyone in the game, sprinting probably rather than athletics, randomly generated generic quests assasins creed style probably. Fuck this game! Still gonna play it though. And then hate on it for still not being as good as morrowind, or even oblivion.

I just hope that this game could live up with its expectations because Oblivion really didn't.

I wonder how the combat skills work in this one. For what Elder Scrolls' combat is, i'd rather they got rid of the per-weapon skills system and just tied them into other attributes, bows, daggers and throwing weapons could be determined by agility, and swords, hammers could be determined by strength. Then just add perks towards the individual weapons and i think that would be a better system.

10 races, just not specified. Im pretty sure it's the same 10 as always.
 
Also, I bet the game ends with the player character becoming the next emperor in the lore side of things.

"  Found some pics:  http://www.gamekyo.com/groupnews_article16624.html  I really hope these are real. "

" @themangalist:  You're probably right.  I should have taken a look at the race list, but yeah:
 
Orcs, wood elves, high elves, dark elves, lizards, cats, redguard, imperials, bretons, nords.
 
@Sin4profit: With 18 skills there's a distinct possibility of some trimming with all the specific weapon skills. Maybe the skills will be fighting styles? That seems like too radical a departure to be possible, but it might help emphasize the new direction they're going.  "

I sense the need for a new PC.

So not only does that game look pretty in screenshots...during a time when all games typically look pretty in screenshots... 
 
...but now we also know that HEY, IT'S AN ELDER SCROLLS GAME WITH ELDER SCROLLS GAME-STYLED THINGS IN IT!!! 
 
MIND BLOWN!!! 
 
T_T  Again, I'll wait for someone to show off a gameplay demo.  We're learning nothing new or special with all this early shit.  I'm really trying hard to not shit on peoples' parade, but you folks are making it so easy to get set up for disappointment.

@Unchained: You get much mileage out of Arena? I've been playing it lately and I actually like it quite a bit. Not nearly as deep as the other games, but it has an interesting scope. "

" i'm super excited "

Seems like they're making the leveling and difficulty harder to game than in Oblivion. Sounds awesome to me!