Would playing Skyrim give me a feel for Elder Scrolls Online?

Greetings friends,

I am greatly interested in throwing myself into this game upon launch. I have not not played any of the Elder Scrolls series before this and what I would like to ask is, would it help if I entered into Slyrim and tried to get into the feel of this game, or is this one so different that I would be better going into this cold (or a few times in Beta which I just signed up for) ?

I am heading for retirement (again) and will be spending a lot of time once this game is launched.

Safe travels and good hunting my friends,

Pumpkinbutt

As a player of both the Elder Scrolls series and MMORPG's, I would suggest playing through Skyrim if only to understand the lore aspects that will be implicated in the Elder Scrolls Online. Know that this will not give you a 'sense' of the game, as MMO's and single-player RPG's are two very separate entities. If anything, playing through Skyrim will get you excited over the very expansive fantasy world that is the Elder Scrolls.

I've never played a MMO, but as a fan and a player of TES games, I would not fully. I think that you would get a feel for the game mechanics, and maybe you would reset your controls like that, maybe. You would only get the lore, which, in fact, wouldn't be very useful. It would help ,for you would learn of the races, and the provinces. For this is 1,000 years before Skyrim. I would suggest that you head over to The Elder Scrolls Wiki, or the UESP wiki. But if youy want to get Skyrim go right ahead it's fun :D

The gameplay is not the same as in skyrim but you will know more about the lore, races, and places.

Skyrim is certainly a much different game than TESO. As others have said though, it will help familiarize yourself with the races and some lore. However, keep in mind that Skyrim was very... race-relation themed. Don't think that all high elves want to control everything (the high elves in TES:Oblivion were all extremely nice, with only a couple exceptions) and that all Nords are racist (they're certainly not).

Gameplay-wise, Oblivion is actually a tad bit closer to the combat style (just a tad, still completely different imo) but the leveling system is VASTLY different.

That being said, Skyrim and Oblivion are both phenomenal games that are worth a play even without any other reasons such as getting ready for TESO.

I think lore and familiarization with regions, races and the type of skills you will encounter will be quite useful.
However I am a firm believer that it will be better to look at TESO from an ES perspective than an MMO perspective.
I would highly recommend selling your soul to TES.... I mean trying out the previous titles.

I ran out of time and could not formulate anything here, but if I were you I would check out the stickies. The forum stickies here are loaded with info as I have found myself.

But to answer your question, yes play Skyrim at the least.

I have played Elder Scrolls from Arena and although i do agree with most that Skyrim does have a similar game play style I would suggest Oblivion as your best choice if wanting to learn about Cyrodiil

I would expect by taking the early advantage of open beta will give enough exposure to the game play before launch anyway

I suggest playing Skyrim before ESO, because you'll learn all of the lore. The gameplay is different in the games, but Skyrim is a great game regardless and I'd suggest you play it even if you won't play ESO

It probably would only help you with the controls and name of the creatures, but other than that, no