The developers have always said that they are very much against the multiplayer concept
and the main site has been updated, as forseen.
Elderscrolls
aaah... excellent
EDIT: and to everyone's great surprise (and relief) Oblivion will not be smaller.
There will, however, be less quests and less NPCs.
But in return they have said all quests will be dynamic and immersive.
They claim they are trying to set things right... since Morrowind had loads of quests but most (of not all) were fetch this/kill that quests.
and the NPCs will not be static anymore.
They will be living NPCs (more about this in the gamespy preview)