It can be frustrating locating a specific person that you have been given a "deliver Y to X" quest for. The Quest Log will sometimes give you a specific locale to find your destination, as in "at the smithy". But sometimes it can be like a game of hide and seek (one Mississippi). You can ask a guard for directions, and if he/she knows the person, a waypoint will appear in the form of a glowing golden thread to your desired destination, but this requires typing in the name of the NPC - and more often than not, you either type it in incorrectly, or the guard knows, say, "Hannon Griswald", as "Merchant Hannon Griswald" (took me hours to find that bastard). Would be a lot friendlier if there was a drop down list of all the NPCs the guard knows, or even if that list was limited to the people in your quest log. It's not a huge detractor, but can be frustrating to play hide and go seek for fifteen minutes, even if the backdrop is as pretty as EQ2's.

While we're on quests, I like EQ2s system of quest management, to a point. You maintain a log of quests which are sorted by the zone you received the quest in. The quest description is usually enough to get you there, but every once in a while it's a little misleading (*cough* Level 10 Mage Advancement). When you complete a step you get an audio and visual message that you have progressed, and the on-screen "quest helper", which links back to the entry in your quest log and shows you the next step you need to perform. What I'd like to see added would be an additional option to sort your quests, not only by the zone you were given the quest, but also by Quests involving that zone. (i.e. deliver something from Oakmyst to Castleview would show up under Oakmyst in the first sort, and in Castleview by the second. It would just make life easier and less frustrating through the early few levels. Because as it stands, you have to do one of two things, either constantly sort manually through your log every time you enter one of the zones to see if you need to do something, or keep heading back and forth when you realized you forgot something.

Having said that, once you get a feel for the ways that quests work, you can get busy and earn some coin and experience while exploring your starting city. You don't even need to raise wand or weapon in anger until much later as there are TONS of see person X about Y and then bring me back Z type quests. Starting off, if you don't manage your time in each village wisely, you'll find yourself zoning what seems like most of the time. Zoning works exactly the same as EQLive, and if you have a solid block of system RAM it's not too much of a pain, but on a 512MB system, the first few levels can be annoying, especially if you forgot you needed to drop that Eldarr rope off to, say, Hannon Griswald (the bastard).

Before you can progress past level 6, you are required to prove your loyalty to the city, by performing a set of tasks. These are relatively straight forward, and require combat in one of the many newbie yards available. Combat is dramatic, fun and very pretty to look at. Spellcasters weave intricate magic symbols that glow in the air before striking their foes with deadly and impressive force. The first time I saw Smite cast (priest Direct Damage / Nuke spell) my jaw dropped open, totally yummy eye candy. Melee types get special moves that also have their own animation, and look very cool. The first interesting change from EQLive is that everyone gets Health and Power (Mana) and that special moves or spells both require Power to use. So no more whining from warriors on how useless that +50 Power is on their "Uber Helm of pwnage".

The foes in EQ2 (mobs) are easy to identify and gauge in terms of difficulty. Glance at the name, if its Grey - its pathetically easy for you, so easy, in fact, that you won't receive a reward for killing it. Green is an easy fight, blue an almost sure thing. White is an evenly matched opponent, yellow is tough, orange will almost certainly kill you, and Red will take you home and make you their bitch. Additionally, some mobs will be Over or Under "cons" (short for consider - how hard you, as the opponent, consider them). These are represented by arrows down for wimpy, and up for tough. A ^ ^ Green creature will usually tear you a new one, while a V V Yellow, will be relatively easy to defeat. You can also tell if you will be attacked by the mob if their names have red borders, signifying an aggressive creature. If you have any doubts, you can also just select the critter/foe and hover the mouse over your target window, it will tell you what it thinks your chances are.

Some creatures are social, and if you attack one, you'll get him and his buddies chasing after you. You can easily tell if this is the case, as when you select one potential opponent, you see ALL of what you're up against, as the additionals (or adds) also are highlighted. While fighting, you can learn that certain special moves done in a certain order trigger what are known as "Heroic Opportunities" this allows you to do combination moves resulting in increased potency. This is a really big change from EQLive, and many other RPGs as these combination chains also work in groups, meaning that and skill can make a noticeable difference in a group's potency.

Combat on the whole is done in a first class manner for both Melee and spell casters, it's a fun experience and drawn/animated beautifully. The only thing that takes away from it is how you look when you move around while in combat, and especially when you run away. I'm not sure if this was intentionally done by the team, but when you bite off more than you can chew and sprint for the safety of the guards, you look like an extra from a Benny Hill sketch. Another big change is the well reported "Locked in" combat system. When a player or group attack a creature, a padlock is displayed next to the mob and player. While locked in, you cannot cast spells on the player (i.e. heal), or attack the creature they have engaged unless they yell for help, thus breaking the encounter open to anyone, and removing any reward for defeating it. While this system has its' critics, the system works exactly as it should, allowing the team to fairly balance encounters without worrying about high level players trivializing it for the level of players its intended for.