I've attached a few screenshots. The one called 'Willow Wood Screen Capture.jpg' is from my lowly AMD 1700+ with Radeon 9200 and 512MB DDR :( Sadly, this computer is in way need of a memory upgrade for EQ2. I'm not sure how much of a difference it would make, but most likely alot since 512MB is the minimum system requirement for the game. I attempted to play it with 256MB and it was possible to do the tutorial part with that, but I doubt you could actually play in a zone with other PCs in it. Anyway, you can see it still looks pretty good on my computer. PCs and PC-Raced NPCs faces are all blurry on my computer (Facial processing requires a ton of memory) because I turned that feature down to the minimum. They looked pretty good with the recommended settings but slowed the frame rate way down in zones with more than a few PCs in them.
The game is excellent. Sony put alot of thought into the mechanics and content. During the beta I got one character up to 16 Level (could of easily gotten into the 20s but spent alot of time mapping stuff out and getting quests and npc locations and the like). Anyway, I completed well over 300 quests just to give you an idea of how much content there is. I have the locations of around 500 NPCs in Qeynos and it's suburbs (yes I said suburbs ... more in bit), and missed alot of them, due to not noticing at first that some NPCs did not echo back the You said,"Hail, soandso" message when hailing them. :(
The current world is divided up into two primary metrolopises, Qeynos for the Good and Freeport for the Evil. Each city has it's main parts which are fairly large zones, equal to around 4 or 5 city blocks (and as big as the old EQ1 cities zones combined -- i.e. North Qeynos is about the same size as EQ1 North and South Qeynos). There are also suburb zones which are quite a bit smaller, and there are specific ones for each race.
The primary city zones and the suburb zones are all permanent ones. The cities also include adventuring zones which are instanced based on the number of people in them. They appear to instance new ones the count gets somewhere between 25-40 chars, thus keeping people from not being able to hunt their intended prey.
The amount of character customization is the game is incredible. From the beginning with the creation process, you can modify lots of facial, head, and body appearences, including: eye, hair, and skin/fur coloring; hair styles; eye, eye brow, nose, lips, chin, and ears shape and positioning; naked clothing color; body size; and many more.
During initial time on the Isle of Refuge (basic training zone to get you to at least level 3) you can and should do a quest to become a tradeskiller. Tradeskills work much like adventuring, in that you gain levels and experience, can fail, and can even die if you're not paying attention. Tradeskilling is just as involved as adventuring now, and much more rewarding. Tradeskillers now make the best equipment in the game, instead of mediocre junk compared to what you can loot. The Tradeskill quest should be done on the Isle of Refuge because once off the Isle you can never go back, and if the quest is not completed, then you can not ever work on tradeskills. Currently Adventurers and Tradeskillers can level to 50 in each.
After leaving the Isle, you begin your citizenship quest to gain access to the main parts of your chosen (or not) city. Some races are evil by nature, while other are good, and still others can be either. The first place you go to is your races suburb, and enter your own apartment (free for the first week).
Appartments and housing require rent, but you place all sorts of items in them. If you pre-order the game, you get a pet baby dragon for your house, and a talking statue of the god for your city :) for your room. Guilds can also purchase housing just for the members of their guild with the same customization.
Before you hardly get started with the citizenship quest, you get a table, a painting, and a chandeler (sp?) for those in Qeynos, and basically the same thing, but slightly different for those in Freeport (didn't get to spend much time in Freeport).
Classes have been done much better as well. Initially you choose from Fighter, Mage, Scout, or Priest types, then at level 9 you have to do a quest to become any higher level and get to pick from one of 3 sub-classes for each class. Then again at level 19 you have another 'hallmark' quest to pick your final class which is a choice of two. Unfortunately, some players will only have a single choice as some final classes are good or evil only. However, you can become a traitor and change your alignment and main city, but this will be difficult at first, since you will have to build up faction with the new cities residents, guards, and merchants.
Traderskill classes follow a similar path, but only three choices each of the two, instead of three, times the classes split. This approach really helps with tradeskilling as you can make most any basic item once you have a recipe but as the items become more advanced, fewer and fewer tradeskillers can make them, as they require some or alot of specialization to create them.
The interface has been greatly improved as well. It may take some time to get used to, but once you do, you will really like it. One of the best things they have done on the interface is quests. First there is a quest journal that keeps track of your current and completed quests and lists the next step(s) you need to take. Also NPCs now give you options for responses, so no more scrolling back to find the bracketed message and hoping that it is correct, and that you don't typo it :)
The interface for combat was been redone slightly, as well as the mechanics which were a major overhaul. The mechanics are well done in that combat options / skills are now time-based and power-based (vs. mana). Moreover, the ability for individuals and more likely groups to complete a heroic opportunity (HO), which is a sequence of combat skills / spells, makes the players involvement in the game a necessity for optimal playing.
The way heroic opportunies work, is basically someone triggers the option for one, then depending on what potential skills / spells are used one of a variety of that type of HO will be triggered. Once triggered a combat wheel (CW) will appear listing what types of actions are required to advance and complete the HO as well what type of HO the current one can be shifted to. Basically only Scouts can shift a HO to another one of that type (at least at the last time I checked). The benefit of a completed HO varies but the easiest of them to complete do things such as huge damage bonus, while the more difficult ones do things such as a zero power complete group heal.
Once a mob or group is targeted and engaged, the combat is locked from interference by other PCs not in the group. The lock is released when either everyone runs far enough away for the mob(s) to forget about it or someone in the group 'calls for help.' At this point the mobs completely heal themselves and if you continue to kill them, the group does not recieve any experience or loot. All of this negates any kill stealing or power leveling.
Along similar lines, beneficial spells from other PCs only stay with you while you are grouped with them and they keep them maintained. As soon as you leave the group or get out of range (this may only be for certain buffs) of the PC who cast the buff, the buff fades. This keeps a class from just becoming a buffing class, as has happened somewhat to Enchanters in EQ1 in the high-end where their most desirable buff (mana-regen) lasts for upto 5hrs when max extended, but their slow is sub-par compared to Shamans.
Also soloing is much better and faster in EQ2. Down time is significantly less, and if you choose your targets right, you can almost go non-stop soloing maintaining basically the same the exp rate you would in an average (or sub-average) group. Groups, however, are still the way to go, especially if the members understand the game mechanics and the abilities of the other PCs in the group and capilize or promote HO.
Considering / Evaluating targets has also been greatly improved. Now, along with a basic level indicator [No Exp, very easy, moderately easy, even, moderately difficult, very difficult, and certain death), there are also marks to indicate whether the target is above, below, or average skilled for that level, and whether they require a group or not. Of course, grouped characters will always say you need a group. But, trying to solo anything that is moderate difficulty or higher that states a group, will almost certainly result in death or you running away. Finally, all locked encounter mobs when targeted display a lock to indicate that.
Death has also been improved. No more having to loot your corpse or unding a level. Now what happens is there is a ghostly corpse that has your soul shard on it, that you need to loot, or suffer from the ability decreases that not having it causes. Loosing multiple shards renders you unable to kill anything but the greenest of greens. However, if you cannot retrieve your shard, the effects will fade after three days. Also, you don't loose experiece from death, but rather create an experience debt, that any future experience is split between the debt and actual experience until the debt is repaid.
I don't think they will have all the bugs worked out right away, as the beta had lots of problems, but nothing too horrible. The game crashed alot, and it seems they have some problems with the servers at times. Also (possibly due to all the patcing they did) some quests got bugged on some of the beta servers. And often the instanced zones got bugged with mobs you couldn't hurt, or quest events that wouldn't register.
Oh yeah, and their is Voice Overs (VO) for many of the NPCs and even some mobs, to get you more into the game :) Although even during beta, many people were already coplaining about some of the most frequent ones you hear, and even have came up with jokes about them. For example, many merchants when Hailed, reply with "Now where did I put that ledger."
And subscription price is $14.99 / month. And, as far as I could tell dial-up modem play was fine as long as it isn't shared. Zoning is much slower on dial-up tho. But, even on high-speed, zoning is still much slower than EQ1. My average zone times on dial-up was about 60secs and around 30secs on high-speed (not positive on the high-speed), and sometimes as slow 2-3mins on dial-up, but I believe that a server problem was the cause since most of that time, no communications were happening :(
Well I think that covers 90% or more the general concepts and features of the game. For more media, including movie trailers you can visit http://www.everquest2.com/ and for some specific information, you can check out http://eq2.warcry.com/ and http://www.clanwhitestorm.com/.
Happy Hunting All!