The first thing that I noticed when booting up the game was the intricate character creation system. In the original EQ, you were given the choice of your race, class and some basic generic facial features. In its sequel, the choices are a little more robust. Now let me tell you, this isn’t The Sims 2, but it gets the job done. I picked the Kerra race (formerly the Vah Shir), which most non-eq players will recognize as the “tiger things”. Another change for me would be the fact that I chose the evil alignment. Most of my reasoning for this was because in the original, I loved the city of Freeport, but absolutely despised Queynos. Initially I wished that it would have been Queynos as the evil city and Freeport for good, but, I’m starting to enjoy my evil surroundings and find that the experience is very gratifying. You must be thinking “Oh no, he’s going to start setting kittens on fire with his mind and convince husbands to cheat on their wives”. While that would make a good episode for a primetime television drama, that’s not me, so shush. Expecting a familiar MMO setup, I chose my character, a generic name, and sat watching the loading screen (which features excellent artwork by the way). I was quite surprised when I loaded up on a sail ship, with some old raggedy Jack Sparrow type yapping random things to me. It seems I had landed in a tutorial. At first, I tried hard to ignore what he was saying since hey “I know everything there is to know about EverQuest, what could you possibly teach me?”. Yet again, another profoundly stupid question was shot down in my mind. It seems a lot had changed, and it would be in my best interest to listen.