Q: Can you elaborate on the character development system? Will character abilities be choice/skill driven in any way? Tell us more about the skill tree.

A: EverQuest II is absolutely a class-based character system. The majority of character abilities will be class and level driven, but we allow players to place discretionary skill points in areas that they wish to focus on. It can be compared to a skill-based system, where each class is actually a pre-configured package of skills/abilities (and skill choices). The player cannot alter the composition of the package, but they can decide where the focus is in their version of the package by using these discretionary points. As a function of gaining levels, a base amount of points are applied to all skills/abilities that are considered vital to the role of their profession. The player is then allowed to spend the discretionary points on the skills/abilities they wish to specialize in or gain that are outside their default role. This means that it will be much more difficult for the player to irrevocably "cripple" their character's potential when making advancement choices.