EverQuest II Preview
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Talking to non-player characters, receiving quests, interacting with the environment, and engaging in combat is made simple by the game's context-sensitive menus. Combat seems particularly fast and streamlined; EQ2 keeps the tried-and-true "consider" mechanic for evaluating a monster's relative strength, and engaging a foe is as simple as walking up to it and double-clicking (or, if you're the roguish type, sneaking up and hitting your "sneak attack" hotkey). Killing monsters nets you experience and loot, which in turn causes your character to kick exponentially more ass. Death is handled a bit differently than in most MMOs; instead of losing your equipment, getting killed results in a lost "spirit shard," which is this game's equivalent of a corpse. Until you retrieve the shard, you'll incur a small penalty to your attack prowess and general performance, which can be cured by retrieving the spirit shard -- and grows in severity if you die repeatedly without doing so.
