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I've been spending the bulk of my play time on the test server since before last weekend and I am flat out having a ball! Here are some of my early impressions:

The IoR is now split into 2 unique islands called "Queen's Colony" and "Overlord's Outpost".

So far I have not rolled up an evil character so my experience is limited to QC. I rolled up a ranger and a warden, (go figure!), and early on, both play very well.

You now receive basic armor and weapons (including bow & arrows and even some poison for the ranger) at lvl 1. These items include chest piece, leggings and boots plus a basic melee weapon. The main quest line will augment this basic kit to add gloves, shoulders, arms, helm etc. and even some bling-bling so that you can leave the island well tricked out for your debut on the mainland!

All of your spells are now specifically and uniquely named for your class and you begin getting class defining abilities, (like bow shots for the ranger and HoTs for the warden), long before lvl 10.

As far as the island itself, there are many new mobs and whole new quest lines there now. You can stay as long as you like since there is no citizenship quest when you get to Qeynos/Freeport and the new lvl range of mobs will support a stay till somewhere between lvl 8 & lvl 10.

The layout of the island is unchanged but the content is almost all new. Most of it is geared to solo play with only 1 or 2 final quests that require a small group. And even these can be completed by a high enough lvl solo player, (say lvl 8 or so).

There is now a complete crafting instance with an NPC salesman who carries all the T1 books, fuels and support items. No broker or wholesale tasks are available but you can make most anything you could craft on the mainland till lvl 10.

There are now a variety of trainers each of whom will teach you about a different aspect of the game. Voice-overs are not yet in place but are expected before the patch goes live.

The treehouse is now populated by a gang of friendly goblins who have some neat quest lines for you when you get there.

Bladefin the shark is gone, but a big nasty octopus has taken up where he left off!

When you are ready to leave the island, you are given your CoQ spell. Gone are the bells, replaced now by a cool looking sailing ship lashed to the end of the docks.

Once you reach your new home, more new NPCs and quest lines await you. First, there is a racial mentor for each race who will offer you a quest line to get you started in your new village. These are from 3 to 5 steps and end with the mentor turning you over to an NPC in the nearest newbie garden.

One interesting change in the villages is that the rats and domestic animals now have level tags and can be attacked! It's very interesting to watch as a guard slaughters a local named pig or cat! (This will probably be changed or modified before it goes live.)

Once you reach the newbie garden, you will see that most everything there has been changed too. new mobs, new level ranges and new quest lines abound!

For example, the aqua goblins are gone from Forest Ruins and have been replaced by pirates during the day (their ship is tied up to the dock at the back of the zone), and by skellies at night.

Average lvl inside the castle is 11 or 12, most of the new castle mobs have a large aggro radius and they all see through invis so it's no cake walk for a lvl 8 in there!

There are many new critters on the grounds surrounding the castle including dragon flies, tarantulas and stag.

Oakmyst Forest is also a whole new ballgame with new mobs and unique new quest lines everywhere. First time there I got my butt handed to me by an Oakmyst Greatbear - an old nemesis of mine!

I also visited The Caves and found that the average mob lvl there is now 10 or so. These level changes all tend to stretch the amount of time you can spend in the first tier. I find that I am in no big hurry to get to Antonica since even at lvl 10 or 12 there is much good xp to be had without even leaving T1.

There are still some problems with the new content but there is tons of feedback and stacks of bug reports and the devs are clearing issues on the fly.

Overall, I have been very impressed by the level of contact and the ongoing dialog between the game designers and the testers on the SOE forums. I am hopeful that by the time this patch goes live most if not all of the known issues will be resolved.

Now let me outta here... I gotta go log in and see what's new!!!

(BTW - I invite everyone here to come and log on to test and see these things for yourself. The characters you create there do not count against your regular quota - you can have 8 characters there too!)

Edited, Wed Jan 25 23:35:37 2006 by OldBlueDragon