We finally managed to get into the new and improved world of Norrath and took a look some of the new areas and characters in the game. As you may have heard, EverQuest: The Shadows of Luclin requires a minimum of 256MB RAM to play, and on our test machine (a Pentium III 900MHz with 256MB RAM and a GeForce2 video card), it ran with mixed results. When you first install the game, Luclin actually offers you the ability to choose which of the newly revised character models, male or female (trolls, elves, humans, and others) you'd like the game to display; the game suggested that we choose about 15 new models or so. For the most part, the new character models do look better than the original ones (most of which have remained largely unchanged since the original game's release in 1999), as they're more highly detailed, especially the characters' faces. Luclin not only lets you choose your character's face, but for most races, your character's hair and eye color as well.

　　Though we only got a brief glimpse of it, the game's new character class--the beastlord--and the new character race--the Vah Shir--look interesting enough. The tiger-like Vah Shir inhabit a city known as Shar Vahl, a town that resembles a storybook Arabian palace, complete with gold-leaf trim and potted palms. Vah Shir may become bards, rogues, shaman, warriors, and the game's new character class, the beastlord--a hybrid fighter/spell-caster. Though we didn't get to spend much time with the new class, the beastlord seems to most closely resemble that of the EverQuest ranger--a class that complements its fighting ability with useful spells. At higher levels, beastlords will gain new abilities, and past level 50, all characters will actually be able to pursue different paths of advancement to help differentiate their characters from others.

　　We'll have a full review of EverQuest: The Shadows of Luclin in the coming weeks. For now, read our previous coverage of the expansion and take a look at more than 70 new screenshots in the gallery above.