[Braen]

Some interesting thigns from the preview:

Perception: Perception will be a multifaceted group of skills that characters of different professions may use. For instance, scout characters may be able to use their perception skills to detect traps or hidden enemies waiting in ambush. Sorcerers may be able to use their perception skills to identify enemy magics and attempt to counter them based on the level of their skills. As we saw, if sorcerers make a somewhat successful identification check, they may be able to counter the spell; a moderately successful identification check may let them transmute the incoming spell into a beneficial effect; and a critical success may let sorcerers turn an incoming spell right back onto its user.

Stances: These abilities will be governed by particular combat "stances," which characters of all classes will be able to take. By taking an offensive stance, warriors can dish out more damage and have access to offensive skills; similarly, by taking a stance that focuses on a specific school of magic, sorcerers will have access to those particular spells. Higher-level characters may be able to keep more than one stance active, which should add even more tactical depth to combat.

"Sypathetic" system (I think they meant Symbiotic): Where items group members have and abilities their classes have augment the abilities of the groups mates. Certain character classes may also have sympathetic abilities, such as spells from healers and sorcerers that may be used in sequence to trigger an entirely different effect. If such a trigger is set up by one character, any other character in the party with a complementary ability will be given a pop-up notification onscreen that a sympathetic follow-up is available. Sort of like Heroic Oppertunities in EQ2. For instance, warriors will have a knockdown ability that will let them shove an enemy to the ground; as soon as this is made active, any rogues in the party with the "chest stab" attack will receive a quick notification and will have a limited time to follow up against the prone opponent.

"Advanced Encounter system": This is keyed of mob loot. Essentially, while all dungeons will have wandering monsters that will let casual hunters get in a few fights, some monsters will drop encounter-specific items, such as a bracer, which, when equipped, will spawn all-new monsters along an "encounter route." These monsters may be targeted only by the party that possesses the item, so these adventuring parties will have no shortage of enemies to fight and won't have to worry about other players stealing them away. Once an adventuring party has such an item, it will be lead along an encounter route by a series of onscreen clues that will continuously bring the group into contact with more encounter-generated enemies that only they may fight, leading up to the climactic end of the dungeon's quest. In this particular dungeon, we watched as a giant skeleton rose from a crypt to attack us. Defeating it set the stage for the final encounter, a huge insectlike creature who, before attacking, demanded to know what puny adventurers had disturbed its slumber. Sort fo a limited form of Locked Encounter in EQ2, except EQ2 went totally overboard and made every encounter locked.

Player housing and towns: We also had a chance to visit a player-crafted town. This huge area included several multistory houses which, in the final game, will apparently have their own dynamic variations on ambient music when entered. Player housing is currently planned to ship with the game when it first launches, and Sigil currently plans to let powerful guilds build actual towns, which will be appropriately expensive (complete with maintenance fees) but can act as a revenue stream, especially if wealthy adventurers use them to set up computer-controlled merchants to sell off their old weapons, armor, and items.

Nice little preview. More stuff coming in the next few weeks before E3 and of course tons coming out fo E3.