In EQ next indeed all races can be all classes. Reason? Well, you collect classes all the time. Right from the start they will have 40 classes. A class is just 4 weapon abilities and 4 utility abilities which are each upgradable by xp. During the lifetime of the game even more classes will be added. Since they want players to only have 1 character each, this character should be flexible. So if they now add, say, the druid class and only wood elves and halflings could use it, players who want it and belong to a different race would be forced to reroll. They don't want that.
Of course it might be needed to do faction work to get druid training. So the avarage troll might have a harder time to do it, but it will be possible. In the end, like tiggles said, you create your own class. You will select your weapon class that provides all your weapon abilities (so for example Wizard to get wand skills) and then you can mix in 4 more support abilities from your other classes. This configuration can not be changed in combat.
Regarding world building: Most of the world will be procedurally generated anyways. What player create now in landmark are parts that may or may not be used in eq next for special themes. The world will change a lot over time, it's not supposed to be static like in normal MMOs. There will be earthquakes, dragons permanently destroying buildings and so forth. Most of the world will be destructible (but most things will auto heal after some time). This will lead to interesting combat abilities where deformation of the terrain will play a vital role.
All NPCs will have some rudimentary AI (see storybricks engine) and an agenda. Orcs for example will just naturally look out for lone roads where no guards patrol to surprise travellers. Once that road gets guarded more, said orcs will look for another place to hunt.
I see a lot of potential there. But i am also very worried how much can go wrong. Personally i hope for specialized servers with rules that are a bit more hardcore.
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