• Pick one of the newer starting areas: Timorous Deep (Gorowyn), Darklight Wood (Neriak) or the Nursery (Kelethin) in that order. They've got direct access to city vendors, and better quest rewards. TD has the best, DL next and Kelethin third. If you need/want to start in Qeynos or Freeport, note that you can leave the starting island immediately and make your way to Butcherblock and thence by gryphon to TD. Both evil and good characters can use the TD starting area even if you haven't selected TD as your start point.
• Be careful with claiming items on your first character. If you decide you don't like the class or something, you won't be able to get those items back. At most claim only the early veteran-reward bag until you're sure you'll be keeping the character. Be doubly careful about claim items that are limited to 1 per account.
• Don't bother twinking out your character. Vendor-bought armor and Apprentice II spells/CAs will be more than enough to make the starting areas easy, and you'll get better gear and Adept I spells/CAs as quest rewards and mob drops quickly enough. If you really want to move fast and have some friends, see if they can make you handcrafted armor and weapons and Apprentice IV spells/CAs. Don't worry about mastercrafted gear or Adept III spells/CAs until you hit 20 or so.
• One good source of cash early on is harvest raws. T1 raws (from the level 1-9 areas) tend to be priced fairly high on the broker since there's so few people harvesting them for long. Once you get your initial inn room in your city, get a sales display crate (doesn't have to be big) and start harvesting and selling raws. Also sell any Adept I drops you can't use yourself. You'll quickly accumulate enough money to finance equipment upgrades.
• Start 2 characters, and make them at least low-level tradeskillers. T1 (levels 1-9) recipes can be made by any crafting class, and you can hit level 10 (where you have to select which area of crafting you'll go into) by running the initial crafting quest and doing maybe 1-2 extra recipes. Make one character a Scholar and the other an Outfitter, and run them both up to at least level 19 (where you make your choice of final crafting profession). If you want you can select a profession for each and continue, but with those two at level 19 you'll be able to make all armor, weapons, shields and spell and CA scrolls from levels 1-19. That'll let you make your own Apprentice IV spells for all classes up through level 19, and all equipment for tiers 1 and 2. If you get the advanced books for the mastercrafted recipes for the outfitter, your characters will be self-sufficient for armor and weapons until level 22 when they'll want their T3 gear.
• Not all classes are created equal. If you can, find the EQ2 Kingdom of Sky guide from Prima. It's old, but the discussions of the classes are still valid and give you a good idea of what the strengths and weaknesses are and what playstyles each class is suited to.
• Don't be in too much of a hurry to join up with a guild. Take your time to level up and get a feel for the game, and for which guilds have what kind of rep. The exception would be if you have friends already in the game and are going to hook up with them and join their guild.
• You'll hear a lot of whining about how bad the game is, how broken some classes are, the usual drama. Don't take it too seriously. Above all, remember that this is a game. The point is to have fun. If you're not having fun, let your subscription lapse and try another game that's more fun for you. Your characters will still be there and you can reactivate your subscription and pick up pretty much where you left off if you decide to return later.

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