I'll be the first to admit that the skill system is crude and need lots of work. Obvious problems are abundant with it, such as low experience yielding, which itself wouldn't be a problem if there were more skills to train, which leads into the problem of low diversity. I also know that you can only hear "we'll have more skills out soon" so many times before you lose faith, so I have to apologize at the length of time it's taking us to get in gear on this. We don't just want it to be another quick-fix patch that improves one area but damages another.
As for more creatures, they're coming -- and in force. We were hoping to have a few new cities ready to be released by the end of the year, but it seems like it may be a bit longer before that's a possibility. Regardless, what you'll find in them and on the way to them will be a godsend for many, if not all, of you. Want a sneak peak? Read the history of the Soul Stealer Swamp and pay special attention to the vile creatures that haunt just one of the many areas to be released in early 2004...
http://www.role-players.com/Eaxia/Library/soul_stealer_swamp.php
Creatures are also getting smarter and are evolving with resistances (and susceptibilities) towards certain types of damage (of which there is fire, ice, wind, earth, aether, psychic, holy, and unholy). Creatures are also getting two new upgrades... the major one is that NPCs will have a control/ally subsystem which will let players control and/or ally with an NPC (hire a mercenary, control an undead zombie, befriend a pack of wolves, etc.) and the minor one is that NPCs will have interest ratings in their environment. When coupled with personality and alignment, this gives us a very powerful core for making NPCs and creatures much more aware of their surroundings and give each type of creature better (better = more realistic) chances at targeting players, objects, or other creatures/NPCs. This means NPCs can decide whether it's more important to heal/help a fellow NPC (or player that they're aligned with) or whether to attack hostile targets (such as un-aligned players/NPCs and objects). Objects, yes, objects -- NPCs will also now be able to target object structures such as buildings, artifacts, etc. in the efforts of raiding a peaceful village or in defending their own if you decide to raid them!
The best part is that both upgrades are due for release within the next month. Priests and Necromancers are both waiting on the NPC control subsystem, so it's a high priority for us. As well, the environmental interest rating NPC subsystem is important for controlled NPCs since they need to know how to attack other NPCs for the Necromancer that's controlling them (and later, for other types of NPC control, such as NPC allies and hired NPC mercenaries).