Felon said:
Feh.
Sounds like they're just taking the path of least resistance, providing magical analogues to technological devices, i.e.
continual flame streetlights and lightning rail subways. Basically like playing cyberpunk with magic. Spellpunk.
Nope (not that there's any reason you should know that from what you've seen). The whole idea with the use of arcane magic in Eberron is to take existing spells, magic items, and things like golems, and to consider how those might be incorporated into society over the course of centuries. Yes,there are
continual flame streetlights -- it's a very useful low level spell with a permanent duation. But there aren't magical toilets, magical computers, or magical phones. Economics are still taken into consideration. Yes, you
could make a magical telephone network using
sending, but you're dealing with a high-level spell and a magic item that costs tens of thousands of GP and a lot of XP. And as noted in the previous message, most NPCs use NPC classes. Most magical work is done by adepts or the new magewright class; even a low-level wizard is remarkable due to the range of spells she can cast and her early access to the upper level spells (in comparison to NPCs).
Looking back to the question of high magic to low magic, low-powered arcane spells (or psionics, depending on culture) are more common in advanced and prosperous societies than in many settings. But high-level magic is considerably rarer than it is in, say, Forgotten Realms. As mentioned in the current WotC site article, the highest level NPC cleric in the world is 16th level and can't even cast
true resurrection.
As for the "is there a logic to the different areas of the world, or are they just lumped together like Disneyworld" - obviously there's not enough info available at the moment to make that clear. At the moment, I'd be surprised if anyone can tell me what those areas of the world actually are. Yes, there's a place with halflings and dinosaurs, but so far all that's known is that the halflings ride dinosaurs and build cliff dwellings. There's considerably more yet to be revealed, and as it is the world should begin to seem more like a tapestry instead of a quilt made up of disparate patches.
As for Brotherhood of the Wolf, it's certainly not my intent to say that BotW is what Eberron strives to be; I'm the first to admit that there are some very awkward things about the movie. But it is a recent example of a movie with pulp action that is not set in the 1930's era, and I was trying to steer people away from the idea that the world physically resembles Indiana Jones or The Mummy as opposed to just having the same adventurous tone. And while having pulp action, BotW also deals with a strange cult, a religious conspiracy, and court intrigue. Would I run BotW as an Eberron adventure? Nope. But there are certainly elements of the movie that can be described as "swashbuckling action and dark fantasy", which is what Eberron is about.
One thing I've said on other boards: the information provided so far does not in any way provide a complete picture of the world. There are some very critical elements that WotC is keeping in reserve, I assume so that each update is more interesting than the one before. It's not going to be a world for everyone, there's no question about that, and if you hate absolutely everything you've seen, it probaly won't be for you. But if you're still lukewarm or on the fence, keep an eye on things to come -- there are more surprises in store.
-Keith Baker