Yep it's all different. It's 500 years after EQ1 so you would expect most things to be different.
I did find a manhole cover the other day, it said "ratfink was here" from the original freeport hehe.
The world in EQ2 is huge in comparison to the first. For instance "The commonlands" is huge. This seems to contain all the commons zones (EC/WC), Ro's and Oasis. Not to mention links to zones that weren't previously around. I still haven't fully explored the whole zone yet but I'm getting there little bit at a time.
Nek forest is still there but when I zoned into it I zoned right at the foot of a bridge and there was a bleeder sitting on the bridge that was level 22 or something. So I looked for a second and turned back around and split hehe.