Went to the trouble of tracking these down, in order to disprove some points being made over on the forum.
The EQ 2 Press Release from launch.
The EQ 2 Valentine’s Celebration Press Release.
Note that both state clearly:
Players enter this world by creating their own unique character, choosing from 16 races and 24 classes.
But as I always say over on my world news blog, don’t take my word for it. The original documents are there for you to see. I particularly like this latest documentation for its lack of ambiguity.