about combat..

i was wondering what the combat was like in this game.. does it look like the characters are actually hitting each other? or is it just like some other mmos where they hit the air?

Maybe you should check out some of the gameplay movies...
I've played only ranged characters and I know they look like the arrows or fireballs hit the enemy. I don't have the experience in melee combat to comment on the rest though.

The combat looks really good in my oppinion. I mean, it's not completely realistic to the point of swords gashing their your enemies' bodies and leaving blood stains everywhere, but it's not RuneScape either. You won't see anything impaling your opponents and coming out the other side, but you'll see a decent amount of the sword or whatever actually slicing through the enemy model.

In any case, you attack your enemy and it continuously does the defalt attack which will be your bow, sword swipe, wand fire, etc. and then you use your skills which have awesome animations to slaughter your enemies.