So when I logged on earlier, I got a musket and a life staff just at random in the first chest I opened. While on the starter beach I also got some plate armor and gloves, lots of ammo, etc. I figured out that you can make and equip all of the starter tools, so you can get a head start of gathering. I level up musket to 2, Life Staff and Sword and Shield to 5 and run around a bit. It was a really nice experience. After work I log back in, Atlantis is locked, so I can't get back to my character and have to start over on some random server with the shortest queue.. The equipment I got previously was totally luck of draw; this time, all I got was bows, flat bows. The quest bow was better but meh. I picked up plenty of ammo, I guess but the bow didn't feel like as good a comp weapon. Everyone was running around with different weapons at low levels but I couldn't find anything other than the starter sword to save my life, and no one was answering questions. The resources seemed different (never found Hemp to make a fishing pole) and the quest giver on the starter beach was a different NPC as well, although the quests were the same.
Maybe it will be upcoming but at level 7 you would think I would have stumbled across the intro to other weapons at this point.
Edit: LOL at Jozu and my differing opinions but I much preferred the staff. I really thought I would go hammer but who knows? I liked the life staff so much, I need to keep my options open and see how Greedfall Online plays out.