i did "hypothetical" beta for a couple weeks, then passed it on to some friends who played with it for a while.
weather i say it is good or bad would be pointless, since every one will have their own openion, so i wont go into that.
AMD 4200 duel processor, radeon 1600 PCIE video card, and it worked fine on settings somwrhere near the middle. think EQ2. a sliding scale that adds layers of graphics, kind of like photo shop and layering. like EQ2, its not that the graphics are so far advanced, it is just the sheer volume of graphics they layer on top of each other. the lower the settings, the fewer the layers.
its a cheap trick. makes you think it has state of the art future graphics, when all it has is the tried and true in several layers.
what graphic card you have wont make as much a differance as what type of connection you have. its more about volume than clarity. you would need a T3 line to see everything. the more memory your graphics card has is actually more important with this system than how fast the processor is on it. IE, a radeon 9700 with 512 mb will do better than a PCI-E 1800 with 128 mb on it.
it looks good. as good as EQ2.
all about the grind. OMG, they added new ways to grind. you could concievably grind out a single character for a couple years as a casual player and never completly develop that character.
grindings not for me. that said, i will buy it because the first 20 or so levels in any new game are awsome. after that, they all just loose interest for me. same ole same ole for the next zillion hours of whack-a-mole. its why i stoped beta. didnt want to ruin the game before it launched for me. i dont do trade skills. i dont care about "prestigious titles", i dont care if i have the only set of purple armour in the game. i just want to play and have fun and see stuff i havent seen before. and usually that comes to a screeching halt after the first 20 levels or so as a casual gamer.
you hard core types are gona love it. it stands a good chance of being the finale nail in EQ1s coffin. it will never even put a dent in WoW. two totally differant types of players.
IMO a niche game with a little something something for everyone. that something something will wear thin in a very short while though, and the casual masses wil flock back to WoW, the only truly casual gamer game out ATM, and "big supprise" the largest and most sucessfull game out right now......could there be some connection with the number of people who just want to have a little fun as opposed to the number of people who want a second job when it comes to gaming?.........blizzard will never tell.....
Edited, Dec 12th 2006 11:35am by shadowrelm