Another hit from Brad, it's really breathtaking
AMD Athlon 64 3700+
2GB, DDR 3200 RAM
7200RPM SATAII 120gb HDD
ATI x1950pro 512mb
So it's really a bottom of the line bargain bin PC (under $1k)
As comes with running a poor man's PC, I get lower framerates than I would hope for. In the wild (outside of town) I get anywhere from 40-80 FPS. In the cities however, I can range from 15-35. This is with fully updated drivers, and a tweaked vgclient.ini. On that note GET A TWEAKED vgclient.ini! You can get as much as a 20 FPS increase just from the ini. I know most sites don't look into this before posting their reviews/previews, but miracles can be done.
Gameplay:8/10
The world is massive. There's no getting around that, but to compensate, Sigil makes mounts affordable and fast. Higher mounts are rarer and more unique though, and include flying mounts of many varieties.
The grind is back with Vanguard, it set aside the rediculously easy styles of EQ2 and especially WoW for a more 'casual' approach. This isn't EQ's level of grind, in fact it's pretty quick leveling all things considered. A week after launch and people are already 32+. (max level of 50)
Graphics: 10/10
The art direction in this game is wonderful. There are 3 islands, themed differently with vastly changing landscapes. Personally most of my time has been spent on the Asian styled Kojan, and the desert like Thestra. Everything is very shiny, and HDR is already in place. FSAA is being added shortly, in the next few patches (as of Feb 4, 2007 it's not in). The races are unique, and spell effects are great and being improved upon constantly.
Sound: 9/10
The sound track is well composed and has a very epic feel to it. One thing that is missing from the sound though is NPC voices, which aren't even existent.
Value: 10/10
With three spheres of advancement, adventuring, crafting, and diplomacy, the game offers much greater depth than most games around. The adventuring is well done, with many quests, raid mobs, and content. Crafting is very deep, with multiple steps, and not the dumbed down crafting that haunts many modern games (see: EQ2's new crafting system, or WoW's crafting). Diplomacy is something very new, and should be interesting. You earn zone wide buffs by making deals with NPC's, through a card game. The game is similar to many card games around, like Magic The Gathering. As you win Diplomacy matches you become a more important diplomat and get new cards to play with.
Tilt: 10/10, I've had nothing but good experiences with this game once I got past the initial performance problems via updating my drivers and using a custom .ini.