Originally posted by aurick

I'm torn on the character creation.  The problem for me isn't a lack of faces or anything like that.  Frankly, there are more face texture options than WoW has, as well as DDO and some others.  Ultimately, how much of that even gets seen?  A game can have 20 different facial sliders, but nobody except the player really sees the results.  Beyond a distance of two or three feet, the differences are impossible to detect.

What I wish the game had is more options for the body itself.  Height and build kind of stuff.  These are things that really make a difference from a distance.  More hairstyles would be nice, too.  But the rest is just really unnecessary.

More options are always better.  There has been a long running debate on whether or not less customization somehow makes for less lag in big gatherings.   I don't know if there is any merit to that, but the game did run good for me.  But you are right, usually once you get a helmet on a lot of that goes right down the drain.

Originally posted by jusagamfrek

Excellent review.  Spot on.

Also, for the question about the art style - the game was reminiscent of WoW's art style (as Blizzard said they were inspired by the Warhammer Universe), but taken much further.  Compared to the screenshots shown the colors are more vibrant at times and more ominous at other times.  The environment sets a marvelous stage imho.

I am not sure how vibrant the game is overall.  My experiences were limited to pretty much the Elvan area. I have a screenshot somewhere of a Keep defense in the shadowlands, which is like the tier 2 zone I think.   The atmosphere there was quite drab, but as the name implies it is supposed to be run down looking.  I do like how in the PvP areas there are zero monsters.  It was annoying in DAOC to have roaming mobs to interfere with fights sometimes.

I found this in my folder as well.   This is a picture of the Bright Wizard Academy I think its called in the capital city for order.  I was able to go inside and the place was very interesting.  I wish I had spent more time in the main city, maybe in open beta I will go dabble more there.

Yes, the Bright Wizard College is awesome. There's a podcast somewhere of a guy spending hours and hours making the concept art for it, and it looks exactly like that in-game. Good job!

Solid info, thanks

Found this buried in my forums from a guildie, it shows a keep battle from the defenders viewpoint.  You can see in the distance some of the siege weapons the attacks are using to weaken the defenses.

good read man, i like ur SS because you have the pro on it ^^ ==wink==