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TULGA GAMES LLC, COMPLETES PURCHASE OF ASSETS OF ARTIFACT ENTERTAINMENT
TEMPE, AZ 25 January, 2005 Tulga Games, LLC announced today that it has completed the purchase of the assets of Artifact Entertainment.
"We received approval by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in mid December to move ahead with the purchase, then proceeded to formally close the purchase," said Mr. Chris Tulumello, founding manager of Tulga Games. "I've been saying for months now that I'm both a fan of the game and a strong advocate of the underlying technology. This purchase dramatically increases the value of Tulga Games and send a message of stability and longevity to current and future Horizons customers," continued Mr. Tulumello.
Members of Artifact Entertainment's development, technology and creative teams have been asked to join the new Tulga Games team and "the response to these offers has been overwhelmingly positive," says Mr. Tulumello.
"We are commencing a five-year strategic planning process, part of which is reviewing other titles and other intellectual properties that do not have a massive multiplayer version. We do this while progressing toward our main goal of increasing the stability of the Horizons: Empire of Istaria customer base and augmenting the content and storyline of the game. We also want to enhance the viability of our current research and development teams. I know that our technology has very unique features, and we encourage others to license it.", said Mr. Tulumello.
Tulga Games also announced that it has received additional funding from C.P. Baker & Company, Ltd. C.P. Baker is a Boston-based investment company. Its principal, Mr. Chris Baker, has long history investing with Internet based technology companies. The funding will be used to fuel continued marketing efforts, ongoing technology, and game development. "Obviously, everyone at Tulga is very pleased that others consider our company and product line viable and worthy of investment, "said Mr. Tulumello, "Mr. Baker's history and understanding of this market is also testament to his interest in what we have to offer."
"Tulga Games, through their acquisition of the valuable assets of Artifact Entertainment, is poised for future growth, our investment recognizes the value of the company as a whole and what it offers to the market," said Christopher P. Baker, chairman of the Board, C.P. Baker & Company. |
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I hope this will start to breath new life into HZ..
Such great Ideas.. such a waste of code.
Would be nice to see the 30 or so thousand people that used to be in game a year ago.
wasnt tulpa basically horizons renamed to avoid bankruptcy to start anew?>
I.e buying itself but dropping its debts?
Beta Tested: Lineage 2, Ryzom, City of Heroes, RYL, EverQuest 2 World Of Warcraft European
Truly Loved: World of Warcraft
Come on TULGA.. Pull this great game back into the limeligiht.
Has the BEST craftiing system, is the ONLY game where you can build you own structures on a block of land, giving it truely player created towns.
Probably the only game where you can play a dragon and fly.
Has one of the few active storylines. Have played em all Meridian59,Ac1 AC2 Eq Eq2 WOW and a few others, and HZ is the best by a long shot!
It has no stupid ZONES.. like in EQ2 where there are sometimes three of 4 versions of the same place.. and you dont know which one your friends are in. WIth NO explanation in-game as to why this is so.. its just to satisfy the mechanics of the server.
Horizons has ONE huge seemless world.
Plays well as single player or in groups/guilds.
Has best consignment system for players to sell there stuff. a Bit like an MMORPG EBAY system.
ALL IT IS MISSING! IS MORE PLAYERS.
SO COME ON,. GIVE IT a GO!
I am going back after recently trying EQ2 and WOW, RYZOM.
Shod De Workman.
I agree 100 percent with all Shod has said. I have been with the game since Beta and continue to enjoy my adventuring there.
Kealla, Saris Tailor/Weaver, Guild Mistress, The Echelon, www.the-echelon.net
I've played this game, and there are definately some things they could improve. But overall I agree that it blows EQ2 out of the water (in most ways. Obviously there are some things that EQ2 does well, some things that WoW does well, and some things that Horizons(HZ) does well).
HZ PROS:
1) Crafting - Pretty good crafting system. I hate crafting. I had no intention of crafting a single item in this game. But I tried it out, and it wasn't half bad. But I still don't like crafting
.
2) Plots - I like the plots in this game. I read that the developers are slowly working towards the implementation of furniture. Hopefully they will be able to speed this up now that they were taken over
.
3) Dragons - I have a dragon. I like my dragon. They can fly, they can breathe fire, and they can hoard their preciouseseses. And, within the next month, Dragons will have their own lairs to call home. Should be fun.
4) Graphics - Not top of the line. Oh no. Not even close. But reasonably good. This isgoing into the pro section because of this one thing: some of the hand crafted areas are truely BEAUTIFUL. Frozen waterfalls and soaring mountains. Very pretty. The weapons and tools are cartoonishly big IMO, but not so much so that it distracts you.
5) Friendly community - This surprised me. The relaxed design of this game (read: not an everquesting WooTalishous "the vision" type of game) leads to a much older playerbase on average. In fact, some of the players are over 16! This may not be a big thing to some people, but to send out a general call for help figuring out a funtion on the UI and recieve 10 replies before I can blink impressed me
. In a good way.
6) User Interface - Awesome. No other word. Fully customizable. Really great. Cool. Too bad they layed off the guy who designed it (forced by the same money issues that lead to the origional chapter 11 and this buyout). He is a genious.
HZ CONS -
1) LAG - FFS this bugs me. I know every game has lag. And to be honest, it may not be as bad in this game as some (although I'm not too sure about that one:P). But to port to a big city and fall to 5 FPS ticks me right off. Especially considering I meet the recommended reqs. I think the biggest problem here is they underestimated what the recommended reqs should be. People with good computers don't have the same problems as someone like me who barely meets the RRs. Real lag, server related, isn't bad in this game. Client related lag can be dreadful if you don't have a 3gHz P4 with at least 1 gig of DDR ram. One good thing is that you don't need a good video card. The difference in FPS between a geforce 3 TI 200 64 meg card and a GF FX 5900 ultra is negligable except for AA and AF.
2) Lack of player base - This is hopefully temperary, but for the moment there are not that many players. Maybe Tulga will actually MARKET the game! dum da dum!!
3) Lack of endgame - Not so much endgame as purpose. The plot revolves around a fight against the undead (of course. What game doesn't have that plot?). But due to cutbacks Artifact couldn't advance the plot often enough. Tulga has already said it will fix this in the coming months. Good for them if they do.
EDIT: Typos
EDIT2: WOOT MY FIRST POST!
What's wrong with Horizons?
The graphic engine is crap. It doesn't even make use of your graphics card. I got better FPS with my geoforce 2 than my ATI 9600.
Database lag, you sit and wait for your vault to display your stuff. Same with formulas.
Data Leak. Try portaling around for a few stops and see what I mean.
Content. The lack of. There are about 10 quests for non dragons that contain lore and are not just kill X mobs for cash and exp. These are low to middle level.
If you play a dragon you'll get some kill quests, play a prestige class and you get none, except the lame trophy hunter tasks.
After that ALL you can do is grind out exp on mobs. Boring.
Events? Used to be loads, well, 1 per month. Not any more, no decent event has occurred for 6 months.
Take a look at the latest patch. 99% for crafters.
That and dragon content, but dragons are still a broken class, I've been reading their complaints for months.
Loot? Almost none, cos they don't want to p**s off the crafters. Which was stupid because most of the crafters either focused on building on their plots, or made money selling to the pawn broker and were not interested in making your stuff.
High end content, for the long term multi-level 100 player? Mobs. That's all. No encounters, raids, events to take your guild on, except RoP, which is much lower level, and ARoP(not out yet), but that only benefits the dragon involved, bipeds get little or no loot, exp, or in fact challenge.
Dungeons. The 3d engine does not allow them, So no adventures with your group, or guild, heading ever deeper seeking fun, challenge and adventure.
If you love to craft, and want to build a house, Horizons is for you. If not, don't bother.
The only people playing are hardcore addicts, or fairly new players, many of which just want to be power levelled to lvl 100.
My first guild dwindled from 20 active members in may 04 to 1 august. My second guild, the result of 3 merges, dwindled from 50 players, 20-30 active, down to 3, by the time I quit in december.
Horizons was getting better, then the server merge patch hit like a nuke and wrecked the whole game for a long time. Hz is starting to get where is should have been at release, but a long, long way to go.
Dark and Light and everything HZ promised and a great deal more besides. Yes, crafting, castles, events, HUGE seamless world, exploration exp, money making schemes, quests, loot, high end game, and it will be out long before HZ comes anywhere near to being in contention.
I played HZ for 10 months, I know what I'm talking about.
A little known fact about horizons is it is completely hacable. Check these out:
http://www.geocities.com/bobby_dee_20003/beach.mpg
http://www.geocities.com/bobby_dee_20003/fishy.mpg
Give horizons a world model AND collision detection! Not just able to run underwater, but get to Aughundell mines in under 40 seconds from the shrine etc etc.
No, TULGA, is owned by a guy that AE (Artifact entertainment) brought in to help with some of the game systems... he liked the company so much.. he bought it.
Wow.. and HOW long has it been since you've PLAYED the game? THAT hack has been removed for like 8 months.
1) Graphics engine.. yes it's crap..however, it's always stated that ATI users WILL have graphics problems. HZ has NEVER worked well with ATI.
2) Database lag
mostly fixed for the time being.. hasn't been massive DB lag in about 3 months now.
3) Data (memory) Leak.
Still there.. *SIGH*
4) Content. The lack of.
yeah..that's still about true.. there's more quests that have been added.. but all and all, lack of content is an issue.
4b)After that ALL you can do is grind out exp on mobs. Boring.
just like ANY other MMORPG... well.. CRPG..
5) Events?
Yeah, there's been some slack lately in that department, also.. but then again.. there's been the backrupcy and the buy out between the last big event, and the current ones.
6) Take a look at the latest patch. 99% for crafters.
??? what? Try bug fixes, new dragon content, new dragon tools and forms.. and a butt load of bug fixes. it's much more then a patch geared to crafters.
7) That and dragon content, but dragons are still a broken class, I've been reading their complaints for months.
and I've been reading about them for over a year.. and they aren't as broken as people make them out to be.. they are harder class to play. They can't be THAT broken if there's still so many in game.
8) Loot?
you can't even sell 2 whole sets of armor on one conny.
That's always been a sore point to me also.. but then again, the game is set up for the economy to be player drivin. Having a +2 sword drop off a maggot runes the concept. the real problem is, A) everyone wants a crafter to build them something not realizeing the amount of hours it can take to get all the needed resources.. and then bitch up a storm because the price is set to high.
9) High end content:
No there's not really a lot of high end content.. but as for the mid-level there's a ton of areas to explore.. but that's also part of the issue.. this game does not spoon-feed you. You've got to PLAY to get the most out of it. That's another part of a problem with HZ.. AE didn't believe that someone could make it to 100 in a month.. let alone all these player begging for a PL.
10) Dungeons:
Ahhh.. now that's total BS. There's plunty of Caves. The engine DOES allow for and fully 3D enviroment. There's just no real 'dungeons' to explore, they've not been added.
a) The only people playing are hardcore addicts, or fairly new players, many of which just want to be power levelled to lvl 100.
can I get an Amen brother?!
First off congrats on your first post!!!
and yeah.. the engine sucks..LOL Memory (not video card) is what's needed to make the game purr.
processor helps.. but the game is 'playable' (barely) on a P2-233 with 256megs of ram, and a TNT2 (m64 mind you) video card..
Wow.. and HOW long has it been since you've PLAYED the game? THAT hack has been removed for like 8 months.
WRONG! Its been that way since RELEASE and you can STILL DO THAT! How do I know? Because I ONLY DID IT LAST WEEK!
There is one thing it does not have. A finished product as envisioned by David Allen. That is why I never have, or never will play this game. It is great you like it though. More power to you.
WRONG! Its been that way since RELEASE and you can STILL DO THAT! How do I know? Because I ONLY DID IT LAST WEEK!
Well I might stand corrected.. it's possible we're thinking of two different hacks. The one I was thinking of that allowed a player to walk underwater with out drowing was removed long ago.
however, I would be VERY interested (off this board, send me a mail) to hear about how to do it your way for mapping purposes. it'll allow a bi-ped to get into areas that right now only a dragon that has their RoP (that can fly..for those that don't know) can get to. I'm sorry if that post sounded like a personal attack.. the Yahoo is Foobar at the moment.. can't process the request for the movie.
There is one thing it does not have. A finished product as envisioned by David Allen. That is why I never have, or never will play this game. It is great you like it though. More power to you.
totally agee.. HZ is NOTHING like what was first invisioned, and that's just sad.. =(
I am glad someone still loves this game. I'd still be playing it today if the bugs and population did not keep me away.
"Whoever controls the media controls the mind..-'Jim Morrison"
"When decorum is repression, the only dignity free men have is to speak out." ~Abbie Hoffman
6) Take a look at the latest patch. 99% for crafters.
??? what? Try bug fixes, new dragon content, new dragon tools and forms.. and a butt load of bug fixes. it's much more then a patch geared to crafters.
10) Dungeons:
Ahhh.. now that's total BS. There's plunty of Caves. The engine DOES allow for and fully 3D enviroment. There's just no real 'dungeons' to explore, they've not been added.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ok, to clarify.
6) The last bunch of patches have been 99% for crafters; ie. techs, silos, forms, and DRAGON content.
The last patch was mostly crafter content.
Bug fixes? Come one, be sensible. Fixing bugs is the minimum they should be doing, and they should appear in every patch. However, a lot of the time they are fixing NEW bugs, made by the new content, cos they didn't test it. Envenomed arrow is just one that comes to mind.
As for dragon content. Don't get me started. Pretty much ALL the content being added has been for crafts, as mentioned, or dragons. 6 months ago ALL prestige kill X quests were removed. They were not much but at least they were something. The biggest single class played is the dragon, true, but ALL the other classes are NOT, yet they nerfed them.
Yes I KNOW biped content is in the works, but it's been IN THE WORKS for 8 months.
10) Dungeons:
Ahhh.. now that's total BS. There's plunty of Caves. The engine DOES allow for and fully 3D enviroment. There's just no real 'dungeons' to explore, they've not been added.
Pogo, please, it's me your talking to, not some noob that only played the 7 day trial.
Firstly, a cave is not a dungeon. I'll get to dungeons in a sec.
I've been all over Istaria, twice, and only missed a few things. There are SOME caves, SOME tunnels, but they are pointless, cos they lead nowhere, do nothing. Due to the 3D engine, collision dection and all, mobs to not enter tunnels. You know the tunnel to the blight on New Brom? That is a fine example.
So caves serve no point. You do not have caves that can be explored, heading ever deeper, killing mob along the way. I've seen 'em all, and they ALL dissapoint. You're running along, suddenly discover a tunnel entrance, head down there, to find 0. Nothing there. What a waste.
Secondly; a dungeon is walled, bricked, with passages, rooms, designs on the wall, and a theme. They have doors to open, sections to investigate, stairs or ramps leading down, but most important they hold mobs to kill, treasure to find. The idea of the RPG began with DnD. The first D stands for DUNGEON. No RPG worth it's salt should make do without dungeons to explore.
Dungeons would provide a guild group with a challenge, far greater than any of the blighted areas, and had HZ had them I'm sure my guild would have flourished instead of dwindling. But mobs do not recognise barriers such as walls, so if you entered a dungeon 20 mobs in an adjacent room would stroll through the wall and beat on you. So the 3D engine DOES NOT allow for dungeons.
Also, forgot to add. What's wrong with HZ? You can't swim in water so if you fall off a cliff or ice flow and drown, bah!
For above reasons, no boats.
No castles.
Still no building forms for most races, so I cannot build my lovely elven house, hence my lack of interest in owning a plot.
Totally shot ecomony, due to the pawn broker, lack of items on the newbie connies for new players, most connies are null and void, everyone uses Kion, or Dali, to a lesser degree.
The new mob spawning system, caused mobs to go on vacation. This was the straw that busted my back,and the reason I quit. WA mobs are ok, but they were toughened up to deal with the multi 100 crowd. So soloing them at your level is nigh on impossible, unless already multi 100. If the spawn fix has been put in, great, but a LOT of people quit because of it.
1) Graphics engine.. yes it's crap..however, it's always stated that ATI users WILL have graphics problems. HZ has NEVER worked well with ATI.
I get 25 FPS on Farcry, it should be double that on HZ. However? What? Surely one of the first things they should have fixed was the ATI problem. In any case, you know FULL WELL, that HZ was more than just an ATI issue. The graphics engine draws EVERYTHING, even when it does not have to.That's why Tazoon was so bad. Oh, they added some fixes, but...sheesh. These are the fundamental issues, not candy floss.
Database lag? Try playing on Unity, it was still bad when I left, and I have read posts since complaing about it on certain days. Not AE/Tulgas fault? Well they gave the contract to GN, they should have dealt with their incompetence.
4b)After that ALL you can do is grind out exp on mobs. Boring.
just like ANY other MMORPG... well.. CRPG..
Not true. In EQ2 beta I spent most of the time questing. Some quests involved killing mobs but not all. What stopped me buying EQ2 was lack of solo content. I hear that WoW has a ton of quests, some say too much. And the game I'm looking for DnL with have much more than mob grinding.
Besides, HZ promised to be different, not like all the others, with the pointless grind. They failed.
Events?
They were responsible for the bankcrupty in the first place by releasing the game incomplete, bugged, then nerfing some classes, failing to deliver the new content, and not forseeing the need for a high end game. So they lost a shed load of players, many from the first couple of months, and continued to bleed to death through to July. You can't blame the bankcrupty for lack of events since August, since AE caused the bankcrupty.
They [dragons] can't be THAT broken if there's still so many in game.
Well, there are not THAT many left, and those that are are hardcore fanpeeps. You know that. Besides they are ALL still around cause they hope ARoP will save their class.
Conclusion;
I loved Horizons, that's why I browse the community sight for news. I've been gone almost 2 months, but still NO meaningful content for my class. When WoW is released in the EU I'll, play it. When DnL finally comes out, I'll see where I'm at with WoW, and see what early issues are involved with DnL, such as LAG, content, bugs, class balance etc. If DnL is any good I may play it, with or without WoW. This will take me through to June. By then HZ might be getting to where it should be. And if I still care by then I might pop in and revive my Ranger. Til then, I lurk and wait.
I agree with Find's perspective entirely. I too lurk and wait but am at this point 90% certain I will never return to Horizons. I was one of the first 100 in BETA, brought my entire guild to Horizons and disbanded my guild in DAOC (something I wish I could do over).
Myself and my husband both were hardcore crafters and builders of buildings and FANS of Horizons since 2000 . I ended up leaving finally with the EQ2 launch. I also retired from being a Guild Leader after 5 years.
Right now I have to say that EQ2 is very enjoyable for my spouse and I. The crafting system in EQ2 is very similiar to Horizons and is keeping us very busy. The quests are delightful. SONY is still SONY and well...is NOT the best but EQ2 overall is a great game and from our perspective (that of older adults who like to game for crafting) is wonderful.
The comment someone made about there not being enough solo content for EQ2 was correct until the most recent patch. Now there are great bonuses for people who solo and who adventure in smaller groups: IE two or three player groups. SONY is continually adding new zones and dungeons and has both "Adventure Packs" and Expansions on the way. I believe in time that EQ2 will grow and flourish much like the original EQ did.
The MAIN thing for my hubby and I was crafting which EQ2 does a marvelous job with crafting. It is delightfully challenging and very similiar in terms of diversity and scope to what Horizons had to offer. The Plus is that EQ2 ALSO has everything Horizons does NOT in addition to the awesome crafting system. Which overall makes it a winner in our book.
Also, whereas in Horizons you could take one character and essentially develop that one character into every tradeskill in a relatively short period of time, in EQ2 you are forced to choose one area of specialty and it takes a fair amount of focused time and effort to develop into an awesome Artisan in that one area of specialty. While at first glance this seems a minus against EQ2 and a plus for Horizons, think again. This was actually Horizon's BIGGEST downfall with crafting. Eventually, everyone in Istaria was able to do EVERYTHING and NO ONE was "special" in that sense which took most of the joy , pride and sense of accomplishment each crafter could have experienced away from them altogether. Ironically, this also broke the economy because after a certain period of time, no one needed to buy ANYTHING from anyone else either. In EQ2, you have to develop alt characters to develop multiple trades and any tradeskill you DO develop is interdependent with all the other trades in order to develop it. Hence, alot of time is required to develop one trade making it truly "special" once it is developed and your goods and services are sought after by customers as well as other artisans. The economy is very healthy and the law of "Supply and Demand" is operating as it should. Most important: after devoting alot of time into a trade, the artisan is rewarded with a great sense of personal pride from accomplishment and status gain in the general Server Community as a specialist in that area. Something that was completely null and void in Horizons after only a few months time.
We tried WoW. We did not like it. We had not previously ever played World of Warcraft so did not have any attachment to the stylized world that WoW offers. We also automatically avoid ANY MMORPG with the term "PVP" in it's description (as do many people in the MMORPG world). Whether consensual PVP or not, PVP is PVP bottom line and brings a certain type of player base to the game; and we are OLDER gamers (both 46 years YOUNG) and do not want to deal with that type of player community base.
I also felt that playing WoW was like playing in a cartoon and I didn't like that aspect either. When playing a MMORPG I like photorealism. I like to "immerse" into the game world and escape Real life at least for a time.
WoW is also very solo-oriented. My son who loves it and plays it LOVES that aspect as he is not a social player. But I am the exact opposite of him and I love the social aspects of "massively multiplayer" and appreciate that aspect of EQ2. I felt very lonely in WoW as much of the play involves soloing. Guilds DO exist but most players even in guilds are off doing their own thing in terms of finishing quests or leveling most of the time. Yes: EQ2 does force grouping and has alot of content for guilds but for ME that is exactly what I want.
The MAIN Minus against WoW of course is a crafting system that is so simplistic that it offers no challenge and no interdependence. WoW confederates admit that crafting is not that great in WoW: that it is nowhere near as varied or challenging as it is in EQ2. In short, crafting in WoW is developed to encourage everyone to do it including all the people who hate crafting as a rule. IE it is "dumbed down" for the majority who are players that have no interest in crafting other than to get necessary equipment as fast and as easily as possible. For the hardcore crafter who wants to play the game as a crafter 90% of the time it offers nothing.
In Summary then, WoW is geared to please :
1) those who LOVE PVP
2) those who play MMORPG's for adventure ONLY
3) those who like to be independent in MMORPG play and do not want to have to group or have to get involved with a guild
EQ2 is geared to please:
1) Those who love to group and be involved in guilds and who love epic dungeons and zones and raiding
2) Those who want to pursue a career exclusively in crafting without any adventure or minimal adventure that is quest-related
3) Those who want to completely avoid PVP and everything it represents (although in the future EQ2 will probably be adding PVP Servers for those who must engage in PVP to be happy)
4) Amazing graphics providing a photorealistic world to enhance realism for the player
To get back to Horizons, in contrast, Horizons offers little of what either of the above games offer. Almost all of what Horizons DOES have is done in mediocrity by comparison to EQ2 and WoW both. Horizon's crafting system is wonderful also but with a broken, empty economy it is pointless. One can solo in Horizons all the way to level 80 or so (a plus for many who want to avoid grouping and/or guilds) but as Find already pointed out there is no content. Bashing mobs for hours to grind the levels is the only option. There are NO meaningful quests. A SERIOUS design flaw. BOTH EQ2 and WoW offer wonderful quests by comparison with dungeons and castles and epic zones to explore.
My final argument against Horizons as a game choice is the company itself. SONY is SONY and not anyone's favorite as they represent "the BIG Corporation out to make money" BUT....Artifact Entertainment IS Tulga Games. David Bowman remains the Lead Developer amd hence nothing has changed. IMHO nothing WILL change as long as he is at the helm and anyone who has followed the court hearings with the AE Bankruptcy knows that the TULGA buyout is nothing but a "front" to keep Horizons going and get Bowman and his staff out from under a crushing debt load. Since the same TEAM is in place to continue developing Horizons, there is NO HOPE of a "new and improved" Horizons at all and in the MMORPG marketplace, it doesn't matter that this buyout has been approved. Fact is that the SAME people are in charge and as such the ship is still gonna sink...it just is a matter of when.
Our FINAL conclusion: our money spent monthly paying a MMORPG subscription is best spent on a game that will succeed longterm and has a great deal of play value. Horizons does NOT. Nothing short of a miracle, where OTHER people are brought in to develop Horizons in new directions with lots of new financing, is gonna save Horizons so that it will still be here a year from now.
Xander
Biggest problem with Horizons besides a non existant playerbase is the non existant battle loss penalty.
Death aka battle loss in Horizons is a joke, no significant penalty whatsoever.
People kill themselves just to port.
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graphics wise, I play with a 6800 ultra. get 50-90fps and use x6 aa and x16 af.
not too bad at all.
Even on my low end machine with a radeon 9000 I get decent fps, somewhere around 40fps.
I wish memory leak will be fixed, it can be bad when crafting and having to port many times.