Shocker

[Fenwick]

Graphics were improved in some areas, such as lighting and overall area design. They were cut back in other areas, most notable is textures. I'd still take ARR over 1.0 though, the game still looks gorgeous and overall I consider the changes to be an improvement despite the few steps they have taken backwards in some areas.

[Baneus]

ARR has managed to do what several other MMOs have failed to do - combined decent, non-cartoony (not the "absolute best") graphics with a usable framerate. Don't get me wrong, WoW with the settings right can look amazing, but it's incredibly dated. SWTOR looks fancy, but Ultra/High settings in an open world (Alderaan, Hoth etc) will bring a high-end gaming PC to under 10fps.


Also: you can improve the graphics in this game slightly over what you can see normally - set up a profile on your video card that over-rides all the game settings. That's if your PC can handle it, al lot of people find that their "awesome" PC isn't really all that good when put to the test