It's hard to get this idea in a quick thread title.
This game will take a substantive amount of real time to fully master one class. 2.5 years is a far cry from 2 to 4 weeks as you find in some other games. I'm guessing that it will take longer if you do things besides adventure.
However, in reading through the blogs it seems to me that the intent would be for this world to live in perpetuity, even on the hardware end of things. So that if GW wanted to upgrade the engine/graphics/what-have-you, players wouldn't be forced to make the decision to move on to the cool new shiny and giving up their beloved characters, it would all just carry over.
I know that this is something so far in the future development-wise that it's nothing more than a passing thought... just wondering if that passing thought is what I'm gleaning from my blog-reading.
Goblin Squad Member
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It's so far in the future it's a speck in the eye!
For discussion: Looking at number of accounts in EvE over time from 2003-present, you see a steady rise. This is what PfO is aiming to achieve, by all accounts ;) EvE has it's own engine (in-house engine/python) and has the benefit of space so both of those combined have allowed it to upgrade it's graphics periodically - imo it looks amazing although in combat the zoomed out view seems to keep the information manageable at the sacrifice of graphics (no bad thing).
As PfO is aiming for a similar steady but sure growth over an extended time-scale (at least compared to other mmorpgs), the plan according to Ryan is to pursue a regular update model as per Runescape's "every 2 weeks". But as they are using a middleware engine and the art assets for a fantasy 3d land take a lot of work, I'm not sure graphical updates will be considered any time soon, not for years, unless the game booms at some point? Ultima Online still looks fine to me after so many years in isometric representation. I think as long as the systems are interesting, the graphics representation can serve that indefinitely, eg Minecraft! Runescape also did a big graphical overhaul, I've noticed (but again that was in java, and isometric design seems less taxing to overhaul than these 3D graphical mmorpgs)? My graphics knowledge is v limited on that particular discussion however. We find out what middleware is being used when we see the demo, so that might inform some more.
But suffice to say, graphics look awesome in the screenshots in the Thornkeep pdf, and more than adequate art style for a good number of years (probably with more polishing to come also).