And now, somewhere around 14 months later, I've returned to Vanguard's world of Telon. On the surface it's hard not to notice that it's still getting walked all over by rough frame rates (even with a sturdy rig at medium graphical settings), and its artistic direction -- with all due respect to the late, great Keith Parkinson -- isn't necessarily winning any awards, beyond its impressive draw distances. The textures and character models weren't showstoppers in January 2007, and they haven't improved with age. When you move from one 'seamless' zone to the next, there's definitely seams showing when all sound effects and movement freezes to sub-zero temperatures. And you know what? I'm playing on the exact same laptop I played on during beta, but it's quite possible I'm encountering more graphical errors flipping through menus than I ever did before.