I have been playing on the Chinese servers for over a month now and I have come to love Aion - the more time I spend in it, exploring the worlds - the more time I see the little details that have been put into the game.

GRAPHICS

The graphics engine is incredibly solid. Not only does it look beautiful, but it runs smoothly with zero lag. The animations are a very nice touch which are missing in most MMO. As you level up and have more combos to chain together this becomes more apparent.

INTERFACE

Clean. Simple. Works. I am not a fan of addons, only because I hate the idea of a company having to balance content around them (*cough* WoW)

You can move around just about any piece of it to how you like it. The built in macro system is not too bad either, just takes some practice getting used to it.

COMBAT

The basic ideas are there same, but the addition of combos and knockdown/knockback on melee crits are nice touches. I have not played a caster class yet, so I cannot comment on spell crits.

QUESTING/GRINDING

As a long-time player of both Lineage 2 and WoW, I am happy to say this is a nice blend between the two. I have not reached max level yet - only mid 20's - but have yet run out of quests. I have read that there is some grinding between certain levels, but there are also ways to avoid it, such as leveling up your crafting.

Also my understanding is that the majority of the content they are implementing will be for END GAME. Do you really want them to focus on content that you will pass through within a brief window - or have more to do once you are max level? I would prefer as little content needed in the game to reach max level and give you the basic understanding of how your class functions. Throw everything else late game to keep me entertained without relying on rolling endless alts over and over and over.

The in-game Quest Log is fairly decent. It is helpful and prevents you from pulling your hair out when stuck. Could be a little more polished.

CRAFTING

The crafting system is very nicely implemented and also makes slight changes to the system to encourage you to work on it.

1. You get normal XP while crafting (it may not be much but it adds up over time)
2. You can do crafting quests (Work Orders) which will supply a good chunk of 'Government Assisted Materials' that allows you to level up your crafting by purchasing vendor-available materials. The trade off is that you do not keep the items you make, but instead turn them in when the quest is completed. The reward is generally some required materials or recipes for you to learn. If you wish to keep the items (and farm the mats) you can level up crafting as you would in other games.
3. The items you make can CRIT and make it a higher grade piece of equipment (White > Green > Blue > Etc)

Very cool system. Very good reason to level up your crafting when you can make QUALITY gear that will be useful. Crafting are making a killing on the Chinese Servers because CRIT gear is the best gear in the game.

MUSIC/SOUND

This is the first mmo I have not turned off the music. The sounds are a little typical, but they do not bother either.

ENVIRONMENT/MISC

These are some minor things that I have noticed when playing through the game.....

When sitting down in a sandy area then standing up you will see your toon brush the sand off of themselves.

When you are standing in an area with snow, you will see them rub their arms and do a little dance trying to make themselves warm up.

When chatting with people, certain words will trigger emotes automatically.

All of these little things add up and although you may not notice it right away, it adds a great feeling to the game.

BOTTOM LINE

The game is polished and beautiful in its own right. It is fun and enjoyable so long as you can get past the slightly steeper  learning curve. This is not WoW.

This is Aion and it is very promising. I am very much looking forward to it, not because it is something revolutionary, but because it does a lot of things right AND it is not WoW.

 Finaly a polished and fun game for people who don't want to play something just because it's popular.

Finaly a polished and fun game for people who don't want to play something because it's popular.

But.... I has playedzz 5hours and gamezzz nothing but a KOREAN GRINDER!      /sarcasm.

See the people playing the beta and bashing the game for not being revolutionary disregard everything that is working in the game. They take it for granted.

They need to vent out because there's apparently hate towards Korean games, and the only thing they can complain about is Aion being too similar to WoW OR Aion is a simple Korean grinder (this is the most laughable myth I've ever read).

I find those complaints are often from the ignorant who run into the normal "I'm out of town quests and i'm only 35% in! LINEAGE 2 GRINDFEST!"  Yes this happens often but is solved by EXPLORING there are many quest hubs along the road which most quest should run you by if not directly into and even a few out of the way spots for those curious to go there.  Of course this may change near mid to cap levels. 

In my experiences I've always found it more efficent to grind, in WoW I never stopped instancing because I got my gear I kept going through them because wit ha solid group it turned out decent exp/hr ratios with little wandering and thinking invovled. 

EQ2...yeah sorry I did some of the quest that were convient and clumped together (suffered through prismatics before the expansion of sky?), hell I even did some of the ones that seemed to have a good plot to them but in the end it was a grind-a-thon. 

FF11, lets just say then and now it was a grind fest with very interesting quest but not many helpfull to level seeing as the new exp hotspot is quifim 18-75 only deviating from the train of thought with certain group make up for bird spots.  The list could go on but I'll stay current.

That brings us back to AION, I've been very lazy and rather do quest and be entertained when I don't feel like giving into the mind numbing grind.  At the moment I feel the grind method is more efficient for the new player, for the vet stringing campaings with normal missions efficiently grants a huge pay out and averaging that in with a few minutes to grind on the mobs makes it all the better getting to the next tier of quests, but so far uneeded.

Most of the issue still stems from people not actually playing the game. They jump to conclusions after playing it for 20 minutes. It is an MMO and a very polished MMO at that.

I just hope the US launch has a great kick start for the community, because it does deserve a decent chance. With PVP being an end game focus, a strong and active community is what will make or break the game.

You know I actually like the game.  I'm currently level 16 with my assassin.  Everything is smooth for a beta.  At first I had a bit of trouble enjoying myself because everyone was in the same area.  Sure the system has been done before from quest grinding to the combat but it's still pretty solid.  I would have to agree on all your points.

However I would like touch on something where these typical linear MMORPGs turn me off and I don't mean this in a harsh way.  The fact that there isn't any other options to level.  This is where I get bored and move on.  I love progression, character development, and some quest grinding but give me some options.  For starters you could give me the option to level through pvp at any level in a restricted environment.

However you get exp from gathering which i think is neat because it does give you options to leveling... if you wanted to you could probably level to the max without hardly killing anything and just gathering items.. which would be not fun for me but it's interesting nonetheless.

At level 20, when you start going into the Abyss - you CAN start leveling up through pvp. You have to earn it first. :)

Well I'm only going to be able to hit 20 as my beta event will end at 20.  As I said, the game is solid, simple, but fun, so far. However I could see myself getting bored too fast in a quest grind marathon.   It's a shame they aren't letting me level through what I would consider the "really fun part" for me.

I think if it was too complicated from the start it would turn off too many people. The learning curve ramps up pretty quickly as you get out of the starter area and mobs start hitting like trucks. :)

My first elite mob group was quite entertaining with that surprise. To compare it to WoW, it felt like I was running just staring to run level 80 Heroics in quest item greens. A little harsh until you get the hang of it, but very gratifying.

That sounds great and all but they aren't letting us weekenders go past 20.