Everything started for me on 1st October 2007 when I created an
account for Phoenix Dynasty Online.
I had some experience with this kind of game because I played
World of Qin 2 (german) before. But it was completely different from
what I expected.
First of all the support was awesome and still is. For any questions
you post in forum you will get an answer. Sometimes good news
but bad ones too.
Okay then I logged in and saw many players trying to level their
characters as fast as they can to see what comes next.
Time has passed and first players became bored because of the
lack of high level content and left the game unfortunately.
Then first big patch came and PDO got new content specially for high-
leveled players. I always took it slowly because I love this game so
much and knew I'm going to play this for a long time. I rarely took
the double experience which is offered for free at a NPC (Non-
playable-characters). So I still have not reached level 100 which is the
maximum level for now.
I'm trying to understand all aspects of the game which is really
difficult because many things are depending on luck or you have to test
things very often before you succeed.
So very often it happens that I am angry because it did not work
as I wanted. Many hours of farming for nothing but in the end it
still makes fun because next time it could work means I farmed again.
For example the living skills
jewel/leather/armor/weapon - crafting.
When you kill monsters they drop materials you need for crafting.
Combining them in a special way while using the advantages
of the different elements makes the
equipment stronger than any equipment you can buy.
And here again - luck plays a special role. But even if you succeed
there could be one who is more luckier than you and gets some special bonus
which maybe you wanted.
With the latest patch new living skills come into the PDO World
and give new possibilties of enforcing your equipment or character.
New quests were introduced in which you really have to form a team
to defeat all bosses (many quest bosses can easily be defeated
without you being attacked which is really sad specially for
tanks like paladins - they often feel kinda useless).
I couldnt test the quests and areas for level 95+ yet so I still have
something to look for.
But even without that I can say Phoenix Dynasty Online is a
nice looking game and will bring fun specially to those who
like collecting materials or crafting their own equipment.
And I have to admit there are still small things I do not like
but that is part of a game. Some bugs are still occuring and need
to be fixed. The rest depends on the community like too expensive
skill books which are needed to upgrade your element skills. But it is still a great community.

That was my short review with just few things mentioned
about 1 year PDO. I hope you are going to have a look into
the game to make some expierence and form your own opinion :-).