Aion

 Ok I thought I'd make this thread to give people my thoughts after playing the beta, other people who have, join in too or make your own thread.

I have only positive things to say about my beta experience, except for one thing(see the *)...
First off I had always been hesitant to try Aion, even if given the opportunity for a beta until I got a new computer (which I will buy before release). My system is: AMD Athlon 3800x2, 1GB DDR400 ram (I normally have 2GB, but about 2 weeks ago one of my sticks went bad and was causing crashes, so I took it out, along with the other stick like it), Geforce 7600GT, 750GB Barracuda. I was able to play at what I would guess, is settings about 3/4 the way up. My sliders were all 1 notch away from maximum (5 notches total), using Glow effect 1 with AA off. Aside from Elysium, and loading the one town (see pics below), much to my surprise, everything was amazingly smooth on my crappy computer. For comparison, it ran pretty much as smooth as WoW, and way smoother than L2, while looking better than both.
See what my settings looked like: (and as usual, screenshots will never do justice for the look of a game)

Notice the FPS counters...

They really did an amazing job with this, when logging in or teleporting, theres hardly any load times. There are no black screens, and when I alt tab, everything is ready to go in an instant...I don't think it could be any more efficient.

Music:
The music is as amazing as anything else...I haven't turned my Winamp on for days, and normally I spend 90% of my time on my home PC with it going. Each zone has separate background and combat music.

Movement/Flight:
Movement and flight we're perfect...I would describe the feel as a mix of WoW and Guild Wars, the point to click was better than L2, even connecting to a server that couldn't be further away, it was as if my char was moving before I even clicked the ground. I hardly saw any noticeable lag at all...I experience more lag in an hour of WoW, than I would through 10 hours of Aion, and the server is on the opposite side of the Earth. There were also no major geodata problems, whenever I attacked or aggro'd a mob, it would be the right distance away, and the auto attack would always cause you to face each other...I was never attacking a mob that was obviously too far away to be hit, or inside my character (the exception being if I had moved while the mob was just approaching me...and if I backed my character off to the right distance, the mob would stay in place).
The flight I would describe as WASD/Mouse swimming in WoW, or point/click swimming in L2...its probably exactly how you would imagine it to be.

Combat/Skills/PvP:
Combat and skill usage was extremely fluid and fun. This is solely based on my experience as playing a Templar, but I had more skills than I knew what to do with (not really, but well over half of my attacks were skills, rather than normal shots...and it appears to be similar for all other classes). Melee attack do not consume mana or any form of energy system, you can spam them forever.
I had 2 shield attacks (one was a stun, the other a dmg attack) which would only activate after what I would guess is a successful shield block, and also had a "guard stance" where you put your shield up in a more defensive position, and it would increase your blockrate, however using a skill cancels the stance. There was also a long re-use shield bash/knockback that you can use whenever you want.
I had one attack with a debuff, which seemed to increase the damage of 2 other attack skills (they would be almost not worth using when the mob didnt have the debuff). For my main combo after the first attack, I had 2 choices, one was an 8 second buff which absorbed X amount of damage, which usually lasted close to the full 8 seconds, the second was just a damage combo. I would always start off with the buff skill first as it had a longer re-use, and would not be ready by the time the first skill in the combo was ready.
To be efficient, you need to interrupt mob skills, use yours at the right time and order...some skills have longer reuses than others, so when doing your combos (just regular combos, not the skill chain combos) you need to alternate their orders to make sure you aren't stuck with gaps in between skill usage the next time around. Efficiency is key...I could kill maybe 10 regular (2 dot) mobs without rest using skills right, often indefinitely while after every few mobs, using a 4 sec cast self heal which every class gets. In a certain area (where the parot transformation quest is), I was able to kill 2 or 3 of the 4 dot (harder) mobs at level 18, while I saw level ~20 Gladiators, Rangers or Assassins resting after 1 mob.
Duo's or small groups seem to work out well in the harder areas. While duoing with a Chanter, he would have to rest mana every so often, but while he was resting I could keep going and get healed once he was done...Although I do have one concern that classes may not have a defining role in the hard PvE areas such as dungeons. (ie: does everyone follow the tank, wait for him to get aggro, CC the right mobs? Does all hell break loose when someone breaks CC, attacks before the tank or gain aggro?).

Aside from some small duels, I don't really have much PvP experience, but with my time in beta, and seeing things from CBT3, and putting experiences of ganking, castle sieges and PvP during open world raid bosses...putting 2 and 2 together, I don't see why it wouldn't live up to its expectations.

Questing/Map/Radar:
The questing and map system is great. Quests are similar to what you would find in WoW, or any other game, but the quests you get are generally in the immediate surrounding area of the quest giver. Its not like grabbing a bunch of quests in a town and then having to run all over the map from point A to B, then back again. You get a few quests from some NPCs, and those quests will all be in the immediate area, after you do them and then hand them in, you might get a few more, or get some that lead you on to the next area of quest givers. Quests are also separated into 2 categories: chain and single quests.

There is also a built in quest helper/tracker that shows exactly where anything involved in the quest is located, it even locates the nearest mob you need to kill on your radar. The map system is great, theres a WoW style map, and also a transparent map you can bring up so you can still see what's going on around you. The radar is great, shows everything possible, different colours for mobs, players, NPC's, and if you click a mob, it shows their aggro range on the radar.

Gear:
For gear, as playing a tank the game seems to be very armour dependent. You will have a very hard time killing mobs with armour even a few levels below you. You will notice a very big gain from say being level 17 with level 17 armour, compared to level 17 with level 14 armour. I noticed the effect in damage input from different levels of armour to big a lot greater than any other MMO I've played, although I think it may scale as you level.
There is not much variety in the gear for each level, but you will have opportunities to get new gear almost every level as you go up. For the most part I was able to afford gear each time I could get new parts. The gear is similar to WoW, as in whites, greens, blues. There were tons and tons available in the auction house and I never had a hard time getting anything.

Other:
*The negative part, is those soulshot things work just like L2...you can spam them, except they don't take any inventory space (you can put as many as you want in a slot in your equipment tab). They are in 3 categories (different damage increases, which appear to be static), and the best ones are quite expensive, however I don't think they would be if you are high level, unless there are new grades which I have not seen. I don't get the purpose of them other than a pointless money sink, once everyone is using them, they are completely pointless.

The game also has plenty of little things that make all the difference. More social actions/emotes than I've seen from any other game, things your character does while standing still (ie: brush armour off, swat flies, splash water around when you stand in it, pull out a leaf umbrella when it rains, and the things your char does while just standing there make it great). In hot desert zones, the heat gives off waves like you would see in real life, your char will take out a fan and start waving it to cool off. When standing against a hill your leg actually lifts up and bends, it doesnt go through the ground or float above it. You see actual reflections in the water, and it splashes and makes a sound when you jump in it, etc...theres plenty of things like that).

Well that's all for now, theres plenty of walls of text from rants and complaints on this forum, thought there should be one about the actual game and its highlights ;)...like I was first told when asking how it was playing the OBT, its everything and more than I could have expected.

Wow! I read that review from beginning to end and if I wasn't already interested in this game, I'm even more so now. I love your attention to detail about the game's attention to detail. The part about the leg bending was really cool as I've seen to many mmorpgs just neglect minute detail that matter.

Also, I'm glad you're liking the Templar as that is the class that I really want to play once this game starts. I love it! If you could, please take some ingame videos using fraps or something similar. I want to see a templar in action. :D

Thanks, and glad you're having fun!

normally i dont read walls of text, but this was great. thanks for your review! can't wait to try aion, sounds like my kinda game. just hope it isn't too....uhm, asian. no offence:P

Looks like a fun game!

Thanks for review.

After reading that review I'd say that I do not like the graphics. But that's ok because when I plug in my ATI HD 4870 X2 X2 theeeeeeeen, I believe that after they work out the graphics and stuff like that, this game will really be looking great and far more important than that the most important thing in the world was that the fact that, great review, I'm really hyped about this game

Ack! The dreaded soul shots are here to stay are they? Glad there's no dwarves to deal with this time around.

Regardless the game is shaping up to be mana from heaven. Truly can't wait for the release in NA.

@op thanks for your detailed first impressions.

Only one thing is puzzling me, is it possible to switch off quest helpers and radar (it was possible in Vanguard) to search for things without arrows and dots on the map?

Very nice and detailed impressions thank you!