Closed Beta 6: First Impressions

After having played nonstop since 2 pm (servers went up early), I can safely say that Aion is awesome. A few words come to mind when thinking about the game:

Its l33t. Its smooth. Its beautiful. Its interesting. Its fun. Its fresh. Its captivating. Its innovative. Blah blah, onto the details!

I began the day rolling a Ranger up to Level 11, and I was going to continue leveling him... but then a guildie logged on. Mind you that pretty much everyone else had gone through the first parts of the game in 6 man groups with each other. We went through the UI together, quests together, dying like noobs together, and we had all ascended. So basically, the poor guy was alone.

Yeah, I wasn't about to let that happen. No one should ever have to step into a new MMO alone. So, I created a Mage... and had a blast. (Literally! Waffle got blown up! >:D) Not only did my partner and I succeed in Ascending within 3 hours (without a healer and not even attempting "hardcore questing/grinding"... though I was able to somehow memorize every quest the first time through... I didn't even have to use the locator the second time through [is that healthy? lol]), but I also really began to enjoy the Sorcerer. It felt like I was playing Vanilla WoW again. (Perhaps this was a sign of my true class? I'm struggling between which one I want my main to be now, needz moar data I suppose.)

Besides my adventures though, I really have to go into "fan-boi mode" about Aion:

• The in-game cut scenes, almost all of which have voice overs, are fantastic.
  
• The graphics are positively amazing, and don't lag up the game whatsoever. Back in WAR, I was lucky to be running 40 FPS with high settings on in large ORvR battles. In Aion, I have everything maxxed out, and I'm running at a bare-minimum of 60 FPS, maximum of 120 (and not to be hating on WAR, but Aion looks much better in my opinion).
• Don't even get me started on how awesome the Flight Mechanic is.
• Character customization is extremely detailed. You can change almost everything shown on your character. From how pointy your ears are to how big your feet are. Its easy to forget something obvious (like leg muscles on my Ranger, lol) because you get so into it.
  
• In Aion, you feel like you're somebody with influence, you matter. In WAR, you were just another body ready to be chucked into the zerg at a moments notice (and I realize that they did this on purpose, but I just don't like it).
  

So, in conclusion, if you haven't already pre-ordered Aion... you're missing out big time.