Aion - Beyond the Trial

So I caved and bought a cheap CD key online for Aion. I created a new character, Armitage the Priest and joined a friend and his guild-mates who were leveling alts.

Armitage

First impressions are that the trial really sells the game short. Seriously, no items drop off monsters in the trial?! The trial ends just before the first harder sub-zone where monsters will attack you before you attack them, and before you can complete the main introductory campaign questline. And most significantly, it ends before level 9 and the Ascension questline as you recover your memories of your lost Daeva-hood.

Ascension ceremony

At this point you have to choose which specialized class to go with and I chose Cleric, the game's specialist healer class as I intend to do as much grouping as possible (although I haven't encountered any content yet that actually requires groups).

Opening up for you then is the beautiful base city of Sanctum; plenty of quests there (many leading to the game's next questing zone) and the game's crafting system.

Also unlocked is flying, though only in certain areas, so no flying in Sanctum for example which means my experience with it is somewhat limited for now. I'll have to see how that plays out.

Sanctum

So my evaluation of Aion has only improved. So far it plays like a polished, shiny version of World of Warcraft. While I can't imagine it doing much to interest WoW-haters, if you do like WoW (and maybe have time to kill before the Cataclysm expansion is released), Aion starts off strongly enough to make the free month included with the game worthwhile. We'll have to see if I ever pay any subs for it, but I don't see myself having both an ongoing WoW and Aion subscription.