Aion's beauty shines through in Asmodian Ascension Quest video

Finally an MMO with some STYLE. Western (mostly American) developers just can't seem to get it through their thick skulls how important it is to dedicate your online world to a distinct style. You gotta take some risks in the art department!

I dare say the last game that did this was WoW! Even though it's goofy and cartoonish, it's still very distinct, so that when you're online you have no doubts as to where you are. It really is imperative to immersion.
Aion's anime-ish style is, granted, not so unique it's gorgeous and "cool". Conan kind of gorgeous, not really that cool (unless you're really into... 70s style "barbarians"). Warhammer... it remains to be see if it has any effect on their success, but I at least regret they didn't use a more distinct look. It's not as brutally dull as say, EQ2 or Vanguard, but it's still very typical fantasy.

I'm suddenly very excited for this game (now that WASD controls are verified :P). I'm just hoping all those fancy animations don't hinder PvP (a la CoX), and the customary Korean MMO mega-grind (a la every MMO Korea ever made) is toned down.

Take a look at Lineage 2. It was released four years ago and it still looks amazing. NCsoft has never had a problem ponying up the art. The issues come from them being asleep at the wheel for after the game is released. In L2 class balance is a joke, bots run rampant in almost every hunting ground. Ebay and powerleveling services are the so out in the open that NCsoft doesn't even try to keep up the pretences that they are still actively combating those issues.

My entire time in WoW(just over a year) I saw three bots out in the open. L2? Bot groups run almost every room in Catacombs/Necropolises(sought after hunting areas). It's a fun game and I am sure that Aion will be, but NCsoft has shown itself to be capable of producing a modern AAA MMO...but wholly unable to manage one.

The voice acting in that made me cringe, but I'm still looking forward to the game

Am I the only one who thought the actual graphics were kind of crummy? All the SS's I have seen to date seemed to have a lot more detail in them.

Don't get me wrong, the art and style are spectacular, and the animations are very good. But as far as rendering complexity, I was expecting more. This is the CryEngine after all, right? I know they were going for some lower poly counts and whatnot to scale to older systems, but they seem to have gone overboard. I was expecting them to maintain some optional complexity for those with higher-end systems to enjoy.

I'm going to give the game a fair shot, the gameplay is still the most important aspect by far(and this looks like it will deliver), I am just a little disappointed on how the game looks. I was just hoping for a MMO that performed well on a variety of systems, and still delivered a healthy dose of eye candy.

(I watched the HD version, so I don't know if it makes the quality more apparent or not)