I agree wholeheartedly that GMs should have been present from day one. It's great that GM intervention is being taken seriously now, but that it wasn't initially doesn't seem like an accident. I'm curious as to what the thought process was there.

That being said, Aion works well and it's graphically pretty, but it's shallow. I keep waiting to get the quest that introduces my character into the grand story, but there is no grand story that I've seen so far aside from the Balaur vs. Asmodian vs. Elyos story, which seems like it's written as an afterthought as an excuse to PvPvE. The quests are written well, but the ideas behind them are lacking (rescued two pigs so far - does everyone have pet pigs?)

I'll keep grinding my way through it for a while. I want to get to the Abyss where the meat of the game is said to exist, but I can't see it lasting long if all there is is repeated PvP amidst weakly written PvE.