I also loved EQ. This was something EQ did right, having a dedicated live GM during the day, and then floaters for off hours. I can even remember big issues happening during a first dragon kill or something, and the lead GM would show up in the middle of the night, presumably because he was called/paged. Having a dedicated GM like this, can lead to power hungriness, but overall he did more good than harm. If you give someone the power to make decisions, those decisions can always be swayed.

Anyhow, I think what Aion will go down as, is the single best engine design/choice with the Crytek engine. I think if Warhammer had chosen an engine like this, and tweaked it, you'd be seeing that game doing a lot better than it is. I used to defend it, that it wasn't "that bad", but this game looks 3x better and runs 3x faster, it's really amazing what they've done here. To me this game sets the bar for visuals, and not just single frame visuals, the whole package (animations, chaining of animations, weather effects, ability to do fire and water without causing game slowdown).

I think it's a really good game, that with time and the right expansions, could be a great one. This thing does a lot of things very well, don't discredit being very above average at a lot of things.