As a beta tester, I saw many issues with the game that needed to be addressed but were not focused on or referred to as minimal importance at the time. Sure, no problem, I could understand that, it was beta, there was more tweaking to do than address the concerns of the "beta testers". I ignored most problems due to it being beta. I mean AION had glorious other things like eye candy graphics, cool races, elaborate battleground Fortress Claiming PVP, and wow .. oh my god, we got WINGS! But was that enough to satisfy the avid gamer?
Alas, release has been hell:
(1) GAME CRASHES - Yes, I know, all games crash, it happens! But it happens A LOT to quite a few people and I defintiely do not lack in computer equipment either. My system is very up to date and can handle quite a bit.
(2) GOLD SPAMMERS - Wow, need I say more. Korean based game is expected to have gold farmers I'm sure, but this is by far the WORST gold spamming in all the 12 years I have dealt with games. I literally have to open my BLOCK list to UNBLOCK old spammers so that I can add the daily new spammers!
(3) NCSOFT ANNOUCEMENTS EVERY 5 MINUTES - Yes we know and understand that you are not suppose to click on the links posted in the chat channels! NCSoft needs to stop spamming this announcement every 5 minutes as it goes across the middle of your screen. We suggested they put a private email to everyone (and I can deal with email everyday) once a day with this information instead of spamming it. This is just as bad as the gold spammers!
(4) REPEATABLE QUESTS - This gives the word "grinding" a totally new meaning! If you enjoy questing, this game is NOT for you. You gain new quests as you enter new areas, but then after you complete them, that's it! All that is left is repeatable quests doing the same thing you just did 10 more times!! This makes leveling extremely boring!
(5) CHAT CHANNELS BUGGED - This was the last straw for me. We had heard about it going around, but just recently got hit with it. This bug disables all of your chat channels except guildchat or say. This means the Looking For group Channel is out of your reach and now, those quests that ARE NOT repeatable and require groups to complete, are out of your reach as well. The most important channel is the LFG channel (because their LFG Window is completely useless already) and now we cannot even get a group.
(6) NO TECH SUPPORT FROM NCSOFT - A full forum dedicated to Technical Support is raided with bug reports, issues, pleeds of spam blocking, and endless posts from disappointed PAID subscribers and not a single technical support response. The admin's reasons for not responding?? Get this people, they said "We have issues from our system with admin posts on the forums so we cannot post until this is fixed ..." it's been how long now?? And why do you still have this forum up? Better yet ... why hasn't this been made a priority to get fixed NCSOFT can fix the other issues we are having?
So all that glory I focused on in beta, I have since pushed aside. In fact, all that positive I could find in other games WITHOUT all the negative.
In all out honesty, my complete recommendation is DO NOT PURCHASE AION! This advice will help you SAVE YOUR MONEY and your sanity!
... as for the Wings ... all can say is
"The Bounty Hunter can fly too ... here I come SW: TOR!"