http://na.aiononline.com/en/It's billed as a PvPvE game. Two playable realms, with an NPC third realm. Basic premise is that the world was sundered in two halves. Those on one side got all of the sunlight, Elyos. Those on the other received none, Asmodian. They each have part of a gate that is slowly destroying the world. Neither is noble enough to destroy their own to save the other, so they fight to destroy the other side instead.
Many DaoC concepts at work here. The Abyss is a Frontier. There are Keeps and Relics to fight over. PVP can be seen as early as 18ish for semi-consentual PvP in your PvE land. You can go to the Abyss and PvE there, and fight the other side at 25+.
The NPC realm, the Balaur, attack whoever they want in the Abyss. They take back keeps and such, or will show up while you're fighting the other realm.
Gear is earned, from best to worst:
1. PvP
2. Crafting
3. Dungeons
The combat is similar to DaoC as well. It has openers, and chains. Graphics are anime-ish. The client runs very smoothly, ala WoW.
The crafting system is gather resources from the world, ala WoW, make parts, then put parts together. You can "crit" to make a better version of some of the items. You can take all of the crafts on one character from 1-399. You can only take one of them from 400-450 (Expert Crafting).
The PvE is pretty vanilla. The first dungeon is 27 - 40. I tanked it at 28. With a good group, it's a 30 minute clear, and can be reset and run over and over. It's the best experience from 30 - 40. There are higher level dungeons, but I only played through 35 during Chinese retail. Almost everything is Tank and Spank in PvE. It's a Korean MMO, so it's a tad grindy in the mid-20s on up. The fun of this game should come from PvP.
