I can't help but compare

With the conclusion of CB6, the three of us have been slowly going mad from Aion withdrawal. Sensing the kind of eventless two-week endurance march I experienced between CB5 and CB6 would recur, I convinced them to join me in creating a new WoW character... purely for shits, of course. Lewin created a Tauren Hunter to fill the DPS role, Tora created a Droodcow to moo-roar at things while I created a Porgus Shaman to heal the three of us and chuck wayward DPS the rest of the time. Orc. I meant orc shaman.

It's reasonably fun. We have the kind of group make up to take on any situation and we find ourselves three-manning dungeons above our level. We're currently at 20, cruising around the barrens obliterating pigmen (do you know how many pigmen a group of three needs to kill to fulfil the quest for everybody? :X). Unless they've shot ahead... I don't have access to an internet connection capable of loading past the login screen at the moment D:

Life isn't easy as a lowbie healing shaman. All I can really do for offense is auto-attack and do the odd shock spell, or I'll run out of mana. I can only cast about eight healing waves before I run out of mana so I need to keep it reasonably full for when Lewin goes nuts and pulls fifteen harpies at once. I can't help but compare the experience to Aion, a game where my shaman (which translated into Aion would be either a Chanter or Cleric) would be dishing damage out with reckless abandon, attacking and casting damage spells freely and still have the mana at any time to heal my group through a storm. Where it rains concrete. And the lightning bolts have sharks attached to them.

Not only that, but the attacks would have oomph -- instead of just spamming lightning bolt and frost shock, I'd be mixing up melee abilities and casting abilities which chain into more awesome abilities. The full action-oriented gameplay that one might expect to be exclusive to other, more dps-centric classes.

Sure, I know it gets better. At some point I'll have my mana totem, my chain heal, my mp5 regeneration, earth shield, a generally larger set of gameplay-rewarding abilities. That'll start to happen around level 40 or so, with the core gameplay emerging in the 60's. While I'd be there already if I was playing solo for a full week, with my group of three, we can expect such class maturity only coming well after the Aion Open Beta event. In WoW, the first six levels are the main tutorial. After that, the gameplay matures on the road to 80... g r a d u a l l y.

In contrast, the first ten levels of Aion are the introductory levels, mainly to the game rather than your class. I timed myself completing the 1-10 segment in just under three hours in CB5, after learning the area with a previous character. The 'core play' opens up almost immediately depending on the class you chose at ten and expands rapidly on the road to twenty. Now by twenty, things are pretty mature. You've got most of your core abilities that define your class and you've likely been having an absolute blast getting there, especially if you've been playing with a friend or three as these games are best suited for. There's more, though. I've only been to twenty myself, but at that level, I got my first Stigma ability.

Stigmas, combined with gear customisation, form the class specialisation function in Aion. Rather than improve existing abilities, they give you new ones. An example would be the Gladiator class being able to heal themselves or dual wield weapons, Sorcerers cursing opponents into trees, etcetera. Everyone can have up to five of these additional abilities (unlocked with your level), and with version 1.5, three additional Advanced Stigmas which tend to be more powerful but require certain basic stigma combinations. These abilities only add to your selection, they never replace abilities.

In early WoW the designers intended to have only the first 10-20 levels quested, with grinding for the rest. The people let their voice be heard: the game was boring without quests. Where in WoW I will avoid monsters we don't need and get bored mindlessly grinding, in Aion I actively seek it. The gameplay of Aion is, at its core, superior. Where a fight in WoW is a burden or a means to an end, in Aion the fight is worth it for its own sake. For fun.

This is why we're pining for Aion.