NCsoft Q1 profits jump 315%

Huge epic weapons/armor is something GW has always lacked - and Asian grinder MMOs have had them in abundance.

See RF Online, for instance. The weapons are bigger than you are and have all kinds of awesome, physically impossible designs.

From what I can see on the NCSoft website of Aion, yes it does look freaking awesome. But the most important question is: is there a lot of grind involved ala WoW?

I like Guild Wars' more "down to earth" look for the weapons and armor. I hope they don't make all the weapons huge, neon glowing, etc.

Yeah, me too. While I do like the look of some of the manga/anime/asian MMO weapons (realistic ones), I would like to FINALLY play a MMO (not GW - not a MMO) where people use normal weapons. Something like WAR, but not failing at balance.

You know, where you can wield a rapier and it looks cool. Because it does.*

*- That's why I'm trying to use only realistic looking weapons in GW. Except for Kanaxai's Axe, of course ;d

From what I've heard, people quest to get to higher levels. So while yes, it might be full of monster killing and so on, it will be closer to GW and Warhammer Online in terms of leveling.

I would say the amount of grind is about equal to WoW's. It takes a while to level, but most of it can be done by doing quests. There won't be very many times where you just stand outside killing random stuff over and over to level like FFXI.