You gonna play this game? Read this:

Dago

I started in closed beta. Sort of useless beta since the game was allready released elsewhere only in different languages. But that is besides this topic.

At first sight, you see great graphics, nice sounds and some decent quests. Note that at this point there is not much diversity in hair (not at all in length or faces). So you feel a bit clony in the beginning.

Most players go alone from level 1 to level 20 before they find a clan to fit in (an average player does this in about 60 hours).

This game has not much to do with skill and more about equipment. That is a bit sad since you see most of the same armor while the races themselves allready look much alike. A good thing is that armor looks different on every race.

Not much quests, so what to do?
Well besides killing for money alone or with a friend, you have your clan to group up with and hunt big monsters.
Very strong clans will participate in wars/siege a castle. The rest may join for the thrill.

Strong points:
PvP (Player fighting other players) is decently implemented
There are clans to join
Monsters hardly ever get stuck
It looks great

Weak points:
Not nearly enough quests.
Selling stuff can take up hours, so if you dont like leaving your pc unguarded you will have to settle for a loss some times.
Some races can outrun practically any mob (Elves)
Castle sieges is really only for the strongest clans to profit from (only so few castles)
Waiting for an admin when needed will take easily 30 minutes.
Very few rare items

If you find yourself a clan. Think about when those other members are online.
If you will hardly see them when you play, it wont be a good clan for you.

My personal opionion about this game is that it has no real strong points and not enough quests to keep you from getting bored while leveling after say level 35 unless you sociolize a lot.

EQ1 - played it, loved it
AC2 - played it, liked it
DAoC - played it, allready outdated
SWG - beta test, did not buy it
Planetside - played it for the trial period only
FFXI - played it for trial period only
Lineage 2 - beta test, will buy it

Xzaro

Is it just me or you forgot to mention the weakest point in this game?

60%+ of the places that you go hunting will have CN adena farmers, or just chinese people that rule the place and kill anyone that enters. (I am not racist either, as I am chinese) It's just a fact that 99.9999% of the people who farm adena for a living are chinese.

But give the adena farmers mercy! I'm sure they are getting enough money to feed their family for years to come.

Also, not to mention that NCaustin doesn't seem to give a crap about it either.

Dago

Well I did not forget it, but did not mention it either for the following reasons:
a) the server I was on there were only a noticable amount of farmers on the dwarvenisland near the spiders
b) farmers dont get in your way really as long as you respect them for what they choose to do (some players start raids against them)
c) every game has offenders, its part of the social interaction you have to deal with (or avoid it)
d) NCsoft has been kicking players for minor things because they knew that player was a farmer or buyer

EQ1 - played it, loved it
AC2 - played it, liked it
DAoC - played it, allready outdated
SWG - beta test, did not buy it
Planetside - played it for the trial period only
FFXI - played it for trial period only
Lineage 2 - beta test, played it for 3 months