Just as the topic says, Aion is now free to play for those who are/were interested. XD The site is .
Bear and I played Aion a few years back for few weeks before we got into WoW. ^^ We quit Aion because though the environments were pretty, they were linear and limiting and the quests just weren't interesting. Bear was also concerned that after doing research in character building that it wasn't deep and complex enough to hold his interest. The game has nice music though. =)
For those who don't know anything about Aion, it's a pretty MMO that advertises off the gimmick of characters being able to fly and have air combat. Though it is one of their main marketing points, free flying is limited to certain maps. For maps in which flying is prohibited, you are able to glide by jumping off elevated surfaces. You can only fly for a limited amount of time which I think increases as you gain levels, and there is a few seconds downtime after gliding on non-flyable maps. There are two fractions which can pretty much be categorized as "light" and "dark." I didn't get very far on a dark fraction character, but it doesn't look like there are any differences in the starting areas. I thought the combat was pretty fun because it was position and action orientated. It was also really great that whenever you did a blow to your opponent, there would be a big "wham" bass sound which gave your hits the feeling of having some real weight behind them. XD
Anyhow, the games free-to-play now. Check it out I guess???