Despite crippling patch downloads that really ate into my bandwidth allowance, AoC has delivered a satisfying package of gore and gameplay. Now I have the right mods and a quickstarter in place, the overall experience is high quality fun with subtle but distinct points of difference from previous MMORPG efforts. Considerably more adult than WOW, the fatalities are classic, and some of the gruesome settings are almost chilling. Well done, FunCom! My main is a barbarian, a class that allows the new melee system to shine. I suspect the damage dealing caster classes still need tuning, but the melee classes seem pretty well-balanced. The priests are still favoured, nice change for healer-freaks, I guess, but I don't really warm to holy characters. I'm still unconvinced by the cut-sequences. & to be truthful, I find the whole guild thing a bit overwhelming and intense. Doomed to be a noob...