I tried the beta with low expectations and found it to be a well-polished MMO. Not incredibly ground-breaking, but a decent evolution of the western MMO (in the vein of EQ and WOW). So far I've given two friends (both MMO veterans) a three minute synopsis; one then played the beta and promptly bought it, and the other simply bought it and is enjoying the headstart. I personally don't have that much time for MMOs anymore so I prefer games I can play on the fly, but the rift/invasion public raids do have that sort of charm. Relatively speaking, Trion's headstart has gone smoothly aside from being underprepared server-wise. However, Trion was able to quickly add new servers, raise population caps, and take steps to combat afk botting to ensure that people can play.