I mostly agree with op (except that Astellia is actually better than BDO imo) and I am truly enjoying the game. The Astel system is not just simple pet system, and you really need to build a deck carefully and strategically use them for each unique situation. I think the Astel system is what makes this game really distinguished from other MMO rpg in addition to those outstanding art works and musics.
Performance wise, I am surprisingly pleased to Astellia Online Asper see the game running very smoothly on my entry level gaming desktop with all settings maxed out (i5-94200F 2.9GHz, GTX 1660 6GB, 8GB DDR4, SSD). I think all the bad previous business practice of Korean game publishers makes people hesitant to give this game a try, and that's very unfortunate for this game and those who love this game.
A dead game that's about to shut down servers in their home country is better than a multi-million dollar franchise that has over 20 million players, it seems logical to me.
Personally I could only play for like 40 minutes-1 hour. The UI and such was just NOT for me, and also didn't care for how the minimap was showing things, kind of felt like i had to use the auto move feature and that's just kind of weird to me honestly.
Too expensive for cheap Astellia Online Asper an unemployed brazilian, if it is not dead until I find a job I might try, from the videos it looks quite good.
Call me negative but nowadays, I don't put any hope into any new MMOs released in the west until it survives a month. There just hasn't been many games that doesn't flop in a month released in this day and age.
The reason why the quality of mmos are so bad is because of desperate fanboys who throw their wallets at anything labeled new.
The korean/foreign developers think of us like a joke and just toss their game since they know people are willing to spend their money on just about anything.
Putting BnS, Tera, Bless and Revelation Online to shame is a very, very low bar. I myself don't like BDO but I can't deny its success and I can at least see why people would enjoy it. This game just looks like the epitome of generic Korean mmo with some sort of gimmick.
You're surprised that people are downvoting a comment that praises a game with antiquated graphics for running well on modern hardware? Really? Why would you be surprised it runs well? I've got big news for you, there are many more older games that will also run really well! Wait till you hear about EQ, you'll be surprised at how well it runs. Also, your hardware while not top end is still high spec and runs nearly anything at high quality if not max.
The rest of your mini review is lazy. Not only that but a lot of mmos players who have been around for awhile know this is most likely the honeymoon phase of any new mmo.
Because 2 months ago it ran like complete fucking arse. On an engine that is known to almost always run like complete arse on MMOs. It's really surprising they managed to make that turnaround, and in a short period of time as well.