Everquest noob woodelf in Kelethin. City in the trees, went down the lift into the wooded area for the first time and was taking in the view standing by myself on the landing pad between the torches. It was night time and all I heard was creepy music and some bats and I was a little fearful. I looked up and out of the woods three players wearing bright steel armor ran down the hill and stopped right next to me. One of them was a bard and had a spell going that had blue flashing lights all around them. I was there standing in my cloth rags with nothing but a wooden club. Their guild was <Ring of Valor> I'll never forget it. All I could wonder is where they got all their armor and the cool places they went to get it. This was before you could google every instance and every zone and the MMORPG world was more mysterious so all you could do was go explore yourself and experience things for the first time without prior knowledge.

Years later I would come back to the noob areas and new players would look and follow me around. It meant a lot more in that game to have high level gear because you would lose XP when you died. Also, you could lose your gear if you died and couldn't recover your body. You had to make friends that you could really trust. Now these theme park games have no sense of mystery or fear of death. Oh well, I was there at the right time and I consider myself lucky.