FFXI was my first Pay-to-Play MMORPG (not my first though, Maple Story, RoseON, and Runescape graced my presence beforehand ><;), so I was a bit nervous with it all.
My first day, I spent six hours downloading and installing the massive update, and hating every minute of it. By the time it was all done, I had about an hours worth of playtime before I passed out on my bed.
I created an Elvaan Thief in Bastok, with the long, rough looking black hair face, named "Korro", after "Korro Te'Deurshon", a thief I had played as in the D&D Sessions at Games Club after school.
He lasted no more than that hour. I quickly deleted him because I didn't like Bastok, and I couldn't find my way outside (nor did I know how to equip that butter knife they gave me as a starter weapon).
The next day I started anew, and created a Hume, The Semi-Long Red Haired Face, Red Mage in San d'Oria, the original Avelyn, named after one of the main characters in R.A. Salvatore's Demon Wars books. I solo levelled my way to 10 over the period of two weeks, with nothing but my starter sword, Dia, what few spells I got on the way (Cure, Stone, and Protect), and that ugly Bronze Harness set (which I replaced with leather as soon as I reached 7, kept the Bronze Cap though, liked the way it looked).
With that one, I remember walking out of Ronfaure, and seeing my first orc, trying to kill it, and watch it utterly humiliate me. Then, I vowed to never move on in that game until that bloody orc died to my blade.
It finally happened at Lv. 7, and I was so happy with it (and happy that I could go on and fight harder mobs).
About Lv. 9, I figured out what the AH was, and decided I wanted to level a craft. First I tried Smithing...
...then I saw the prices for Fire Crystals on the AH (which were a lot to me at the time), and decided I'd probably make better money having a tea party with the orc population of Ronfaure.
So, I did a few quests, the first Sandy mission, and eventually managed to get myself a rod and some bait (lugworms ><;). I decided I'd try to go fishing in Ronfaure at the stream...
I fished up more than my fair share of monsters doing that, and after dying to them...several times...I quit fishing, and deleted that version of Avelyn, since I didn't even know I could switch classes at moments notice in your Mog House, and recreated the current Avelyn in Bastok (since I heard you would get this really useful ring if you created a Hume there).
I had better experience with my third character, this time a Monk, and made it through Gustaberg quickly. Eventually I got to my first party in Highlands, a duo with another low level, subjobless Monk, and we roamed Highlands like we were the greatest monster hunters in the game.
Eventually we went to where the sheep spawned, took one (count it, one, uno...one...sheep), and a Ram popped, literally right behind us. My MNK friend screamed in panic, and then the Ram two shotted him.
So, I followed suit, and did what I thought would be best to do in that situation...
Scream bloody murder in PT chat and run in circles around my fallen friend with the Ram chasing my *** and maming me ><
After that, I didn't pt for a long while, and fought worms in Highlands solo. Until, finally, I got a random PT invite from a party in Dunes. So I ran there as quick as I could.
The moment I zone in, I run right past a goblin (which didn't show up on my screen yet) and watched it cut me down in one swing. I was so embarrassed, I HP'd, disbanded, and logged.
Was another week before I had another PT in dunes, and that one wasn't so bad (no instant gob death), and from there, I just moved on and learned, explored all over (even went to Windy as a level 18, paying an escort 4k to get me through to the Canyon), and thats about it.
Ah the good old days...wide eyed and curious about everything, yet dumb as a rock! ^^