Valkurum dunes (lv. 10-19) at the start of the game took longer than a week or at least few days if you were lucky. Find a good party was impossible. People were all new and Bogy aggro was a nightmare for most of them. You needed hours to find a party (especially without subjob). This discussion is not going far since there's no people who played the game at the Zilart release, not later. There was nothing to suggest you to go in Valkurum to exp, for example: your character was just into a super big world and you really didn't know what to do, since there was zero quest helper, zero suggestions, zero guides. Aside from the japanese ones, of course.