Do you remember your first time playing FFXIV?

[Denmo]

I remember the first couple days of beta, there were like 200 people at Camp Bentbranch. It was so laggy that you could barely do levequests. They took several minutes to spawn for you. And you could see everyone else's levequest mobs so the major areas got pretty crazy. Shouting and chatting galore. So much confusion. And hundreds of crafters spamming Rapid.

Exploring the forest was exciting at first... Then you trekked your way up to Camp Emerald Moss and you suddenly realized what a horrendous dark maze the place was. Felt more like a giant dungeon than a forest.

Probably the most fun to be had was gathering and crafting. And that's sad because Gathering got tedious, and crafting one piece of equipment was a downright chore.

In the first few months after release, I played it very casually. The battle system and levequests weren't any fun at all. Behests were a giant spam fest of 15 people nuking one mob at a time. And you could only get exp if you attacked the mob in some way, so until later EXP fixes, they weren't very rewarding. When I realized that it was much the same at 30-50, I gave up on giving any serious effort to reach level cap. Instead I just focused on what I thought could be fun and/or crafting.

I would leave the game for months at a time, only keeping up with the website news. Patches came and went. Each one reignited some interest in the game to try out the new changes and content. None kept me around for long. It wasn't until the major combat changes came around that I started playing more seriously. I even remade Denmo and rolled Gladiator (a move that cost me my summer heat gear and santa hat). Joined an LS, got to 50, finished the story, beat Garuda, and finished up Hamlet. Then the servers shut down for good.

I've put so much time and energy into this game, and it's still not as much as most others have done. Even if XIV flat out bombs with its release next month (unlikely), I'll be satisfied at least having had this experience.

[Deli]

In the first few months after release, I played it very casually. The battle system and levequests weren't any fun at all. Behests were a giant spam fest of 15 people nuking one mob at a time. And you could only get exp if you attacked the mob in some way, so until later EXP fixes, they weren't very rewarding. When I realized that it was much the same at 30-50, I gave up on giving any serious effort to reach level cap. Instead I just focused on what I thought could be fun and/or crafting.

/think I didn't know we have "I remember" since that long ago

I actually confused with the time of when did these happened ⇙

I remember the giant party at tam-tam deepwhatever place. Everyone was around lv15(?) and we fighting lv33 elf. People back then still have no idea how to dodge ws. So, Mrd and Gla die a lot. I was pug then I tank for whole party most of the time. There were always silly new Gla joined then will die very fast cus they just stood there. Only in the very end of 3+hours party, finally, someone else experienced with Gla came and tank for us... Then I left to lv craft. I always craft with my battle job (lv up to the area I can supply DoW gears), so after 3 hours insane exp, my crafters are really behind.

[little silly crafters from the country side]
back then...I never exited the forest, so I always sell my cotton gears for 1000 gils. It's always gone instantly once I put up bazaar. To me, gathering cotton bolls cost me nothing. earning gil, each mammot drop 540 gil/hide, so this cotton biz was just for lvling weaver. In the end, people even fight for it or offer me 10,000 gils to make something. I was still naive that, "no I always sell 1000. you gave me too much."

[repair biz]
Then, I exit grid to ul'dah... the material world...any decent crafted gears started with 30k... latest cotton gears started with 100k... after a few nights selling, gears at 10k, I eventually quit selling stuffs and repairing gears for people.

Each repair is 3k+ (3k is the cheapest player's offer back then...standard fix is 10k due to each gear was 100k...). so when I have extra time, I just walked at Ul'dah and repairing. I have pretty balanced crafting jobs lv up, so I can fix most of the things. I "walked" because the lag, when I walked closer then I see people started to pop out and their hammer symbol will show up. One night, I think 5 ppl were following me walked around. I think my Roe reminded them the red ghost or whatever galka at port jeuno back at 11. Then, they started to yelling :/ so from 5 → 20 → 50+ huge line of ppl walked behind me... / . \ but I was just repairing... so this continued like 30 mins... they were so happy I don't know why. (I know why later at Denmo's march tho ) Eventually, some old customer spotted me and popped out lots broken gears. I tried to move a little between fix, but eventually the crowd just left XD

oh well... so I was always blinded and think everything was super nice, from battle to craft since original 1.0 beta