Where FATEs are concerned, my nostalgia was in my first day exploring the Central Shroud as a CNJ. I had no clue about the lay of the land, was constantly going in circles, and the simplest, most convenient way I had of knowing what was hip and happening at the time were the dear blue pointy icons on my minimap that directed me to FATEs. I had the good fortune of coming across a LNC who was trying to do them as well; my first time seeing him, I'm pretty sure he was near death and still going at it. We never properly partied up, but any time I went to a new FATE, he was there. Or I beat him to the most recent to pop. One particularly imposing looking FATE was the "Bleeding Green" boss fate, with the giant Landtrap looking down at us, and just us. All I could do was look the LNC, say "Heh. We got this.", and start it up. At about 30% of its hp to go, I was out of mana, he was tanking it... and in comes a swarm of other FATE goers to crash the thing down in a hurry.

If I miss anything, it's the delight of FATEs being new, uniquely challenging content in an otherwise pretty peaceful open world.