Quote Originally Posted by Preypacer View Post
I experienced the same overall things as you did when I first started.

I started on the day of the NA US release, where *no one*, in the Western market knew what was going on. Unlike you, however, I was fascinated with FFXI from the first hour or so I played it. By the time I logged out that first evening, I was hooked.
I'm pretty sure skillups wound up looking a little different then compared to later on. I started really playing in 2007 and my skills were super gimp. I'm not sure if it was 1 - 3 levels worth, but it was probably 40 hours worth of grinding at least. I know they made some adjustments to exp needed to level at some point, perhaps it made skills more gimp.

I'll write more later!