This is relatable, since I only started as a new player a couple of weeks ago (although I did play 1.0 and a little bit of ARR at launch)

Practically everyone forwarns that 2.0 - xx.4 can feel like a slog, but I've still been managing to enjoy myself. I'm actually surprised by the consistency of the writing, which by and large, is very good. (including fetch quests and flavour text)

It will be interesting to see how much is trimmed in 5.3, though.