What was it like for you as a newb?Follow

Picture if you will a Galka Warrior named Jodha during the beta test. This would be me.

Imagine said Galka running around Sarta killing stuff with glee, this being his first MMORPG and having NO CLUE how to do anything at all. Luckily he had gotten a linkpearl for the Windurstian LS we had set up during beta and recieved guidance from them.

Also imagine said Galka trading 3 silk threads to the mithra in Windy because 600gil was a TON of money >.< And doing this repeatedly.

Then Jodha discovered Tahronghi Canyon. I was just exploring a bit and met up with an elvaan white mage named Hiest. His party had abandoned him and he was travelling to Windurst from Sandoria on foot and needed help. I offered to guide him back to Windurst. Later on we would become good friends.

Jodha starts a party to go kill Dhalmels in Tahrongi (We didn't go to the dunes until at least 15-16, maybe later. Maze parties were common) and he meets his first friend in this game, Mamasmurf. We go on to have an insane party with Chain 5's and massive XP per kill in Meriphataud Mountains on lizards. Mamasmurf and Jodha add each other onto our friends list (a rare occurance I'm told from her husband ^^) and we continue to have many adventures through beta until we hear it's ending. I hadn't yet reached 25 so I sold everything I had and sent it to Mamasmurf and logged out. Sent the HDD back to Sony and waited for the public release.

Skip ahead to the April launch of PS2. Jodha is once again alive and Mamasmurf has given me a WP to Bismarck. I helped start one shell which fell apart for many reasons, and I joined Renkeidorkz. Several Beta friends were in this shell including Mamasmurf and Hiest.

Jodha died with the old linkshell. I thought I might like to try a mage job but remembered how hard it was when I had created my very first mage character during beta, an Elvaan BLM (shows what I knew about this game). Not that Elvaan can't be BLM's, but I needed all the help I could get so I picked a Tarutaru. I'm sitting there at the name input screen trying to decide what this blonde, grey eyed creature will be called and my wife says "Why not Wintaru? He's a Tarutaru from Windurst."

Fast forward through the impossible early levels of soloing a WHM, through the Dunes parties where you get invited 1 minute after logging on, through Qufim and the jungle (where I deleveled many many times learning how to control hate), through Crawler's nest and every other place beyond and you have a 62 WHM newb named Wintaru running around Jueno still trying to figure out what he's doing in this world but is having a blast doing it.