I remember when I first began playing, I couldn't make it past 11, then was so excited that I gained my first specalization, then made it to hero, and I had fun. All the while, the top level of players were still wearing pimp gear, uber monsters were running around wrecking people, places like ST, and Hell were still getting explored, and I didn't give a damn because I was making personal achievements like getting out of a 120k+ exp hole. Now, I've got a character that ranks in top 15 of all time explore points found, I've got a couple different PK records for race/class builds, and it is still as fun as it ever was. My heart still gets to pounding when I get close to death, I still get annoyed when I lose gear, I still deal with complete dicks the same as I did in the past except with a whole lot less full looting. I get killed, and killed, and talked trash to with almost every character but that's just real life.

But, I also try like hell to get other people to join in on the game just like my friend did when I was growing up. It only took him, to get me and 2 or 3 people, who have become life long friends, to play this game and most of us still do. We talked with one another, we met eachother IC and explored and learned and we told other people about what we found, all IC. I think that is the part of this game that's been lacking and hurting noobies more than anything. People treat this like a winnable game and try to help themselves more than being a little patient with the new guy. Because at the end of the day, it's about playing it and having fun with other people.