Late 2004. I started on Seraph.
I remember how happy I was the first time I ran from Valkurm Dunes back to Bastok without dying, because for a lv 10-19, a few gil for sneak and invisible potions was way too rich for my blood. Back then, OP warps were level locked and you could only use the Dunes warp at lv 20. My brother quit the game at level 14 because he kept dying to those 2 bats in the tunnel in the dunes.
Also, I remember so many people in starter towns near AH that only a ring of people around you would render. Different characters would pop and depop as you moved.
And the npc that took Aht Urgan coins to warp a player back to Jeuno always had tons of people afk around it. Those who didn't know about F8 would lose their minds because they had to tab through 20 - 30 people before the cursor hit the npc. I was cheap and used the guy that warped you outside Jeuno. But it would suck when he got kidnapped after a besieged.