[Striiker]

I started at launch. It was a fascinating world to explore. I was a big Dungeons & Dragons fan as a kid and loved playing AD&D computer games on my Commodore 64 and PC. I never got into Ultima Online but got totally hooked on Everquest.
I can remember seeing the user count for each server. It helped one avoid the over populated servers if you wanted. I started on Fennin Ro with a Paladin and gave him up once he got to about Lvl 16 or so and rolled a Wizard who I leveled up to 50 fairly quickly. Sigh, the good old days.

The chat server was also always packed, particularly when the servers crashed or were brought down for maintenance. The chat server would usually be the first to be available once the servers were nearing a ready status for being brought online.

I remember also that there was a tutorial "zone" where there was a skeleton you had to go kill. It taught you the very basics of the game. I'd love to see that again for nostalgia reasons. I don't know if this was actually online or if it was a standalone thing run on your computer. I suspect the latter.