To all the people starting from scratch..

[Shodo]

My first character on this server was a monk - between the long break since playing live and starting post-velious, I had no idea where to begin.

1 - West Freeport, punching orc pawns and skellies and collecting items for my first sash quest.
4 - Died repeatedly in EC, decided to try East Freeport instead. Found two centurion spawns that dropped DF belts (the wiki said they were great XP!) I could just barely kill both of them one at a time, so I would come home between deliveries at work and kill them, then afk by the guards, repeat. It was a long road to level 8 with my two cracked staves.
8 - started killing in EC, sold my first HQ bear pelt and bought a greenwood bo stick - this would have to last a while.
12 - duo'd nybrights with my shaman friend until 17ish, then solo'd until 20ish for about a thousand plat. Bought two Cane of the Tranquils and 5/55s.
20 - Solo'd crag spiders until I got my tailoring high enough to make a full set of cured silk.
24 - duo'd with shaman friend in LoIO, got misc. groups, eventually upgraded to a wu's quivering staff and a few pieces of cheap str gear.
30 - solo'd sister island in OOT for a few levels & saved up 7k plat. Friend gave me 1k that he had saved up, and I bought an IFS (I cringe at how cheap they are now...) and turned into what felt like a killing machine.

33ish - On the way back from my ocean adventure, I was teleported (via evil boat magic) onto the roof of a building in East Freeport surrounded by an invisible cage. Some kind passersby tried to port me out, but to no avail. I resolved to patrol the rooftop and keep watch over the streets of east freeport for a day or two until a GM ported me to EC. I made no money, but I definitely saw a 2% decrease in crime.