City of Heroes, the first Guild Wars, hell, I first tried a free trial of WoW not long after  it started too. 

There were others, as well, most recently The Old Republic, but also DC Universe Online, and now Guild Wars 2. If not on the launch days, then soon after. 

I’m just always amazed that there are top level characters within the first week. It takes me ages to do stuff. I log in thinking “Cool, everyone else is as new as I am.” 

And then the global or area chat channels have requests and such from upper or top level people. 

And bear in mind that sometimes I game, especially early on with a new and good one, for hours and hours straight. And I still take ages to finish content. 

So what do these people do? Find exploits as soon as possible and milk the hell out of them? Skip all the content? 

You play it however you want to, but I find that’s such a waste.