I started around G2. It was a fun game, but I quickly got frustrated at how progress was impossible without paid rebirth, and you needed service for the main story quests. I was still a kid and couldn't afford stuff like that!
I rejoined the game around G8, since those things had been rectified, and played for a long time well into the Alchemy era, only to leave again around G12 because I ran out of interesting content and most of my friends got unreliable, along with frustration at the server being ruled by rich elitist players with lots of cash to blow on the game. I could handle buying a few pets around this time, but "whales" just kept ruining it for me.
Rejoined again several times, played around with stuff like Avon and Saga, didn't last long any of those times because the server was still ruled by the same rich elitist jerks, this time with reforges making the gap even wider, and there were no parties for high level stuff that didn't involve them.
See the common thread? That's why I'm here instead.
Well, that and original Mabi is totally broken and messy and yuck now, and the people here are great so far.