2003. Played Beta MS Tespia ( https://maplewiki.net/index.php?title=Tespia ), before gMS Scania and played the first day Scania came out. I recently came back to my character which is now named "#0000001856" so it's kind of cool showing people I was in the first 2,000 account registered. https://i.imgur.com/0t1vBx9.jpg My char was originally "Bryan" but someone else has it now. I used to be known for being one of the 3 founding members of Hidden-Street.net, which while still active, is used a lot less due to competition. The forum is also dead as a doorknob! (hint hint).
Everything was so different in beta. We ONLY had Victoria Island. Mushmom and Jr. Balrog were the only spawning bosses. You could get Ilbis from Mushmom. Doombringer (the black-white outlined lv70 2H sword-it's a diff name now), Evil Wings (it's Evil something now, and lvl60 now), also was a lvl70 equip then. Nothing else higher than that. Cromi was the next best magician weapon. No Thorns. Best earrings were Blue Moons dropped by Wild Kargoes.
Near the very end of beta, they lowered the channel count from 20 to 10, then to 2. Rog didn't even drop equips anymore. Everyone stood outside the Ellinia -> Ossyria depart map and said our goodbyes.