I started playing DAoC in 2001 (client revision 1.02), with a cleric on the server Kay to support a couple friends. My first experience at RvR was at level 20, just outside the Castle Sauvage gates, where my contributions were limited to finding folks low enough in level that I could rez (yes, I gained RPs on my very first trip with a lowbie) and healing anyone I could (RPs for healing in RvR/PvP was added later). Leveling was slow and as my friends drifted away to play other games, I decided to try out the paladin and cablist as solo classes, and made a sorcerer for crafting material runs. Shrouded Isles came out and added to the world of DAoC of which I had seen only a small fraction.
Shortly after Gaheris opened up I rolled up a cabalist there, as I had found it to be rather good at leveling up solo and I wanted to 'see the world'. One of my friends returned to the game and rolled up a character on Gaheris, so I returned to to the support role with a cleric when he was on, and continued with the cabalist when he wasn't on. We joined a guild (ED) and months of adventuring/grinding went by. I needed a break, so I left the game for a short while. After returning from my break Trials of Atlantis was released and we found ourselves to low in level to really experience it, so my friend moved back to Kay where he could enjoy RvR and I returned to leveling my cabalist. Not long after, my friend found himself outclassed in RvR due to the ToA artifacts and he left the game again. I took over his account and made a shaman to run along with my Gaheris characters. Sand and I met, and I introduced her to "I will be right there after I finish this level and train", and that got her curious about DAoC so I let her create a character on my account and give it a try. Not long after that she got her own account, joined me in ED on Gaheris, and I finally got my first level 50 (Adrorel, my cabalist on Gaheris).
From there I was introduced to leading raids, when our guild leader had to depart from a raid they were leading and asked me to take over. I started running small raids to help guild members level up, and progressed to running battlegroup raids for the guild. When the DAoC population began to drop, I opened up my raids to the public (hitting the cap on maximum battlegroup size more than once) and supported other raid leaders. I continued this until DAoC stopped adding new content and began replacing content that was already in the game, at which time I said my final goodbye.
... and that's the short version!