The initial pre-facet gameplay basically split between the protected town space and free-for-all wilderness. As soon as one wondered outside town guard area, anything could happen - you could attack anyone and anyone could attack you, costing you all you carried. Or nothing could happen. That was the genius of the game play - just like in the real world, once you went out into the wild, it was you against all.
In this vacuum of law, guilds emerged that controlled and protected parts of the wilderness. You joined one of them and helped build society from scratch. Patrols were organized, crime was fought. Turf was defended. Crafters were protected.
A pseudo medieval society emerged with their own casts and hierarchies. All shards were different.
At the time, I played Pacific shard for the MOD guild. Then the rule change came that ended all of this - they split pvp and non-pvp realms. This is when the wipeout happened.
Without the pvp players, the non-pvp realm became overrun. You could sit and wait in the most dangerous dungeon for hours to get a chance to slay a dragon. Previously, this was prevented by pvp players attacking the dragon hunters, now people could just kemp out in the most valuable armor and carrying most valuable weapons. Things you wouldn’t think of using before for fear of losing them to another player were now fair game.
Many of the veteran players retereated to the Seige Perilous shard with extremely punitive rules and hard game play, but many left. Siege lasted for 3-4 years for me before I finally gave up.
In the end, the lawless, ruleless gameplay that required society to emerge was such an amazing experience that I’ll be forever thankful to the devs for allowing us to experience it. Such things help one understand and believe in humanity, despite all our flaws and the few bad apples that emerge.