I was fresh out of the box and had just popped my head out of the tutorial. The storyline naturally tried to guide me to that first town but I took a left turn. I said "I want to be a mage!" and looked at the map. Oh look there, a college! I wandered my happy ass across the map at level 1, learning that giants were not friendly the hard way, but eventually made it after a few saves and reloads. It was a fun way to start the game.