So I made it to level 26 which was the level Bungie recommended reaching before trying the first raid last year. Some people in the Destiny group I joined saw that and encouraged me to join up with them for the Vault of Glass raid.
This was really cool of them because most of the Destiny groups I have seen on the internet don't want anyone who isn't max level, hasn't done it before, or doesn't have certain legendary weapons. I planned to wait until I had a higher level so I wouldn't be as much of a liability but they were willing to help and actually asked me to join them even though they knew I was a lower level than they were, I had never raided, and had zero legendary weapons.
It ended up being me at level 26, one other person who had never done it before at level 28, and four maxed out (level 34) guys who had done it a dozen times. Everyone was super friendly and didn't get frustrated when me or the other rookie messed up. This happened quite a bit because the raid is complex. You have to be in the right place and do the right thing at the right time. Raids are not like most of the rest of the game where it just comes down to killing all the bad guys in an area and moving on.
I can really see how people got so obsessed with this game when they are doing six player co-op, in such highly focused, challenging content. It was a really cool experience that took about an hour. This isn't bad for a group with two rookies considering that
the very first people to beat the Vault of Glass took 10 hours.
That isn't really a fair comparison since the max level back then was 30 (we had four 34s), and they had to figure out all the complex details of this raid by themselves. Now everyone can watch youtube videos to learn how to do it and most of our group has done it a dozen times.
One of the coolest parts was at the end when everyone's loot dropped. Along with some other gear I got a legendary weapon called Vision of Confluence. I was already excited because this was my first legendary item in the game. I got way more excited when everyone started yelling and going nuts as soon as they saw my drop though. Apparently this is a Vault of Glass specific weapon drop and it's pretty rare.
Out of the level 34 players who had done this raid many times only one of them had this gun. It was cool that I got something rare and awesome on my first attempt but the part that was really cool was how genuinely excited a group of strangers got when it dropped for me even though most of them didn't have it themselves.
I'm really happy with the experience I had last night and I'm looking forward to running the rest of the raids and The Taken King content with my new group.