This is a later era change. At launch characters were unskilled.
"And here is the patch note from May 14, 2003 3:00 am:
'Quote:
- All New Characters now start with a weapon skill - In order to help
the new player that might forget to train with their weapon before
heading out to defeat their first enemy (and even for those of us that
have been playing a while and still forget to do this), all new
characters now start off with a skill of 5 in their primary weapon.'"
More info here:
https://www.project1999.com/forums/s...t=weapon+skill