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Comment by davedx | Hacker News Reader

World of Warcraft had this in Booty Bay. There was a hilarious achievement where you first got your reputation to max with the Booty Bay guards by killing the nearby pirates, then the other half was to kill the guards until the Bloodsail Buccaneers faction exalted you; a 2.5x reputation grind that took weeks. And when you were done you couldn’t enter Booty Bay anymore because the guards killed you on sight.

The things we do…

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WoW was amazing back when it first launched, I tried it again a year ago and everything felt on guardrails now. There was a linear set of quests that led you down an unmissable road to level up and get gear. You never were stuck with missing or low level items, each quest gave you the pieces you were missing and you get purple gear for doing the right steps in the right order, not for taking risks and getting lucky.

I remember first playing and feeling totally lost as I wandered from place to place hoping not to stumble into something with a skull that would murder me. Any item you lucked into was a godsend and people were equipped with a jumble of gear that was the best they could get. If you got your hands on an epic you wore it forever. Maybe it is just nostalgia but it really didn't feel great for it to be so straightforward now.

This randomly reminded me of when I grinded dwarf reputation in World of Warcraft so that at level 40, I was the only human riding a goat/ram (dwarf mount) instead of the horse.

I remember killing endless crocodiles in STV so I could turn in their heavy leather I think during the event where the realm works together to open the AQ gate.

I'll see a 13yo gardener here in Mexico and wish he could be doing that instead of working. :(

Insane in the membrane [1].

Nowadays it probably takes 20 hours if you really grind. Repairing rep on the pirates was soul-destroying but so was getting all those lockboxes for Ravenholdt rep.

[1]: https://www.wowhead.com/achievement=2336/insane-in-the-membr...

I haven't played retail in the last few years so I'm not sure if that rep has changed, but on my main I never bothered to regain the Booty Bay rep and was still KOS to them. Hilarious.

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