The original zeitgeist of this game was to group, and to get friends.
From level 1 to 4, say, you learn to play your class, and questing in general. If you die, you appear right back in your home town, and take a few steps to get your stuff (except for erudites- lol).
This means after you learn your class you then need to meet others to group with and take down slightly larger targets.
From 4-8 this is made clear as you venture out and learn how annoying it is to have to run naked to your corpse, this lesson never leaves you and is repeated.
Once you get bored with the local stuff, that is when meeting people and making friends comes important, because then.....you get together and the mere act of traveling through lands frought with peril and you must travel with a group. Just delivering mail is an adventure.
And you get to a point, maybe halfway across West Karana, or in the South desert of Ro where you and your tween/teen selves look ahead, or look back and thinking- geez it's a long way back home but I want to see what is ahead there....That is the point, that is the moment, that is the time when you play/hunt to live.
And if only one person dies that is a good thing and discussions regarding logistics (who can/cannot invis, who can run faster or help run faster)
are made as to who else will go back to meet the fallen comrade/partner/guildmate/group buddy/or dare I say it...friend, and most every time followed by the remaining members saying " don't worry, we will protect your corpse until you get here"
And it is at that point, that moment, that time where you not only play to live, but play for a purpose, as you play not only for the drops, but more importantly, for the person, the comrade/partner/guildmate/group buddy/Friend.
The flavor of the remaining group protecting your corpse while you run as they take on an adversary that wandered in and live is an added bonus and reminds you of the experience (pardon the pun) you missed but realize as a group what you are capable of. From there it just grows.
And I haven't even touched on what you learn ....in dungeons. (or rather, how enchanters and other crowd controlers- EVEN RANGERS become your best friends- lol)
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