I remember when dying even once was a serious emotional trauma, causing hours of time spent leveling to be undone.
Once, people would arrive at a the Crag of Mea, on their way to xp pt at The Boyahda Tree. They would then decide to WALK there from the crag as the chocobo rental fee was over 5k which was too much for many people.
For a few short months, there was this interesting set of zones where few people went to do SCNM fights for neat hats made from the heads of the beastmen leaders of the past.