Quote Originally Posted by zdub303 View Post
Actually MMOs didn't start off as end-game gear grinds, they started off as day 1 ridiculous exp grinds. In many ways though, those day 1 exp grinds had so much more of a journey/experience than the endgame raiding gear treadmill that MMOs have become today...
Heck yeah they were. I've recently realized that what FFXIV calls endgame was what FFXI called day 1 progression. Everything was a challenge to get. Just simply gearing up every few levels to go grind exp out was challenging and required fair amounts of gil farming. Getting the gil was a grind which makes gearing up a grind which allowed you the opportunity to go to an exp camp and exp grind. Everything was a grind. These days that type of challenge doesn't appear until you cap out.