EverQuest

In this game, there was a city where I did so many quests for the guards that my reputation with the "corrupt guards" fell low enough that they would kill me on sight. Playing a good-guy character got me killed, and then I couldn't play anymore in the city where I'd spent most of my gametime.

I would have been angry at the unfairness, but it was such a unique quirk to see in a game, and I've never seen it replicated anywhere.

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…

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...

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. :(

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.