This could just be the completist or Achiever in me talking, but players do not like to be told that they missed something and must start over if they want it. We MMO players are usually content that there are cosmetics available as one-time event rewards or such, but if something has gameplay value or is an ongoing part of the game, you can see people going through physical pain to reach it. It is bad enough that single-player games have Achievements that require you to do X before Y or else reload/restart, losing some hours, but how about an MMO where you might have that character for years? MMOs are virtually without consequences, so the one piddly consequence is a proud nail even if it only means you cannot have a title.
City of Heroes used to have the Isolator badge restricted to players who for some reason farmed 100 enemies in the tutorial. No point, no benefit except this, and nothing indicates its existence. You just need to know in advance that it is there and put in the time for it during the most boring part of the game. That is like design decisions duct taped together. That was compounded in Issue 7 with a change seemingly designed solely to taunt the players: one of those enemies would spawn every 45 minutes in the highest level PvP zone. Issue 11 added a mission that let players farm it post-tutorial, and the City of Villains equivalent was always available later via a mission on the tutorial map.
LotRO has “The Undying,” a title track for not dying until level 5/10/14/17/20. If you want to pursue that link, you can see some related unhappiness. Recommendations for getting the title were usually to solo (no PUG risk) and NOT to take the easiest content; you were in a race against the inevitable lag/bug/crash that would kill you, so you needed to get experience at a sane rate rather than trying to farm the weakest enemies. MMO designs that discourage soloing and trying challenging content are not good. The Guild Wars equivalent was even worse (earn more than 1,000,000xp with no deaths, go!), and it was mutually exclusive with another title. That changed in a 2011 update that made Survivor for earning X xp since your last death rather than without ever dying. This helped many slightly unbalanced people avoid going entirely off the deep end.
Feel free to toss in your favorite from other MMOs.
: Zubon
