Pioneering new game territories yields far higher returns than following in others' footsteps hunting monsters, as universally acknowledged by the major guilds. The drop rate for equipment is substantially higher, and it is not uncommon to come across chests of Gold or even Dark Gold quality. Those Gold and Dark Gold pieces of equipment indeed make one's heart race. However, the challenge of pioneering deters many large guilds, due to the frequent encounters with Elite-class creatures and even Lord-class monsters, making full-party defeats far from rare. Continual wipes could reduce an elite team to just another public group.
Thus, the vast majority of guilds would not dare to take such a risk, only the stronger elite guilds dared to form groups to pioneer new lands, but they only ventured into areas of matching level. If anyone dared to pioneer higher-level areas, there were only two words to describe it—courting death!
