Shattered Kingdoms

There you have it, D. Create a new-non-leveling based form of grinding! Pet Breeding (edit: I had breading... however both could have their benefits... mmm... deep fried griffon 2.0, sorry Tagg)!

I got lucky 7's on underwater weapon (thankfully)...

And I find myself agreeing with grep, a summoner class could be neat.

There is a summoner class: Warlock.

And there are plenty of classes who can summon.
Though it feels different than in Final Fantasy...

A demure female elf utters the words 'giwwju'
A silver-haired male deep-elf appears.
A silver-haired male deep-elf looks angry and charges!
A silver-haired male deep-elf's attack is thwarted by sanctuary.

Dadada-dadaa-daaaaaa DADADA!

There's nothing wrong with levelling in principle. It can be quite fun, especially if you're in the mood. SK's problem is that it so strongly favors trivial battles over tough ones. Because of the restrictions on fighting higher-level opponents, XP doesn't go to the heroic or clever, but to the boredom-enduring.

I'm a fan of FF7 too, despite that many battles were easy. But FF7 kept you going with the story, scenery, and all those special-effect spells you kept earning. It's hard for a text MUD to excel in those things.

Where SK excels is in a ruleset and gameworld that favors RP. I've never seen anything top it. If RP-guided levelling wasn't an invitation to torture, I'd definitely play again. If people gaining levels faster than the average duffer is so terrifying, why not just impose hour-requirements on certain ranks?

Because for every dozen pesos there's at a nice dollar trying to get by quietly.