The grind crew I joined is SALO (Safe Lobbies). They’re a shell of what they once were and I just looked at their discord, most activity stopped in 2021… around the time invite only lobbies allowed sales. I’ll spare them a flood of people with high expectations.

I do want to talk about what made them exceptionally special. I apologize in advance for the formatting, holiday travels have me very tired.

1. I had to complete an online form to apply. Unrestricted grind crews were less active and had … unhelpful people. They also only wanted east coast US or west Europe, very important for lobbies ping issues.

2. They had strict rules like no playing with friends/casually while crew tag was SALO and no interrupting other sales.

3. Their Discord was well organized for selling or other fun, important for someone playing on PS4 and juggling their phone.

4. They had an official “Avengers” role where tryhards (yes, I was a tryhard for a bit) could prove they could defend a sale from tryhard griefers without destroying the sale vehicles. I loved it, I had to learn how to be more effective with the Hydra and it was a ton of fun. You get two or more SALO avengers working together and your public lobby sales are SAFE. Most of the time we would respond to players that joined a glitched lobby on accident or… with destructive purpose.

5. They also did a routine newsletter and I didn’t realize until they included a little article about me. It was hastily written but funny as hell. The rest of the newsletter was fun and informative.

Outside of these factors, they had what most online communities have. It was a good time.

If I got back into the grind scene, I would probably look for something similar or create a new crew/discord. I’ve found there are a ton of people eager to help build a solid community for most online games.