I swear any time I actually feel like trying MMOs out they go down for maintenance. Fuck off.

Playing through VIII right now. Just beat disc one. I swear so little happened and yet it took me 13 hours to get through that disc.
No chests. No equipment. No accessories. There's nothing to look for or explore! I also got the ability very early on to turn tents into 10 CURAGAS which is nuts. I waited a while to do anything with this and after realizing the game would not give me any awards or prizes I just caved and now all my party has quadrupled their hp, which also means I'm now always in limit break mode and enemies aren't hitting that hard. What kind of bizarre balancing is this?
I'm also getting really tired of adjusting the GFs around because the game loves to keep forcing party swaps.