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Am I the only one who hates quest grinding? (rant inside)
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massively multiplayer online roleplaying game to me means anygame in which i play a role in a story. the mmo part i take as... online, with multiple people. i can see your point of view, but i loathe the i guess you'd call it, "grouping grind" lol
I dunno, paying 15 bucks for not socializing with people, or paying 4-60 bucks once, for the same thing... Decisions-decisions...
I hate WoW because it made my plush hamster kill himself, created twin clones of Hitler, punched Superboy Prime in reality, stared my dog down, spoiled my grandmother, assimilated me into the Borg, then made me into a real boy, just to make me a woman again.
Problem with GW (and most other modern MMOs, at that matter) is that there is NO socializing outside of PVP/raids. Which is just sad. Casual games don't like forced grouping, but it's one thing, that helps forge strong relationships in MMOs.
And seriously, when I can solo a mob 5 levels higher - that just screams "don't wet your feet, dearie".
i was in a rather social guild for a while called LaZy. but ill agree, it does lack in that department. but forced grouping causes stress (example ffxi) on the casual gamer. i recall several times forming groups or waiting in one being formed only to find out that since it took 30 minutes, i only had an hour left so no one wanted to keep me in said group. personally i think to solve that issue being rewarded for grouping, but not punished for soloing should be enstated.
Call me weird, but "soloing" in MMO is something, I detest. If I want to play a singleplayer plame, I'll play a singleplayer game!
Soloing is not the problem, some people are anti social but want to feel apart of a living world with other real people.
Its the questing systems that is the problem, soloing used to be something to do when you wanted to be alone but today is is the primary way to hit max level.
I started MMO gaming with EQ1 and I have yet to find another game that can keep me playing for more then a month, let alone the 5+ years I spent playing EQ1. Before anyone says, go play EQ1 then, I want a new game, I did everything I wanted to do in EQ1, I am done with that game.
Sooner or Later
Problem with GW (and most other modern MMOs, at that matter) is that there is NO socializing outside of PVP/raids. Which is just sad. Casual games don't like forced grouping, but it's one thing, that helps forge strong relationships in MMOs.
And seriously, when I can solo a mob 5 levels higher - that just screams "don't wet your feet, dearie".
i was in a rather social guild for a while called LaZy. but ill agree, it does lack in that department. but forced grouping causes stress (example ffxi) on the casual gamer. i recall several times forming groups or waiting in one being formed only to find out that since it took 30 minutes, i only had an hour left so no one wanted to keep me in said group. personally i think to solve that issue being rewarded for grouping, but not punished for soloing should be enstated.
Call me weird, but "soloing" in MMO is something, I detest. If I want to play a singleplayer plame, I'll play a singleplayer game!
Soloing is not the problem, some people are anti social but want to feel apart of a living world with other real people.
Its the questing systems that is the problem, soloing used to be something to do when you wanted to be alone but today is is the primary way to hit max level.
I started MMO gaming with EQ1 and I have yet to find another game that can keep me playing for more then a month, let alone the 5+ years I spent playing EQ1. Before anyone says, go play EQ1 then, I want a new game, I did everything I wanted to do in EQ1, I am done with that game.
thanks, couldnt for the life of me come up with that description! lol
Just because I dont want to log on and wait for a group every time, doesnt mean i dont talk to people or group.
Quest Grinding without a good Storyline is boring. Quest grinding for Players that don't care about the Storyline is really boring.
Freedom in MMOs largely depends on whether the MMO in question was designed as a "Them Park" like WoW and LotRO, of if it was designed as a "Sandbox" like old SWG when it was new or EvE Online is now.
A great MMO imho is one that has a great Storyline and a huge Quest Line built into the game that takes full advantage of the Story ....AND....a Sandbox style features that allow a Player that wishes to skip the quests to have a whole assortment of options of ingame goodies to enjoy. I have other features that I look for in a MMO as well, but a MMO with a great story based quest series but without freedom to do "my own thing" is a boring road to walk in a MMO for me.
As for group grinding out XP, I miss the old days in DAoC grouped with my guildies out on the Salisbury Plains...having a great time while camping a favorite spot. I myself believe that the reason you don't see more of this type of social behavior in MMOs now is because the MMO Developers have spread the Mobs out too uniformly instead of the old fasioned "Mob group spawns" like the old MMOs had....if a group now-a-days could camp more and not have to travel around so much ingame, then I think we would see this Player behavior return. I am a LotRO lifer, but I hate that LotRO Player Groups trying to do a quest together have to "run to and fro" in Middle Earth at each step of the quest line sometimes. It is distracting from the real reason some of us want to play a MMO...to socialize while we grind out XP.
Bring back the "Mob Group Spawns" with rapid respawning! Give the Players a reason to have to group together...and stay in one spot for awhile so we can chat and goof around together while grinding out XP.
Yes I am sick of quest grinding, but at the same time I was already sick of grinding mobs.
There is nothing wrong with quests or mob grinding in spirit. The problem is the complete shift to one extreme or another. I don't want to do 50, yes 50, quests to gain a level. 49 of which I will never remember, because they are so inane that the only care I have for the quest is to complete it as fast as possible to remove it from the journal.
Nor do I want to sit around in one area killing the same respawning bear that stands around waiting to get killed over and over again 500 times.
Developers just have not perfected the blend of activities yet. Put in some really epic storied quests that encourage grouping and don't discourage grouping based on stages. Put in some points of interest where killing anything in sight has some meaning. Save a town that is being overrun by small armies of orcs. Seige a small fort to rescue randomly places hostages or rescue the winter food stores stolen. Put resources in an area infested with monsters that react to harvesting. Overharvesting might cause food starved "tame" creatures to turn agressive or maybe the local baddies form up hunting parties to protect their resouces. Something, anything.
Some dynamic movement to the wildlife would be nice in the way dark and light attempted to do. Put in a fair number of TASKS that are soloable for people who can't find groups or just want to play alone for a while. Make them fun with interesting little stories, but make sure to differentiate them from actual quests.
Most of all reward grouping by removing the need to be on the same stage of whatever it is you are doing and give out a noticable bonus for playing with other people. It doesn't have to make soloing non-viable, but grouping should be encouraged, because it helps develope community.
There is room for improvement and I fully understand the original posters feelings.
LOL .. old days are WORSE. What is in EQ ... mob grinding .. i prefer quest grinding to that any day any time.
I used to enjoy lvling a lot; each lvl offered you more items/spells. you became stronger, closer to achieving a goal. However after the 4-5th game it sort of gets dull.. so what u get shiney sword...you did that in the last .. great i can burn my enemies faster...now ...did that in some other game.. wow great i can take more dmg ...did'nt i just do this in some similar game.
I've recently started playing Age Of Conan... after lvling to 30 i just cant go on, sure theirs other factors that stopped me playing but one of them really is just how boring it is lvling.
LOL .. old days are WORSE. What is in EQ ... mob grinding .. i prefer quest grinding to that any day any time.
So your one of those people that want everything now without effort? EQ1 made you earn everythign you got, WoW just hands it to you without effort.
I am sick of doing a million poinless quest that everyone before me and after me will do.
Sooner or Later
I agree. Something like the old DAoC before ToA, a few quests every so often, but mostly the freedom to let the Players decide when and where they are going to hunt. Quests ingame that don't alienate most of the Players from grouping....create quests that encourage Players to group like the old DAoC did.....go out into the Salibury Plains and kill a crap load of bandits under a big tree by the river..... Simple and effective....Players can socialize while grouped because they are together doing the same thing at the same time for awhile and grind XP without even noticing it sometimes....the Bandit problem is solved for Albion for the time being....it's a win-win. EQ had spawn areas like this, afaik so did UO and AO, but you hardly ever see this type of "Mob Camp in Environment" design from the Devs nowadays.
There are too many quests in new MMOs and no reason to group together because anyone can LVL up without going out and camping a Mob Spawn, just do the quests and get to "endgame".
But what about the "middlegame"? Right now most MMO's "middlegame" stinks.
LOL .. old days are WORSE. What is in EQ ... mob grinding .. i prefer quest grinding to that any day any time.
So your one of those people that want everything now without effort?
You have clearly never seen him post before have you?
Anyway, I'm totally with you OP. I HATE quest grinding. It's more boring than just grinding mobs, but you can't even socialize while you do it.
Give me good old fashion group grinding over the mindless quest grinding ANY day. Any day.
Tried: LotR, CoH, AoC, WAR, Jumpgate Classic
Played: SWG, Guild Wars, WoW
Playing: Eve Online, Counter-strike
Loved: Star Wars Galaxies
Waiting for: Earthrise, Guild Wars 2, anything sandbox.
I often find it easier and more comfortable to just grind monsters and listen to musik or watch tv at the same time. Or chat if I happen to be in a party. So yes the whole questing thing bores the shit out of me with the constant running around.
LOL .. old days are WORSE. What is in EQ ... mob grinding .. i prefer quest grinding to that any day any time.
So your one of those people that want everything now without effort?
You have clearly never seen him post before have you?
Anyway, I'm totally with you OP. I HATE quest grinding. It's more boring than just grinding mobs, but you can't even socialize while you do it.
Give me good old fashion group grinding over the mindless quest grinding ANY day. Any day.
Yep, that's right.
Hey, I can remember bitching about mob grinding myself. I seem to recall comparing it to a slaughter house. But at least it could be social if you chose. And at least you had the freedom to just head off...oh, that-a-way...if you felt like it without feeling like you were going to fall behind on your tasks.
Ok, here's a little story from my early days in EQ that might shed some light on the difference as I see it.
Once upon a time I headed out into West Karana with a Barbarian Shaman. I did this for no particular reason other than to see what there was to see out there. So I was looking around, killing a few things as I went and then I saw a necro nearby. That was the first time I had seen a necromancer so I stopped to watch him for a bit. Then, out of curiousity I tried to cast a buff on his pet (I wasn't sure if I could).
Well that worked, so just for the heck of it I buffed his pet with everything I had. He thanked me and we got to talking and then one of us suggested that we could group for a while. So we did.
Pretty soon we ran across another guy and brought him into the group. So now there were three of us and we were doing pretty good. We each could have been soloing (especially the necro) but working together the experience was rolling in much faster. So for a week or two our little group in West Karana became a regular thing. We kept meeting out there to group and had a great time together.
And you know we had some real adventures in our time together because there was some high level stuff out there that we didn't know about untill we were running for our lives from it. We hunted together, explored together, and yes we even died together a time or two. When you get right down to it we were mostly just grinding mobs but at least we were doing it with other people which is much more fun.
Now, if EQ had been a quest grinding game you know what would have happened when that necro and my paths crossed that day? We would have run right past each other without even pausing because we each would have been hurrying along to complete some stupid "quest".
Look, I know that the old style mob grinding wasn't perfect but at least you could decide where you wanted to go, you didn't feel so rushed, and it made grouping much more likely and practical. Maybe we don't need to go back to that just exactly as it was but this quest grinding crap is just F-ing horrible.
Is it silly to suggest that as soon as the leisure activity that you are paying for the priveledge of playing becomes a grind you should stop paying for it and go spend your free time doing something you find fun?
- RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right?
- FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
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Yep, that's right.
Hey, I can remember bitching about mob grinding myself. I seem to recall comparing it to a slaughter house. But at least it could be social if you chose. And at least you had the freedom to just head off...oh, that-a-way...if you felt like it without feeling like you were going to fall behind on your tasks.
Ok, here's a little story from my early days in EQ that might shed some light on the difference as I see it.
Once upon a time I headed out into West Karana with a Barbarian Shaman. I did this for no particular reason other than to see what there was to see out there. So I was looking around, killing a few things as I went and then I saw a necro nearby. That was the first time I had seen a necromancer so I stopped to watch him for a bit. Then, out of curiousity I tried to cast a buff on his pet (I wasn't sure if I could).
Well that worked, so just for the heck of it I buffed his pet with everything I had. He thanked me and we got to talking and then one of us suggested that we could group for a while. So we did.
Pretty soon we ran across another guy and brought him into the group. So now there were three of us and we were doing pretty good. We each could have been soloing (especially the necro) but working together the experience was rolling in much faster. So for a week or two our little group in West Karana became a regular thing. We kept meeting out there to group and had a great time together.
And you know we had some real adventures in our time together because there was some high level stuff out there that we didn't know about untill we were running for our lives from it. We hunted together, explored together, and yes we even died together a time or two. When you get right down to it we were mostly just grinding mobs but at least we were doing it with other people which is much more fun.
Now, if EQ had been a quest grinding game you know what would have happened when that necro and my paths crossed that day? We would have run right past each other without even pausing because we each would have been hurrying along to complete some stupid "quest".
Look, I know that the old style mob grinding wasn't perfect but at least you could decide where you wanted to go, you didn't feel so rushed, and it made grouping much more likely and practical. Maybe we don't need to go back to that just exactly as it was but this quest grinding crap is just F-ing horrible.
Nearly the same thing happened numerous time for me in EQII, back on Russian server. Ironically, as it is a solo-oriented game... Maybe player didn't realise it, until later.
I hate WoW because it made my plush hamster kill himself, created twin clones of Hitler, punched Superboy Prime in reality, stared my dog down, spoiled my grandmother, assimilated me into the Borg, then made me into a real boy, just to make me a woman again.
I strongly agree with the OP and others that have expressed similar opinions in this thread. Much of what I would like to say has already been said, but I'll add some things.. The only 2 MMOs I feel I've played enough of to share my thoughts on are WoW and L2, so I'll use them in example. I know there are other games out there that share enough similarities with these 2 in this given area that you can hopefully relate. These are 2 very different types of games. I'll outline the time periods in which I played to give you a better idea of what I've experienced. I played WoW from beta to just before TBC, then picked it back up when WOTLK came out, then quit again at 74. I played L2 from TWOB until just before C2 and then picked it back up for a few months in C2 before quitting again.
To focus on what this thread pertains to, L2 basically took a lot longer to level in than WoW. Their primary methods of leveling were also very different. That being said though, I had MUCH more fun progressing through the levels in L2 than WoW. In WoW you play by yourself until endgame (60, 70, 80 now). Sure you have the choice to group up and do X instance along the way, but it comes down to something simple that someone else touched on. Grouping in WoW prior to endgame is disadvantageous to leveling. First of all it can take a long time to find/form a group in a game like WoW (the reason for this being what I just mentioned, the fact that that it is disadvantageous to your leveling and progression so not many people will be looking to group up). The time that will now be saved by your having better stats while killing does not come remotely close to the time you could have saved by just continuing your way solo, using the greens you find or buy off others, which is completely viable. I also share the disdain of looking at your quest log to find that you have 10+ erroneous 'Fed-Ex' "quests" to complete just to level yourself. People will respond to that with, "No one is forcing you to do those quests, you can go do whatever you want." That's all well and good, but personally I'll probably end up doing most of them anyway because in the end I like strengthening my character and progressing as quickly and efficiently as possible, and completing said quests provides that.
To me, the leveling period in a game like L2 was so much more involved, and actually carried some intensity and risk, while also being able to socialize and meet people along the way to see who you want to be playing alongside in the later to endgame. I don't want to come off as a hardcore WoW basher because I admittedly played it pretty hardcore for quite some time. I actually enjoyed the game for a while. Neither game was perfect by any stretch, but I feel L2 created a much more enjoyable grinding experience, with very limited questing.
Problem with GW (and most other modern MMOs, at that matter) is that there is NO socializing outside of PVP/raids. Which is just sad. Casual games don't like forced grouping, but it's one thing, that helps forge strong relationships in MMOs.
And seriously, when I can solo a mob 5 levels higher - that just screams "don't wet your feet, dearie".
i was in a rather social guild for a while called LaZy. but ill agree, it does lack in that department. but forced grouping causes stress (example ffxi) on the casual gamer. i recall several times forming groups or waiting in one being formed only to find out that since it took 30 minutes, i only had an hour left so no one wanted to keep me in said group. personally i think to solve that issue being rewarded for grouping, but not punished for soloing should be enstated.
Call me weird, but "soloing" in MMO is something, I detest. If I want to play a singleplayer plame, I'll play a singleplayer game!
im so sick of thise whole "you have to be in a group ALL THE FUCKING TIME for it to be a MMO"... no i dont
its not like i run around, kill some stuff, oh look theres another guy running around killing stuff "hello guy", oh look i got a whisper from my freind "hello freind", oh look one more guy, he's the enemy "your the enemy guy, ill kill you", oh look the general channel is flarring up with some people discussing some stuff "hello people", but then i realise i wasnt it a group so i guess its a singleplayer game -_-
tool
LOL .. old days are WORSE. What is in EQ ... mob grinding .. i prefer quest grinding to that any day any time.
So your one of those people that want everything now without effort? EQ1 made you earn everythign you got, WoW just hands it to you without effort.
I am sick of doing a million poinless quest that everyone before me and after me will do.
A lot of people feel the same way about grinding mobs in everquest, but that doesn't make your opinion wrong as you are trying to make someone else out to be.
Also, everquest just required the player to repeat the same task more times than the next game. Repeating the same task over and over doesn't somehow make anything more earned than the next game, it just requires more time. You are pointing at a timesink and trying to draw some sort of superior meaning out of it. Grind and timesink both got their birth as mmo terms from eq leveling. Some people feel there is more of an accomplishment by spending more time repeating the same task over and over, while others find it boring and meaningless. That can be said about mob grinding or quest grinding and would be a true statement both ways.
Good points. Quests in World of Warcraft are like little sublevels, making the stratification of the player base even worse than it is in straight level-grinders like EverQuest. In EverQuest, we killed the same monsters for weeks, but that meant that at least we were surrounded by the same people for weeks. We got to know them and grouped with them. In World of Warcraft, we still couldn't practically group with people much outside of our level, and we certainly wouldn't group with people who weren't able to do our quests.
I'd like to see a game that gives players things to do, but that produces enough stability in the game experience. EVE Online does a pretty good job of that; players form corporations and they have things to do in the game world. The corporation as a whole 'levels up' as it grows and becomes more powerful. The pilots themselves continue to advance, but pilots can interact with other pilots over a range of activities. As a pilot gains skills, that range grows.
Mob, Quest, Gear grinding are all equally stupid. To say one is better than another just buys into the crap that mmo's keep shoving down our throats.
Is it silly to suggest that as soon as the leisure activity that you are paying for the priveledge of playing becomes a grind you should stop paying for it and go spend your free time doing something you find fun?
Why do you think I'm here ranting on this site? This is more fun AND more social than playing the games I mentioned.
It's a sad commentary on those games when you can get more human to human interaction on a site talking about the game than you can get when actually playing the game.
You know what, I agree with you. I don't want to group ALL THE TIME either. But quest grinding makes it so impractical to group that grouping almost never happens.
LOL .. old days are WORSE. What is in EQ ... mob grinding .. i prefer quest grinding to that any day any time.
So your one of those people that want everything now without effort? EQ1 made you earn everythign you got, WoW just hands it to you without effort.
I am sick of doing a million poinless quest that everyone before me and after me will do.
A lot of people feel the same way about grinding mobs in everquest, but that doesn't make your opinion wrong as you are trying to make someone else out to be.
Also, everquest just required the player to repeat the same task more times than the next game. Repeating the same task over and over doesn't somehow make anything more earned than the next game, it just requires more time. You are pointing at a timesink and trying to draw some sort of superior meaning out of it. Grind and timesink both got their birth as mmo terms from eq leveling. Some people feel there is more of an accomplishment by spending more time repeating the same task over and over, while others find it boring and meaningless. That can be said about mob grinding or quest grinding and would be a true statement both ways.
Sorry to bust your bubble but every MMO is a grind and a timesink. That is the point of MMOs, to get the player to play for a long period of time so they can make more money from the player.
And EQ1 got me to play for over 5 years, were as WoW got me to play for just over a year. Which game made more money off of me and why? Answer EQ1 for several reasons.
1. Risk vs Reward - EQ had a great model, the more of a risk it was, the better the rewards.
2. Grouping - I loved grouping, it was fun, I met new people, people I would never have met in the "next" gen MMOs
3. Death - Death was feared, you were scared to die, you would pull of some crazy shit just so you could live. It was great and it made you a better player.
4. Community - The community was great, they helped each other just to help each other. I helped so many random people because I could summon corpses on my necromancer, I would go out of my way to help people I never met because EQ was not a forgiving game, so you relied on people to help.
5. Quest - Quested forced you to figure them out on your own or ask others. Quest were long, draw out and rewarding. Not Exp rewarding but items.
Just a few quick reason why EQ made more money off of me then WoW.
Group exp grinds allowed us to socialize and get to know people though out the world. It also made better players. Death and the group exp grinds made better players then the quest grinding and meanless death. The Avg gamer that started with WoW vs the avg old school gamer, I would say the old school gamer would win a battle 8 of 10 times.
Sooner or Later
As the saying goes "I no longer have an idea how to relate to you on a human level". I socialize with who I want and when I want. As such it does not matter what I am doing. I could be grinding mobs doing quests or just sitting in a city going 'la la la la'. I do not have to be forced to socialize through the means of stupid repetetive mechanics. I don't understand people who have to be locked in a room with a person to actually try to socialize with them. If you want to socialize with strangers then socialize with strangers. You do not need the game to hand-hold you while you do it.
BTW I really do not see how being able to tolerate excessive death penalties and XP grinds makes you a 'better player'.
LOL .. old days are WORSE. What is in EQ ... mob grinding .. i prefer quest grinding to that any day any time.
So your one of those people that want everything now without effort? EQ1 made you earn everythign you got, WoW just hands it to you without effort.
I am sick of doing a million poinless quest that everyone before me and after me will do.
A lot of people feel the same way about grinding mobs in everquest, but that doesn't make your opinion wrong as you are trying to make someone else out to be.
Also, everquest just required the player to repeat the same task more times than the next game. Repeating the same task over and over doesn't somehow make anything more earned than the next game, it just requires more time. You are pointing at a timesink and trying to draw some sort of superior meaning out of it. Grind and timesink both got their birth as mmo terms from eq leveling. Some people feel there is more of an accomplishment by spending more time repeating the same task over and over, while others find it boring and meaningless. That can be said about mob grinding or quest grinding and would be a true statement both ways.
Sorry to bust your bubble but every MMO is a grind and a timesink. That is the point of MMOs, to get the player to play for a long period of time so they can make more money from the player.
And EQ1 got me to play for over 5 years, were as WoW got me to play for just over a year. Which game made more money off of me and why? Answer EQ1 for several reasons.
1. Risk vs Reward - EQ had a great model, the more of a risk it was, the better the rewards.
2. Grouping - I loved grouping, it was fun, I met new people, people I would never have met in the "next" gen MMOs
3. Death - Death was feared, you were scared to die, you would pull of some crazy shit just so you could live. It was great and it made you a better player.
4. Community - The community was great, they helped each other just to help each other. I helped so many random people because I could summon corpses on my necromancer, I would go out of my way to help people I never met because EQ was not a forgiving game, so you relied on people to help.
5. Quest - Quested forced you to figure them out on your own or ask others. Quest were long, draw out and rewarding. Not Exp rewarding but items.
Just a few quick reason why EQ made more money off of me then WoW.
Group exp grinds allowed us to socialize and get to know people though out the world. It also made better players. Death and the group exp grinds made better players then the quest grinding and meanless death. The Avg gamer that started with WoW vs the avg old school gamer, I would say the old school gamer would win a battle 8 of 10 times.
Agree with your observations, although I will stress, group play in EQ1 makes group play especially Pug play the 1 thing about quest and group quest oriented games I really really hate. I want to PK most of the PuGs I tried since EQ1. Its absolutely horrid. I want to morph them into lvl 60 players, throw them into ssra and watch them learn consequences for playing like idiots.... anyway, the skill of the average gamer in mainstream mmo's today has seriously turned me on to korean grinders, that allow for self grinding zen. The biggest threat to any mmo enjoyment for me at this stage are the other players. Except for the game I raid in, where I only log in to raid, with the same people every week.... but I digress.
As the saying goes "I no longer have an idea how to relate to you on a human level". I socialize with who I want and when I want. As such it does not matter what I am doing. I could be grinding mobs doing quests or just sitting in a city going 'la la la la'. I do not have to be forced to socialize through the means of stupid repetetive mechanics. I don't understand people who have to be locked in a room with a person to actually try to socialize with them. If you want to socialize with strangers then socialize with strangers. You do not need the game to hand-hold you while you do it.
BTW I really do not see how being able to tolerate excessive death penalties and XP grinds makes you a 'better player'.
I never said grouping was the only way to socialize so way to read my post.
Second execssive death penalties made players better by not allow them to screw up without knowing they would lose something important. XP group grinds made better players because as a group you had to work together to get stuff done, one moron would ruin a group and it weeded out bad players. I know personally that I keep a list of players that I would not group with again during my 5+ years of EQ1.
Today's MMOs do not allow you to get to know people, sure you can talk to them but do they talk back? Do they care that you are even talking to them? Most of the players that I came across in WoW, I did not want to talk to. Ever seen barren chat? That is something we never had to worry about in EQ.
Grouping allows players to meet others that they would not have met in the first place. I used to love to join PuGs in EQ1 because it was always fun. I never did PuGs in WoW after my first one, I only grouped and socilized with people in my Guild because the rest of the people were morons.
WoW's community is horriable compared to EQ1's community. Most players in EQ1 would help you if you asked and would expect nothing in return. In WoW, you were luck to find someone to help you that would not get anything in return. That is the major difference in the "old school" MMos and the new ones.
The new MMOs have made players lazy, they do not think while playing. EQ1 forced you to choose your spells and skills you wanted to use for that zone or event or raid, you did not have all of your spells/skills open to you all the time. You could have 8 skill or spell slots which forced players to think about what they wanted to do and then put up the right skills and spells to do that. Later on with an AA you could have 9 spell/skill slots. Look at WoW or any of the other new games, you have skill bars as far as the eye can see.
Sooner or Later