Oh what's that? I hear some unconsciously ask... Just the fact that 90% of MMO's that are popular and remembered have an end game that can't be played entirely solo, or otherwise rely on finding or playing with friends?
Please shut the fuck up with your lack of knowledge on core MMO game design. The reason WoW is dying, is because they removed the NEED to find friends. Thus player retention went down.
Some random people to play with != friends. I mean, maybe that is already enough for your definition of a friend, but mine differs. A lot.
All the games you listed require(d) you to know people who - just as you - played the games for dozens of hours, advance in the game, get better at it and go through the progression system - with or without much grind, but usually with.
Those people were not your friends, usually, but some other random weirdos from the net.
These games, just as I said, were never about playing together with your actual friends whenever you felt like it. Sure, maybe for some people there were actual friends who got just as hooked as them and so they could do it - but the majority? Probably not.
In ESO you can just drop in and go pretty much everywhere you like from the get-go and do just fine (which is exactly what I did after doing the starter area of my char and joined a friend of mine at some "end"-game event) - it breaks every sense of achievement and progress. And yes, in an MMO that achievement is having spent the time. What else would it be? Those games are all easy as fuck, the only "difficulty" is actually spending the time and maybe not pulling all mobs at once.
ESO is a co-op game masquerading as an MMO.
If nowadays that really is what people want, fine, but don't claim it is anything it just isn't.
