Why were we so bad in 1999?

[Roth]

So, I played during this time period and one thing I remember even during luclin was that people almost never chain pulled. It was always camping just a few mobs generally and killing slowly one at a time, medding, and then doing it again. People would pretty much only fight at zone lines and the thought of a corpse run was a dangerous, complicated thing.

When wow released people brought in this eq mentality as well but it slowly got overtaken by speedrunning the instances where it was possible. Now eq in 2019 it's basically the wow mentality(not saying it's bad) - fastest exp/loot per hour, willing to take noticeable risk if you get rewarded for it. What in the early 2000s were we doing that made the game so much harder? Looking for honest thoughts.