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For you perhaps, but as Famm pointed out, you usually see a pretty solid PVP-based community or level 60 instance running ones.
Even in EQ1, once people started hardcore raiding, you ended up pretty isolated from the server community. The only times you ever had interaction for the most part was via greifing competition or when you showed off in Ecom tunnels. Most people either soloed for xp or exclusively grouped with guildmates.
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Not true.
1. EQ world zones and dungeons were focal points of community interaction, because everything that you did affected everyone else, whether it be taking a camp or training to zone. Forget forced grouping (although I'm sure that helped) - the fact that you were affected by other people's actions meant that you quickly got to know who was who.
2. Before MMOs became mainstream, there was a particular geek culture associated with it that didn't go "wtf, noobster lolz." As most fans of other previously-niche genres will tell you, mass commercializaton *always* weakens the bounds of closely-knit, niche communities. Original EQ players felt bound by their eccentric, unique interests, and I saw alot of that early on when people would add you to their friends list simply after talking to your once or twice in a zone, and actually honor that list by speaking to people on it every time they logged on.
Perhaps you had a different experience in EQ, I don't know. What I do know is that WoW has neither of the aforementioned qualities (WoW Beta, on the other hand, *did* have #2, and I think that had alot to do with its better community) and to claim that they made no difference with regards to the weakness of the WoW community is simply ridiculous.
