That, and nobody had documented how everything worked yet. And, there wasn’t a good way to communicate outside the game. And there was no group finder, etc. so the only way to work together was to chat.

In-game chat was essential to playing the game. It was essential to understanding the game. And it was somewhat self-policing, because if you got a bad reputation on your realm from chat, it would be harder to find groups.

These days most chat happens outside the game. Nobody chats in-game to understand the game. Nobody needs the community features of the game to do quests, group content, even raids. Realms are meaningless because most content is cross-realm, so you can’t get a bad reputation if you’re an asshole because you never see the same people again.

I don’t think there’s a way to go back to 2004. But, it still seems like Blizzard shot themselves in the foot multiple times when it comes to community features.