[kbutler]

But it will be very, very hard to keep that experience. Where you used to have to turn to other players for help, building those social relationships as they struggled through the same challenges, now the web environment surrounding the game has evolved with very complete documentation an alt-tab away, and all the other players have that as well.

[hugja]

Oh most definitely! It's certainly not for everyone. I mean even back then, if I'm remembering correctly. There was a site called Thottbot for exactly that. Which I occasionally turned to when the quest was lacking in information. Even before Blizzard officially added a quest helper to the game there was a third party add-on. However, with sites like Thottbot you still had to investigate to figure out what you had to do and I think this still gives you sense of accomplishment over just being told what and where all the time.

Edit: words

[masklinn]

That was already the case back when WoW was first released. Everquest (1) got pretty extensively documented during its lifetime (and mapped, there were no in-game maps until the 4th expansion).