Adding to that: this was back when a lot of people were getting high speed internet for the first time, which allowed them to play for much longer periods. While messaging programs already existed, the social aspect was super important and the artificial difficulty of certain enemies was an attempt to force people to socialize, before dungeon/raid finder killed a significant part of that.

“You don’t miss spamming LFG with need tank, need tank, need tank, nowadays you just press a button and wait!” - from the “you think you do, but you don’t” guy