I think this highlights one of the biggest pitfalls of trying to recreate a "classic" MMO experience: not everything that was present in those early games was actually good design. A 20-minute run just to join a group isn't challenge, it isn't immersion, and it isn't meaningful. It's just busywork. And busywork doesn't build community, it just burns patience.
The issue with something like a 20-minute run to a group isn't simply that it "takes time." The real problem is that the activity doesn't add anything new to your experience. You're not being challenged, you're not meaningfully engaging with the world, and you're not building toward a larger sense of accomplishment. You're basically just waiting. That's where older mechanics, like hell levels or travel times, often cross the line from being "immersive" to simply being tedious.
And you're right: a lot of what gets romanticized about EverQuest wasn't necessarily the mechanics themselves, but the social fabric that emerged in spite of them. People remember the friendships, the rivalries, etc., but that doesn't mean every design quirk that surrounded those memories was inherently good. There's a difference between systems that encourage organic interdependence (group incentives, class synergies, shared challenges) and systems that just slow you down.
What makes or breaks a game like Monsters & Memories isn't whether it faithfully recreates every piece of friction from 1999. It's whether it can strike a balance: building in enough risk, danger, and interdependence that grouping feels natural and rewarding, while stripping away the "artificial difficulty" that comes from time sinks disguised as gameplay. So far, I'm not convinced they're striking that balance. They appear to almost just be attempting a "one for one" remake of EQ.
And ultimately, if someone logs off at the mere thought of making the run to content, that's not a sign of healthy friction. That's a sign that the design is leaning too far into nostalgia-for-nostalgia's-sake, rather than actually supporting the social, communal experience people claim to miss from the old days.
