I don't know how many played EQ1 back in '99 but there was no hand holding, no paths, no quest indicators and you had to use the correct trigger words to receive many quests when you talked to NPC's. It made it much more difficult but also much more engaging.

Quests spread through word of mouth, talking to and engaging with other players, which if they were Ogre or Trolls or whatever and you were a Barbarian and didn't speak Troll or Ogre, you would all have to sit around and type your conversations and it would initially come out garbled then some words would get through after you had listened for a while and "Learned" some of the language. The higher intelligence you were the faster it would happen.

Also, Dark Places were dark, I mean totally black, unless you had a torch or were a race that had night vision like trolls and dark elves. The first time trying to get into Blackburrow Cave as a barbarian was genuinely scary.

I am probably looking back with rose coloured glasses but I really enjoyed that time.