People were begging for it, where are they now to defend this? I'm all down for challenging content. It's not new in MMOs to have fields full of dangerous enemies or camps with an X faction camping in them which is extremely difficult to go through. Either because these are "elite monsters" or whatever reason, I do recall a lot of MMOs I've played where I literally asked people to help me complete X quest because it was too dangerous to go alone (Even with an old man giving me a sword when I was level 1). What's the big deal? I just don't get it.

Also I REALLY don't know and I truly want to know why some people are so anti-social in an MMO environment, since the interaction with other people is the key element that defines the genre. If it's the player's choice to be alone, well, when he picked that option, he also decided to join an MMO where you must absolutely expect some multiplayer content. If you don't like it, go back a few stepy and check if you've made the right choice.