So what's stopping you from forming a group with friends and questing/exploring together? Seems to me you want the game to do it for you so you don't have to force yourself to be social. I group with friends all the time to do "solo stuff". Not because it's hard, I do it to hang out with them. My wife enjoys that too so she tags along.

The social aspect is what you make it out to be. Having the game force you into it is not the proper way to go. Granted this is a MMO so party play is inevitable, like story dungeons, but there is nothing stopping you from taking the initiative to make a party of your own to do everything else.