Interesting old (but relevant) EQ web paper

[Kayd]

I was in a large group of people in EQ that started the day the first retail servers opened, the bulk of whom were starting to hit level 50 around 10 a year. Overcrowding was one reason. I spent more than a week on one level alone hunting centars in the Karans because with over 130 people in the zone it was so hard to find mobs. Kunark changed that, and overcrowding vanished nearly overnight.

I have to say the author of the article may have a point. The word "level grind" did not become real common in the EQ vocabulary until Kunark. The level rate may have crossed a line that some people just couldn't handle.