Yeah, just talking to people is how I made a lot of my RO buddies. Now we just log on and shoot the s**t whenever, sometimes form parties to level each other or to hunt specific items or run quests (lol I took a couple of my friends through the Valentine's Day Quest chains and we all burned through our recipes making craptons of tarts, 'twas fun).
And let me just say that the special monster hunting events that iRO has on occasion are a great way to meet new people, since a lot of folks just trek to the dungeon and form PUGs with whatever random people happen to be there. Parties that work well together once are likely to reform again and again during the event as the members are available, and so it's highly likely you'll be able to make a couple of new friends that way.
Nilla
This is one reason why I really don't like to play many mmo's now mostly because of that issue. My hubby don't like rpg's that much so he usually playing fps and my real friends as well. Usually I play alone most of the time which can get a bit boring when there is no one to hang out with and hardly any story to keep you occupied while just grinding. So I tend to stick with traditional non mmo rpgs a bit more.
I can't speak for most MMOs, but both WoW and RO have interesting storylines that are revealed through the course of various quest chains. It's easy to just blow through them and not pay attention, but if you actually read what the NPCs tell you and think about what they're asking you to do, you can learn some surprising things about Azeroth or Rune-Midgard and the people therein.