I don't actually post on here much anymore, but I still lurk. I thought this was an interesting topic, so I decided to post.
I was playing Kings of Chaos (still around!) way back in the day (2003-04) and I was going it alone in Age 1, which worked out perfectly, because you could own more weapons than you had soldiers to operate them. Small guys could still take on the top ten. They changed that in Age 2, and I had to find a tribe/clan/group/whatever if I wanted to crack past the top 2,000, where I was comfortably sitting. Clicking links all day wasn't for me (or my dialup) so I just hung around the forums most of the time.
That was nearly eight years ago. CC was known as RA, and had about 5,000 members, maybe 50 of those being active forum-goers. Most of them were fun-loving, quirky guys as you might find on the Internet, with very little of the malice that you might find in 4chan or other bastions of filth. No, RA or CC is a pretty mellow place to be, with quite a few good people hanging out.
Tyred