I'd also like to mention something about the halcyon Golden Age of team play that people are casting the Olden Days (more or less, the time up through 2006) as.
It was, in many, many cases, a much less friendly atmosphere.
Everyone was expected to do everything for the realm, no exceptions.
Caught send family gold home? Banned!
Miss a few turns at the wrong time? Banned!
Not where your battlegroup was ordered to be? You're under suspicion as a spy!
Loitering in the capital? You're under suspicion as a gold-farmer!
Want to play a free spirit? Too bad.
Want to achieve ambitions of your own? You better plan on getting them by working up through the ranks, because ain't nobody gonna help you scheme and intrigue against the Ruler—unless there's already a faction in the realm that opposes him en masse. (Also, there are no guilds/secret societies to help you plot in secret.)
Have problems with something the ruler—or someone else in the realm—is doing? Think it was against the Social Contract? Well, you better hope Tom's paying attention, and feeling friendly towards you, because there there are no Titans to complain to.
Yes, I'm exaggerating, somewhat. But a lot of the things that are considered utterly wrong in BattleMaster today were commonplace back then. Tom's official guidelines on getting rid of inactive people who were using up realm resources was (IIRC) "Send them an order, and in a day, if they haven't followed it, ban them for not following orders." There have been a few high-profile multicheaters caught in the past year or so, but back then, I remember hearing about rulers ordering people in their realm to create spy accounts in other realms. (They were caught and locked, of course, but that's the ones I did hear about...)
So the moral of the story is be careful what you wish for. Team play can be fun, yes. But it can also create deep OOC animosities, like existed between (some people on) the different sides on the EC back then. And it can drive the leaders of each team to become hypercompetitive, and ridiculously demanding of those following them.
