I can attest to some of that since my first Far East character, Cid, arrived in 2005 as well. I remember Nighthelm being the realm everyone was out to get (at least in Soliferum) and arguments broke out between people who supported or were members of ~V~ and their detractors constantly. I remember a few duels being fought over the issue.
My only real memory of Nighthelm was a short stay in their dungeons and associating them we some very shady people. Wasn't there some bit about their ruler potentially being host to a demonic possession or something of that nature or am I mixing that up with something else?
Nighthelm was the power house for a very long time. ~V~ was slightly associated with Nighthelm, but a major RP component from ~V~ was the nature of demons and hunting for those from a shadier guild (which I can't recall the name of, however its proponents were wide spread over the island and it focused on creating wars and chaos to fuel . . .well something to do). It turned out that some of the more influential members from Soliferum were part of the Guild (as were secretly Nighthelm) so Nighthelm and ~V~ were out to destroy Soliferum, and the other way around as well.
It created a lot of very good wars - the death of Paladin King Gul'Dan brought about huge changes in Nighthelm and eventually led to its decline as the next few rulers fought with the Dukes, ~V~, and the Order of the Elders all which had strong influences in Nighthelm. However it was all IC - as many of the infuential players in Nighthelm were friends (as were those in Soliferum). We effectively destroyed Nighthelm ourselves with IC rivalries. The united Soliferum didn't help, and their ability to negotiate quite well with other realms. The fact that Nighthelm always viewed Soliferum as a snake. .
Good times.
FEI probably is the island I had the most fun on playing in Nighthelm; the politics, intrigue, and sheer hate between neighbouring Realms always kept us at the brink of war and kept people active. Sadly I haven't felt the same about playing on FEI since.
