I’m going to agree with the few others that say that Era is more social.
Is that a “more social players are attracted to Era” thing? Probably.
Is that a “The game design leads you to that” thing? I’d say yes.
Before Discord at the very start, we had server forums where people talked all the time. They acted much like Discord does now. Even the trash-talking and naming got to happen back then. It was never all in the game. I can see that the OP mentioned the forums but I’ll reiterate that.
One other thing I’m going to age the hell out of myself but I don’t care. In my teens, in 1993 I was using IRC (Internet Relay Chat) to talk with people that were nowhere near me. I was posting in Usenet Newsgroups to talk to people about my interests who lived all over the world. I was using local BBS dial-up services to socialize with people in my area and met my lifetime partner through one in 1996.
Since online anything became a thing people have been using it to socialize, even before the monetization. Facebook and other platforms were a great way to get the masses into it. MMOs were a great way for gamers to get into it. These things did not create online socialization because it was already there, and I’d say in a way even more of an integral part at the beginning. It’s astounding to me that there are actually people out there who don’t realize this all as history.