Back when I was actively playing Overwatch (this is now years ago) people were basically using the voice and text chat to be toxic shitheads to each other. At one point I decided that I didn’t need strangers telling me to kill myself in my life, so I ditched the game and generally just play single player games now.
Not sure how others have experienced it, but the community feeling of the past that the author is alluding to is gone. If it ever was there to begin with.
The links all go to the OldUnreal site, so I guess Epic has just left it up to the community to keep their legacy alive. Not necessarily a bad thing, but hopefully they send some of their Fortnite fortunes over to the maintainers.