I only played 1 and 2, is it better to leave it like that?
I quite often feel americans show a lot of interest in new people they meet. If I tell something about myself usually they think its 'amazing' or 'wonderful', ask questions, not often steer the conversation to themselves. I think thats a quite nice cultural thing you have.
I agree this is nowadays hard to find. old school forums on specific topics (tech, games, music) tend to catch this. Gaming groups (guilds, multiplayer based games, modding communities) I have had great interactions on.
Anything that is a bit more 'specific' or focused around a hobby tends to work good for opening discussions. Its a shame a lot is focused on reddit but not all is so don't lose hope!
Sexy, but fat
I also thought the ER questlines were counter intuitive. You would easily miss next steps or have no idea where to go to (at least, I did). And as such, it felt ER was designed to be played with the wiki next to it. Previous games did not really had this issue because of the more linear approach.