> ...you needed to sink in a lot of time to get the few quality time you wrote about.

Sounds like you've got a skill issue. That doesn't match my experience, like, at all.

But a really, really easy shortcut was to find servers that indicated that they were furry-friendly. This all but guaranteed that

1) The folks on there would be fairly even-keeled and reasonable, and folks who weren't would be rapidly banned forever.

2) The folks on there would generally be good at the game. [0]

3) If you're lucky -and the game is one that permits custom "sprays" (as HL1 and Source engine did)- you might get to see some high-quality-but-thumbnail-sized furry porn.

[0] Seriously, at least back when both server browsers and user-hosted game servers were commonplace, I found a 1:1 correlation between "Are they a furry?" and "Are they particularly good at the game?". It was wild.