It also took out the Wilderness which was the majority of the player base.
It did. You can say the wildy still has warbands and stuff, but it's not nearly the same as always having people and clans roaming in the wilderness. I'm not sure about the W18 activity Icey's talking about though, are there clans pking in it now? I'm skeptical, because if there was I think more of us (clans) would already be getting involved.
Don't forget...I forgot when exactly, but after EoC was released, the wilderness toggle also came out (
http://runescape.wikia.com/wiki/Single-Way_Wilderness). This was the nail in the coffin for the clan world, a lot people quit again. To me, this plus EoC was sort of like a wildy removal part 2. I remember us talking to Mod Ash in and RS forum thread and they wouldn't budge/listen. People felt most of them were too new to comprehend what the clan world was like and wanted. They were coming out with videos whilst EoC was in beta and being worked on, and people watched in surprise ("Wait, what's happening to my game?"), which was sort of putting salt in the wound. EoC changed the game for a lot of people in a very bad way. They felt ripped off. It was buggy at first, people simply didn't like it and couldn't accept it. Too big of a change and didn't feel like RS as we know it.
Then the idea of an OSRS was come up with, and hence the lot of people that still had time to play came back...but easily animosity of the communities grew against each other. It got kind of bad when we first started another 07 unit. People thought it was okay to throw shots at RS3 players like "Why do you play that game?" Flames and arguments started and so on, you could probably imagine. I think OSRS players in general sort of see RS3 players as traitors...sort of the 'dark side' and are just passionate and defensive about their choice.