CF right now is a high supply/low demand business. In most businesses, that results in lowered prices to try to increase demand and find the sweet spot where you maximize profits.
CF started out as high demand and high supply. Its high demand was initially due in large part to forces beyond it's control (not a lot of other games available for free. The non-text based games at the time had limited graphics and even more limited online capabilities. No mobile game segment to compete against, etc.) Those exterior forces are no longer acting on CFs behalf.
Possible responses? It can't lower it's price (it's already free). It can't lower it's supply/quality, or it'll lose what customers it has.
To use it's product adequately, you basically have to go through 6 months of training and that's assuming you are familiar with similar products (other muds). New customers have reported seeing that as a prohibitively high time cost to get started (I'm excluding the ones that just didn't like PK as they were never going to stick around no matter when they stopped by and checked out CF).
So we wind up with a great product that has a dwindling customerbase. How do we fix it?
1) Lower the time cost to bring a newbie up to adequate/midbie status.
2) Make alterations to take into account an aging playerbase with different external priorities so as to keep CF functioning as long as possible (read: cut down the timesinks) You are already seeing this somewhat in the experience bonuses based on current playercount.
3) Accept that CF has an expiration date
4) Sell it to Blizzard, and watch as bored people dressed in Panda suits rampage through Hell.
5) ?
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/21/2014 06:44AM by Falstaff.