I've been watching this for years: [mudstats.com]

If you don't want to look, I'll summarize. CF is at an -all time low- for average connected, with an average connected of 10. It's not seasonal. Every season the number of people playing is lower than the previous season. The trend is 100% downward annually.

I'm not sure why maximum and minimum connected numbers aren't populating on MudStats any longer. They haven't for a while. Max connected was at 25 before, I think, numbers got too low to calculate. That "max connected" number is the highest count online in the last 30 days. That number includes immortals, characters in the academy, and does not account for a +5 person surge as people log on and other people log out a few seconds or minutes later. While I'm not around to really know, I'd bet a couple C-notes there isn't "30 people daily" as Douchelim (sorry, J) says. A peak of 15 sounds much more believable to me.

So, let's break that down. The 18ish off-peak hours of the day have no one at all, and if interaction is your thing are unplayable. You are relegated to needing to arrive during peak times. Once peak times come there are fifteen people on the MUD. Let's graciously assume none of them are immortal and thus are all available for interactions ranging from grouping, cabal raids, exploration, player killing and role-play. Let's say that people need to be within 10 levels to group or PK with each other. That makes roughly five groups. (1-10, 11-20 etc.) That means that at peak times you have an average of about three people you can interact with. With only three in-range people you cannot both player kill and have a full group, meaning the MUD is not playable to its full potential. Of course, it doesn't disburse evenly like that. Most of it is clumped up at the hero range which means, despite what we used to say, the game now starts at hero. That means minimum of 40 unfun hours of grinding, with few potential group mates or PK opponents, to get to where the game starts. Fuuuuuuuck that.

There is nothing fun about 15 players at peak times and 1-4 players at off peak times. Even if you -doubled- those numbers and had 30 on peak and 8 off peak I'd say the MUD is no longer viable as a "multi user" dungeon.

It's trending downwards, but does have to hit a point at which everyone left doesn't care they are alone and then the fall of numbers will stabilize. As far as ever seeing a vibrant CF again? Can't happen. We're past the tipping point. From here there is no return.