I think we can almost all agree and I would say your points are all very valid. What we are kind of doing is looking at possible ways to get the playerbase back up. I would love to see +20 people back on at all times. Not only that, I would love to have some freaking newbies on that I have a chance to kill instead of getting smacked down by Glik or Bakr or Undar or half a dozen others.
What we can't do is say that if we just had 20 more players on at all times things would be so much better that more people would play. It is entirely possible you are right. I might even say probable. But how do we get from here to there? How do we get from 8 late at night and 23 peak to 28 late night and 43 peak. Once we are there things might indeed spiral up.
Some of the things I am seeing are
1. easier learning curve for newbies
changing the anti-gank code
links to dioxide, officials, and maybe even that old ass angelfire site that has some maps
(new one I just thought of) making it super easy to get into all cabals. Honestly where did
all learn our stuff? Getting helped by cabal mates and group mates? Either that or from
an OOC source, right?
putting more (but not all items) on the item search pages
2. retaining veterans
they did us a solid on edge points.
better interaction of officials? Although I DO see a lot of posts by Jormyr and Umiron
What else would keep us interested besides slaughtering newbs wholesale?
We are all looking to solve the same problems. And even though some of you say the Imms have not done you right
I am hard pressed to believe they don't want the things we want. More players and more blood.