#146 - April 25, 2007, 7:48 p.m.
Don't forget that we also bumped up the amount of players that can be on the realms near the time of the Burning Crusade's release.. By doing this, we made it less necessary to add new realms on a continuing basis. That's not to say we won't add more if we deem it necessary. Everyone always likes a fresh realm and what happens is, if we create too many, the population gets too thinned out. By expanding the amount of people able to be on a realm, we perpetuate a healthy population.
We also keep a close eye on realm populations and do what we can to encourage new players and players looking for a new realm to start on, to roll on realms that may have lower populations than others.
Many players go through phases of their gaming. They might start off very gung-ho about a game and burn themselves out on it quickly. Some take breaks either because they burnt out, they have real life commitments that take them away from their gaming hobby, and some just get bored or find elements of what was once was fun to have lost their appeal. It's a normal cycle.
We aren't hiding our numbers and there is nothing to spin here. We give numbers when we can because we realize everyone wants to know just how far this thing can go. The more people that are attracted to the MMORPG genre and gaming, the better. It's win/win for everyone.