When did it start, and why? This question is really focused towards the people that have been here for years.

When muting started to get regulated is when most of the player base left, imo. While there were a great deal of people who played only to increase their wealth, it brought much attention and popularity to the game.
I saw the player base go from 300-400 to <50, after this decline happened, HC was added which lowered the player base even more.

Will there ever be an increase in the player base again?

Probably not. It would require changes that will never be made.

Only time will tell.

Guessing it will take alot of minor & major tweaks/updates to increase it... but again... time & effort to do this could be a problem.

Paul lost this game when he removed the old muting system and when he also removed Arena.
He dont want to communicate with anyone about ideas any longer because all the negative feedback he've gotten in the past.

The ppl who was still playing he lost from giving everyone the chance of getin a good deal on the Vault.
But he realized that he gave away too much and he took that away from everyone and he lost 75% of hc players on doin this.

He's too stubborn and dont give a flying fuck.

For us who still play thou we are still waiting for that "big update is yet to come" to actually come..

Pauls income was from this game before, today its all from poker and ppl making donations to get higher stars.
Theres no reason for him to update this game, all he does is clicking that reset button once a year for sc pretty much.

This game was pretty much made to make fg disappear from the forums.

About your question "will there ever be inc...."

No it wont. It will still be the same as today.
It will always run slow when PoE has its resets because ppl play that game to be able to afford playing this game pretty much.

Unless Paul change his mind ofc.

This post was edited by RistVaLL on Sep 10 2014 01:45am

the development of this game is slower than development of D3
so to answer your question it`ll take 10 years to v2.0 (if that ever happend)
till than there will be only few ppl playing this game and even less with every month without update

Well put, 10/10

I don't think population increase will ever happen. Paul is far too stubborn to make the changes that slashers want because what slashers want is different from what he wants. I think he is affraid to make those kinds of compromises. Its sad really, this game has/had lots of potential, but I think that time is running to an end quick.

This post was edited by iToons on Sep 10 2014 04:34am

10/10

true
most the updates seen for this game have been nerfs
njag should really listen to the ls community, it's not that big of a community would'nt be that hard to change it to something everyone would enjoy a little more

I agree 100% with Niclas but would like to ad this, How many 8 year old games ever have a resurgence in player base? The game has been around a long time despite its simplicity, well done community.