It's so bizarre how these kinds of posts lamenting the state of the game pop up largely just before a major update. I think there's a legitimate mourning that has happened for a lot of people over the years as there have been some pretty major shifts in the design philosophy for the game, but a lot of the negativity just seems to be petty passive-aggressive attempts to bully the developers into changing their minds about some design choice or other.
As far as the player count falling off, it has a lot more to do with anticipation of the upcoming update, rather than loss of interest. Who wants to start a fresh game right now if they're going to have to wipe in a few weeks or so? Not that the update will be out that soon, but that's kind of where we've been for the past three months. I think once we get 1.0, player counts are going to look a lot different. People are going to come back to the game much more consistently.
