I suspect it happens everywhere, but Australians have always tended to suffer from 'tall poppy syndrome' so perhaps it is more noticeable here, especially as the shard has such a small population. Certainly the natural attrition and the reasons why UO seems 'old' to a lot of players and the fact that EA has the suckiest promotion ever put out by a company for a product would impact on people leaving.
The thing I find funny is that people think it is UO and content/devs/updates etc etc, when in fact I suspect that the 'boredom' is more due to how long they have been playing rather than anything else. I mean imagine playing monopoly for 10 yrs, the first few games are fine but after 10,000 it would seem a bit old, doesn't mean monopoly isn't a great game nor a classic game, just anything you do over and over will get old. Fact is this game has tons and tons of content, most people, even those who class themselves as 'vets' have really only probably experienced 70% of what there is to do. A lot get stuck in one style of play and stay there, ie pure pvp or pure pvm, and forget the other stuff there is available.
You make your own challenges in this type of 'game' tho a more appropriate name would be 'world'. A game tends to have a beginning and an end and at some point a 'winner' which is not the case with this. This never ends so unless you are prepared to create challenges for yourself of course you will then only be waiting for the devs to introduce something new and unless it happens every week or so you will bag them for being slack. Point is in the last 2 yrs since ml, I think the added content re ophidians, blackrock, candle of love, inu, seekers of truth, magincia, halloweens etc etc has been quite a bit of new 'content'. Certainly in comparison to my first two-three years where it seemed there was nothing new. People just have limited patience as instead of thinking of things for themselves to challenge them they expect to be spoonfed with ideas on how to keep active, busy and to have focus.
It is why I don't just do 'one' thing, I mine, lumberjack, fish, run vendors, run events, get into designing buildings and deco, help newbies, do peerless etc etc. I don't have enough hours in the day to get through half of what I 'want' to get done, and I like anyone else, has days when I am bored and can't be bothered really doing much at all. Still, that is my boredom and how long I have played and the amount of hours I play, not the fault of UO.
You only need to look at the animosity towards the KR client. EA stuffed it completely releasing it as they did, when they did, however, players are just as bad in that they will log in once or twice, see a 'difference' and instantly log out then start bagging it. A lot will just say 'I love 2d' end of story and will never 'move' over. Me, well I kinda figured it is something dif, and even if it does suck in the long run, it won't be because I didn't take the time to learn it properly, it will be because it actually 'does' suck.
Hence why I started the KR user guide to start with, just as a 'project' to keep me focussed and make me 'learn' which had some kind of purpose. If I hadn't done that and made a point of trying to figure stuff out, how to do it, what it was capable of etc, then after my 50th crash I probably would of given it away too, however, I am pretty persistent so until such time as they stop developing it, I will persist in playing it. As it is now, I think it is great, tho of course it still has bugs and stuff that is still way better to do in 2d. But a lot of stuff now is far superior in KR. It doesn't have to be 'one or the other' as most people seem to get stuck on, I play both clients, enjoy things in both, and use whichever client is 'better' for whatever I am doing at the time. Crafting, fishing, mining, lumberjacking, rune marking, fighting, I wouldn't touch 2d now, vendors, deco, I don't do in KR.
And from experience, doing new player quests over and over, while putting the KR new player guide together, KR has bought in a lot of new players and encouraged a lot of 'return' players back to UO. The biggest problem now is that half the 'vets' out there have not bothered to even try it since it's initial release, or who haven't been able to do 'one' thing they can in 2d so instantly say KR sucks, make it so difficult for any new players who do come in via the KR doors as they have very little 'vet support'. There is no one to to assist them in how to get around so they either give up in frustration as no one can help them, or get told by 'vets' KR sucks play 2d, which is a very short sighted response and will end up killing the game as I seriously doubt if KR doesn't get up and going that 2d as it stands, will have much of a future left.
