I think it's a combination of things:
- There are fewer players than there used to be. All you have to do to verify this is look around and see all the empty housing spots and the drop-off in posting here and on other forums.
- The people who trained up Imbuing early have mostly finished making suits for themselves and guildmates.
- People who still have suits to make but don't necessarily have tons of gold (either never had it or used it all up training Imbuing and/or making a few uber suits) are now spending their time gathering resources themselves instead of buying them from others.
- Returning players or new players saw the outrageous prices and, if they didn't quit right off the bat, figured out they could gather resources themselves to train Imbuing and make their own suits. Or they figured out that you can still play and enjoy UO even if you have what the rich players consider sub-par gear.
I think there has been a huge drop-off in players, but if you've been sticking to Luna, EM events, and other "hot spots," you probably didn't notice it. I think this drop-off has been caused by a number of things:
- The real life economy has made online gaming subscription fees a luxury many can no longer justify.
- The limitations/restrictions placed on trial accounts over a year ago may have finally made scripting too difficult or expensive for some operations.
- Scroll binders made getting power scrolls and stat scrolls too difficult and expensive for returning and new players who chose to play on the smaller shards. As a result, these people may not have stuck around.
- The global chat system may have horrified, annoyed, or disgusted some people to the point they played less and less and eventually just gave up on UO or went on hiatus.
- The unchecked cheating in Fel horrified, annoyed, or disgusted others to the point where they played less and less and eventually gave up on UO or went on hiatus.
- PvPers who didn't necessarily want to be in factions (perhaps because of the skill loss period) felt forced to join up just so they could remain competitive.
- The rampant materialism and greedy, unhelpful attitude of many (i.e., "if I help you, there will be less for me or you might get something instead of me") wore down some people to the point they no longer want to play and continue to be exposed to it.
- People who prefer not to spend RL cash on the game (other than to pay their subscription fee) may be disappointed and disillusioned by the apparent trend towards selling desirable in-game items for cash through the gamecodes store instead of providing them as veteran rewards or holiday gifts.
- Some people who only have time to play UO for a few hours each week may be disappointed and disillusioned by the many new and desirable items that have been introduced into the game that are very time consuming to try to obtain through your own efforts and terribly expensive to purchase from others.
- Some people who were initially excited by the possibilities of the EM program may have become disillusioned by either (a) EM items being "too common," or (b) EM items getting far more attention than the stories or roleplaying.
- Some people may just be weary of global events that affect all shards putting entirely too much of players' focus on obtaining items instead of interacting with each other.
If you notice a theme here, I think it is that for some people, UO has become entirely too focused on items in the game instead of truly interacting with other players, and this focus has made it difficult for those people who don't want to embark or stay in a never-ending item chase to continue to enjoy the game.
