Not really the largest UO population was right around AoS. Believe it or not. I believe what killed UO is a number of things like a snowball gaining momentum and turning into a full fledged avalanche effect.Arguably, it's because they catered to trammel that we have 5 devs left.
Itemization helped to kill UO... one could argue at the same time that it was insurance..... but the two seem to go hand in hand. Artifacts etc.... it's like many games you change it to items and everyone wants more more more more more..... and they are never satisfied..... Then you raise the mobs because people cry that everything is too easy.... but then things are too hard again and you give more and more and more weapons specials, and crap till once again sht's too easy and you have to make the mobs harder and you dump on more HP and more specials on the mobs but then everyone cries it's too hard... vicious cycle there you see....
But then we have forgotten the game was about community... but they killed that when they gave us repair deeds and took away the need to interact with other players.. who needed a crafter to help when I can just get a deed somewhere.... the more they took away from the community the more folk forgot that they were actually playing with REAL people on the other side of the globe or street or State or what have you.... it's just pixels...
Add to it those years we spend where paging a GM was like a crap shoot maybe they helped you maybe they didn't spend weeks on end with a character stucks somewhere and see if you keep playing, can't reup your sub because the website is wonky..... you had an account for 10 years and someone knew some of your info and customer service gave it to them.. they wiped it in 20 min it took you to argue back your account and they wiped your characters and never want to see UO again.... and then the people that lured you to fel and took everything you had by using some exploit and they laughed while you cried... but EA did nothing..... someone hacked your account and EA did nothing to help.... so many people gone...
And then the fact that EA moved the UO office 4x now and gutted the "Team" making things confusing for players and I'm sure DEV's alike.... and the fact that the DEVs teams went through all sorts of shake ups that had things turning in so many different directions that we now have at least 3 different quest systems and 100's of really confusing systems in place that don't seem to fit together at all... no matter how you try.
Age took some away.... the kid left home and now has to be an adult and pay bills can't afford internet let alone a game... Yuppies got married and had kids don't have time to game and the "wife" "Hubby" refuses to let you touch that freaking game!!! Because now you gotta be responsible!!!!!!
And then there is the "Graphics"..... as UO is in the time warp stuck in the 90's while many other games offer such "amazing" graphics others are sucked away by the pretty pictures (which I still say pretty pictures make a nice distraction but do NOT make a game"....
But community used to be what UO had... Friends. Very close friends... but over the years we have lost so many of those... Then were the Drama Queens, the as I like to refer to them.... the SheWolf.... who joins a guild pits the males against one another and drives off all the other females she see's as a Threat..... The I was in the MIlitiary you should excuse my rude asshat behavior because i can PvP and you can't... I know more about this game than you because I know how to beat you over and over and over again this gives me the right to act like a punk... guys who drive off most folk with any self worth and dignity and leave the frail who are too horrified to quit.... or those who need the asshat to be in the guild so they can get the stuffs... but don't care that the rest of the guild left....
And you put those social psychopaths into a community like UO and soon well... you have what we have now. A community of social Psychopaths who feel the need to toot their horn at everything and everyone.... And eventually they are all you will have left... Because the sane folk abandoned the sinking garbage barge long ago like rats scattering to the wind or cockroaches fleeing the light.
Sadly at this point with all those who won't help people, who harrass and ridicule everyone asking any questions at all rather than take a min or two to help someone... we have created a bed that is quite unwelcoming. So we made our bed... why are we crying when we have to lie in it... it's now become so overly complicated reminds me of how my brother would take a simple game and add so many silly rules to it that it just isn't fun anymore. That's what's happening with UO and has happened over the years.....