:smiley: Only if the private server doesn’t have mods. I have the best of the Admin mods loaded on all servers and can easily spot where players are messing about.

Though I see your point, and this topic is regarding the lowered numbers on Official servers, my second reply was in response to what darthphysicist mentioned.

Official servers are not attractive places, based on Forum feedback. Official servers are not easy to manage (by Funcom). There don’t appear to be the tools, let alone the time, to do effective management of them. The main drive would be to try whack-a-mole fix the bugs and exploitable items I would guess?

Yes. There are very exploitable areas in the game. Other games possibly share this issue, I neither know nor care. When I play on Official (rarely), I do have a couple of fave servers I will play on because they have retained some better clans that have kind of policed the server(s) themselves.

My original point was that the numbers are also down because of a slew of new, excellent games and updates that attract players. Depending on the games, some players staty there and some come back. Players for all games vote with their feet, official or private, solo or online. It’s a thing.