Hi everyone,

I've noticed a trend on my server and just wanted to confirm whether it's just something I've found locally or if the trend is happening on many servers (or even many online games).

I've been playing since ARR's launch and have met a very large amount of great players. A good chunk of them were added to my friends list or FC, but I've noticed that they usually don't stay for very long (perhaps a couple of months, or half a year at most). Now when I say they don't stay for long I don't mean they're avoiding me, or switching servers I mean they've stopped playing the game for good, for one reason or another.

I'm the type of gamer that really dislikes abandoning the time investment I've put into a game, so I'll stay for the long haul. That also means I don't play many games because of the long-term play style. Are us players that have been subbed since launch (or are going to be subbed for years) in an extreme minority?

The official stats a while back showed a good number of sales but I don't recall them showing how long players were staying. Have you found most of the people you used to play with are dropping after a few months? If so, what happened to them?

Is a game today only successful if it does well between it's launch and a year after, if it can stay active as long as possible or is just purely just about total profit? What if the sub number is high but that's only because new players are coming in to replace people leaving. Could we really expect such a cycle to continue for years? Somehow I doubt it and that makes me worried about the game's longevity.

Is there something we the players can do to help people stay longer? Or am I just wrong in my assumption of what's going on and people actually are staying for the long haul, in contrast to what I've found in my circle of contacts.

I'm not meaning this to be about Hardcores vs Casuals either. I've seen this happening for both people who played a lot in little chunks and progressed slowed, as well as people who were raiding/levelling everything at the highest tiered content.

Please note: I'm not bashing the game, just trying to get a better understanding of it and/or the player base.