I work on recruiting players for every scenario. I post things in the boards. I talk it up in the Main Arenas when I'm there. I get some players that way.
I also recruit brand-new players -- co-workers, my Dad, and people I meet if in conversation I find out that they like WWII history or airplanes. I'm only one person, but half my bomber group in Southern Conquest are such people. The latest guy, a friend's brother, flew in AH for the first time in frame 1 of Southern Conquest after I spent an hour or two getting him up to speed in the game. He loved it. He will now be a scenario player.
We will not reliably increase participation by trying to think of ever new ways to have historical airplane battles, which are after all fixed in history. All you do with ever increasing attempts at novelty is slightly to delay the departure of players who are half out the door anyway. You can't fix someone's lack of enthusiasm -- that is mostly an internal timeline. There aren't many people who have stayed in the game forever. I can think of only two who started in the late 1980's and are still active today -- me and 715 -- but over the 28 years I've been flying on-line, I've interacted with hundreds of guys who start, reach a burning peak of enthusiasm, then enter a declining period, and eventually drift off, not because of anything in the game, but because that is for most people an inevitable internal process.
However --
Get a new player into scenarios, and to him, it is all new, and he is fresh blood, we hope with enthusiasm, not a dried out husk who will be gone soon no matter what you do.
Recruit, recruit, recruit.
That is where it is at.
And along the way, we will make great scenarios that we love -- always aiming for the +5 "absolutely loved it" rating!
