....and if you look at the ranking you can see that hundreds if not over a thousand players no longer rank. Oh and when was the last time you played?
I was waiting for someone to try to play that card, in spite of the fact that I regularly admit in my posts that my account is currently inactive, why it is and that I didn't rage quit or leave in protest of anything.
I've never stopped playing because the game wasn't fun. From the time I had my stroke, through recovery to the point of going back to school and living with a reduced income, as a result, I never intended to break my connection with this game or this community. I finally caved to practicality and decided to temporarily let my account lapse Dec. of 2017 (oddly enough to my wife's protests - she supports my connection to AH). As it turned out, it was left active for four months longer and my darling wife, the keeper of the cc statement, didn't say anything (not that I had the luxury to play because of studies). I took that time to save up ever so slowly for a computer upgrade. This turned out to be a practical necessity, expense-wise, when my step-son moved back in, bringing with him his energy hogging game PC. His PC will get moth-balled for the duration once my new PC is complete and set up for community family use. That'll be a 300.00 utility expense trimming (with just one PC running regularly and not seeing extensive game use).
Currently, a major monthly expense is finally paid off. My game computer sits on the floor with a new motherboard, new memory sticks and a new video card but unfortunately my A+ training is so old and outdated that I'll hafta let the Geeksquad handle it. Hopefully soon.
My personal experience is what leads me to believe that people who claim everyone that isn't currently playing the game left in disgust or frustration with a game design feature or function is mainly projection. Neither you nor I have hard data to back such a claim or even to state that they all experienced the same life circumstances I have. I don't think it's unreasonable that there may be a mixture but I never was impressed with claims of certainty based on anything but hard data to prove it.
So, I anticipate my return fairly soon. It won't be because something broken in the game got fixed. Like I've pretty much consistently said; it's not the game, it's the players (and I know plenty that are still in game that make up for that).