Gameplay? You seem to have forgotten your facts in such a short time. It was about the cesspool. Gameplay was sacrificed, supposedly to clean up the toxic environment. Even many of the split supporters conceded that.
In case you cant remember, there werent enough players to support 2 arenas 90% of the time during the split. Try real hard and you might recall the 100-200 caps that lasted almost all day until the peak hours.
Admit it, you are just playing Simon Says with HT.
I'd love you to find some quotes that will back that up ! LOL!!
"cesspool", is of course another name for poor game play. Huge hordes, lack of fights, players going out of their ways to avoid a fights. That is what caused the split arenas to curb that type of play some what. It never cleared it out, but it did help and gave players more avenues to look for their type of game play.
There were plenty of players to support two arenas, and even the Euro crowd was ok at the first, but as numbers dropped they were the first effected. Eventually HTC switched to the multiple arenas to give the Euro guys some relief, while the "prime time US" players continued to have good numbers to support 2 arenas. Again the number drop finally caught up with them and HTC switched to a single LW arena.
And yes I have supported HTC decisions in EACH of the changes (though I thought they were a bit slow to react each time). All of these changes, while helping, I don't think address the real problem and that is the poor play of the player base we have today, as well as over the last few years. Too many "gamers" have joined in and not enough "simmers". So in stead of people looking to "reenact" the battle of yesteryear, you have players looking to cut corners and do the easiest, quickest thing to get to their end game. Their "end game" is more often than not the capture of a base, the capture of as many bases in a certain time limit, or the winning of the war that day/night.
It is very rare that you see missions that are well planned out and/or executed, and that is because there is no "history" in the game with todays players, it's all about rolling the next base.