People have complained about numbers on this game since the dang ice age.
No, they haven't. Only since they went down so much that it started to have an impact. Nobody in 2006 or 2008 (or even 2010, when the numbers already went down) ever complained about having not enough players in general. Nobody even cared about the actual numbers. Only very few did take actually note of them.
But when you have less than 30 or even less than 20 players online (at regular conditions), with less than 10 "inflight" ... you basically have no gameplay to speak of anymore.
When I came to AH I remember action packed sunday afternoons, as the arena was well filled up at ~200 players. Kazaa did his Sunday Bombing Missions, with dozens of joiners. Whatever you where looking for you usually were able to find. Nobody would have thought to complain about the numbers, because 20 or 30 more or less... would not have made a difference you'd have noticed.
Last Sunday afternoon I was looking at an arena with less than 80 players and only one battle.... that was happening between the two other countries over a critical base for them.
Weekdays at the beginning of 'Euro prime' we are also down to so few players that you can consider it to be a luck if there's one fight on your fronts, and not "over there".
No fighter sweeps, large armored thrusts. No big bomber missions, as we are dispersed all over a huge map (a remnant from a time when we had
much more players.
To suggest that low numbers have no impact on the quality of gameplay borders on ignorance. And telling players who have trouble finding the battles they came for to "go away and play pacman" ain't particular helpful with this issue either.
