Isn't it impossible to emigrate to Beluaterra during the Invasion?
The list you give probably also includes a lot of deaths before things were patched up, mortality rates were turned down afterwards. If mortality rates are adjusted, it could provide excitement. Do we need to see 2-5 Nobles die every battle? No, with the amount of battles, that will simply go very quick. But a Noble dying here and there because he was faced by gigantic Daimons or decided to do a suicide run could really add to the Invasion feel.
About people quitting the game, was that really a substantial amount? Who all quitted especially because Beluaterra had mortality? There are plenty of Islands without Mortality, and there was plenty of warning that Mortality was coming to Beluaterra. It wasn't really a big surprise.
The death rate before the tweak was insanely high in Enweil. After the tweak, it still remained pretty high.
A week's notice, besides, it completely worthless. It's an ultimatum: stay and risk losing everything, or emigrate and be sure to lose everything. In a game that focuses around interactions, deaths mean a pretty big deal because it cuts for good all ties between two chracters. And when it's a lightweight game like this, it can mean years to reestablish these conntections.
Since these deaths, I've found myself working with mostly the same people all the time... and against the same, too. It brought great staleness.
As for "how many left?", checking through the player list is way too long and grueling, but of the 27 families that lost a character to the monsters I know of, only 8 are still on BT. 70.35% of the families who lost a noble no longer play on BT. And I suspect that most of them are gone from the game completely.
Also, though this in not quantifiable, I know that at least a few players left the game without having lost any nobles on BT, because having all the characters they played with die like that killed the game for them.
Death is lots of "fun" when it happens to others, is what I'd say. It's "exciting" when in happens in far-away lands. It's just "atmosphere", after all.
If people wanted to die, then we'd have a lot more heroes running around. But we don't. What we have is a bunch of people who like *others* to die, hoping they can enhirit of the spoils without consideration to how little to enherit might be left in the end.
