When Dwilight was first announced, I was very excited about the prospect of a 'serious' medieval atmosphere.
Then it turned out to be huge (not a bad thing, it's an impressive map) but the one character limitation meant that it was and has always been underpopulated. Every realm I've been in in Dwilight (Madina, Fissoa, Luria Nova, and Terran) has had less activity on its busiest days than most realms I've been in elsewhere, because they all have 20-30 players rather than 40-60 players. This isn't just a Dwilight thing (I know the player population has been going down anyway) but it's exacerbated because of the character limitation. So already the 'serious' medieval atmosphere is off to a tough start because you don't have enough people to fill out all the ranks. Everybody is a region lord.
Then you have the Zuma. I have to say that I haven't had a lot of direct interaction - mostly I've witnessed Terran's / Hireshmont's interaction. It seems like they are run well, that is to say, the GMs seem to put a lot of thought and effort into them. My problem is that they just aren't SMA. Not for me, at least. It's fantasy on a continent that was supposed to be seriously medieval, and instead it's consequently less seriously medieval because the nature of the game is now man vs. nature rather than man vs. man. For some people, this is legitimately a cool thing. For me, it's not interesting, because it's not what I like about BM.
Having said that, I think there used to be more 'SMA' players 5 years ago -- when I was more active and had some friends playing -- than there are now. Today we seem to have a lot more 'team sports in knight costume' players, and for that, the Zuma could be just what the doctor ordered. If I were a BM GM, I'd say it's a tough call as to whether you want to cater to the players you have, or the players you want.
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